By stressing the importance of improving the process of European cultural integration within a scientific context increasingly oriented towards the internationalization of training and research standards, the European/International Joint Ph.D. initiative aims to go beyond the organization of doctoral studies at the national level, both in terms of regulations, financing and quality of curriculum.
The specific objectives of the European/International Doctorate on Social Representations and Communication are to:
- Provide doctoral training in the field of Social Representations by structured training-through-research in an internationally recognised networked research environment. From the optic of social psychology, it offers a starting point for interdisciplinary dialog as well as an expert forum on the theoretical redefinition of problematic issues and methodological strategies within the specificities of different disciplinary approaches and their applicative value in different organizational and institutional contexts;
- Involve internationally recruited, trained, and monitored early-stage researchers in cooperative trans-national research led by a multigenerational community of scientists, to be catalysts for expertise both in and outside Europe;
- Promote European excellence beyond the boundaries of the European Union. The enlargement to partners from six extra-European countries (Argentina, Brazil, Canada, China, Mexico and USA) represents an effort to disseminate European excellence worldwide, beyond the EU’s borders, in synergy with well-reputed scientists and research centres in some non-EU countries of great strategic value for the expansion of the scientific field led by European scientists. The goal is to attract the best early-stage researchers from abroad, encouraging them to undertake their research training in Europe, also in view of closer integration of the European employment market, thus rendering our private sector much stronger in this period of globalization and high competition with extra-European companies.
- Offer integrated activities supporting international physical and virtual mobility for early-stage research fellows, International Summer Schools, International Lab Meetings, and international mobility for teaching staff.
- Directly and systematically incorporate a select number of small/medium private enterprises from different countries (France, Italy, Sweden) into the training activities.
- Make research careers more attractive via cooperation between academia, public research centres, and small and medium sized companies that have common research interests and complementary training activities.
Joint criteria have been developed, characterizing all planning, curricular, organisational, policy and procedural aspects essential for the design and implementation of the European/International Doctorate including:
- candidate selection;
- training structure of participants from different nationalities;
- research activity and training in an international environment;
- intensive didactic ‘stages’ in multilingual and multicultural settings
- adoption of the European Credit System, according to a specifically designed schema of structured training;
- language policy and format for Ph.D. dissertation;
- evaluation of the entire training process and quality system;
- formal recognition of the degree and award of joint diploma.