Research careers in fragile contexts - The effects and potentials of doctoral education

The purpose of this research is to provide knowledge for PhD programs in North-South development aid partnerships on how to support graduates’ transitions to independent researchers, with solid networks, and potential to conduct research of good quality.

This project will define the conditions necessary to develop future successful researchers by investigating the early careers of graduates from PhD programs organized between universities in Sweden and five African countries: Ethiopia, Mozambique, Rwanda, Tanzania, and Uganda.

Following calls from the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA) for Research Training Partnership Programs between Swedish universities and universities in select low-income countries, 43 PhD programs have been supported in the five African countries since 2015. For this project, all graduates from these programs (ca. 592 students) will be invited to participate.

Undertaken over four years, this project will use a mixed methods design, where data will be collected via a questionnaire and interviews at two time points.

This will be complemented by an in-depth analysis of how the programs support students in developing knowledge that is relevant for researching their local contexts. The project is unique because a multi-country study focusing on this population has not been done before.