TRAVELLING DISCOURSES AND PRESSURES ON DOCTORAL EDUCATION: THE PORTUGUESE CASE

In the context of the knowledge society framework and assumptions promoted at the European level by various entities, national governments have embarked on a series of higher education reforms. These reforms are aimed at strengthening the central role of higher education as a key provider of knowledge and human capital. 

Owing to its crucial contribution to knowledge creation and human capital development, doctoral education has become the focal point of national higher education and science policies. These policies, in turn, are progressively incorporating European narratives on the reform of doctoral education. Nevertheless, the mechanisms connecting European narratives to national policy discourses, norms and practices in doctoral education remain unexplored. 

This paper aims to narrow this gap by focusing on the Portuguese case. It investigates how European narratives on doctoral education are discursively translated into national policies, drawing on insights from discursive institutionalism. This framework explores how ideas travel and are translated into specific national and organisational contexts. 

The empirical foundation of this the paper rests on a content analysis of documents issued at both the European and national central government levels, with the aim of tracing the discursive translation processes. To identify the dominant European narratives on doctoral education, our analysis initially focused on two primary sources of European documents: the Bologna Declaration and Communiqués of the Conference of Ministers, as advanced by the European Union (EU), along with three position papers of the European University Association (EUA) focused on the Salzburg principles, recommendations, and future directions. Subsequently, by examining national legislation addressing doctoral education over the past two decades, we sought to shed light on the translation of the European documents into Portuguese policy. 

The findings suggest that Portuguese policies addressing doctoral education have adopted European narratives, but in an eclectic and fragmented manner – through translation and editing practices – rather than in a coherent, integrative way, as advocated by discursive institutionalism.

This outcome might be attributed to the variation in how countries appropriate soft law (i.e., regulations issued at the European level) due to their distinct social, cultural, and historical characteristics. Portugal, in its translation of European regulations, could exemplify this 'selective' approach. Through the lens of discursive institutionalism, it can also be argued that the translation process empowers national governments with significant capabilities to devise pragmatic solutions that align with their interests and goals.