EUA Council for Doctoral Education

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Supporting early-career researchers to become ambassadors for European higher education’s values

27 August 2025 | Ann MacPhail, University of Limerick | Peter Hanenberg, Universidade Católica Portuguesa

Early-career researchers (ECRs) are vital to the future of science, innovation and society. To ensure the continuity of research and the transfer of knowledge, it is imperative that the next generation of researchers are prepared to tackle our world’s grand challenges.

The European Council of Doctoral Candidates and Junior Researchers (Eurodoc) Ambassador Programme aims to provide early-career researchers with a comprehensive overview of the democratic values of higher education and research in Europe, as well as a theoretical and practical basis for their advocacy activities. We recently had the opportunity to discuss several key questions with participants in this programme, during a session on ‘Doctoral Education in the Bologna Process and the Salzburg Principles’.

European higher education’s fundamental values

The fundamental values of the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) are essential to fostering a safe, open and inclusive educational environment that promotes critical thinking and tolerance. They include academic freedom, academic integrity, institutional autonomy and student and staff participation, as well as public responsibility for higher education and vice versa. These values are also central to practices in doctoral schools across Europe, as well as the challenges that they face.

For example, the work of the Doctoral College at the University of Limerick, in Ireland, closely aligns with EHEA fundamental values such as academic freedom (ability to choose research topics independently) and public responsibility (equitable access to research opportunities). While persistent challenges include ensuring varied access to funding and income for doctoral candidates, as well as delivering adequate induction and onboarding.

From the perspective of the Doctoral School at the Universidade Católica Portuguesa, internationalisation, interdisciplinarity and how to combine doctoral training with postdoctoral training are key areas. Indeed, addressing these topics enables doctoral programmes at the university to better align with the Salzburg Principles. Moreover, the EHEA’s fundamental values are reflected through our Doctoral College’s diverse approaches to career development support, an ongoing emphasis on societal impact and the promotion of a participatory environment.

While these are all vital points, they remain the perspectives of the institutions. To make sure that early-career researchers can fully contribute to advancing our shared values, the higher education and research sector must first listen to their views.

Are the voices of early-career researchers being heard in European universities?

The researchers that we spoke to noted that while they might be able to voice their thoughts and opinions, these are not always acknowledged or considered within their universities. By further discussing this with the group, we found that the extent to which early-career researchers making their voices heard is encouraged varies greatly across European institutions. As one participant put it:

“It depends: on the country, on the actual university/institution and on whether we are talking about doctoral candidates or postdocs.”

Are doctoral schools doing enough to promote equity, diversity and inclusion?

We also heard about the challenges that doctoral and postdoctoral researchers face with respect to equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI). In particular, they noted their frustration with how their rights are upheld and how they are represented, or in concrete terms:

“There is a seeming interest in EDI, but in practice it remains quite superficial. It depends on the university and regions in the world. EDI is used to promote the image of a university (to get funding or attract people) but the university does not seem to integrate these values in a meaningful way.”

Again, our discussion showed a wide diversity of practices across departments, schools and faculties or colleges in universities across Europe. For example, in some countries equity, diversity and inclusion is part of the orientation for doctoral candidates, with representatives of the doctoral school helping to induct newcomers about their rights and make the doctoral experience truly inclusive. But this is not always the case. In addition, many in our community now fear that even positive experiences of EDI in doctoral education are under threat in our new geopolitical reality.

Academic freedom and early-career researchers

Finally, we probed our interlocutors’ experiences with academic freedom. In some instances, the researchers felt that they enjoy sufficient academic freedom in carrying out their research. However, others alluded to situations where doctoral candidates or postdocs are employed to complete a specific project, thereby reducing their autonomy.

Participants also highlighted that the supervisor-supervisee relationship can affect the level of academic freedom experienced by early-career researchers. In other words:

“Rigid hierarchies (e.g. with supervisors) can sometimes limit the academic freedom of unlucky early-career researchers that end up with principal investigators that are more authoritative.”

Values do shape doctoral education

All of this shows that the fundamental values of European higher education are much more than abstract terms.

These values translate into diverse and often conflicting experiences which shape current doctoral training in many ways. If the Bologna Process and the Salzburg Principles defined the horizons of a renewed, transparent and structured attention to what has become the third academic cycle, today’s early-career researchers still struggle with the full implementation of academic freedom, equity, diversity and inclusion and adequate forms of participation.