Welcome to CIRGE » Media Kit

Media Kit

Key Messages About the Forces & Forms Workshop III

The world’s leading experts in doctoral education pooled their collective wisdom about the future – leading to action steps in the form of recommendations.
Communicating these recommendations was a primary goal of the workshop.
An unusual degree of diversity characterized the experts’ work, with perspectives from six continents and 23 countries and 18 different disciplines ranging from Physics and Pharmacology to Art History, Higher Education and Urban Planning actively represented.
Doctoral education and research are necessary—even indispensable—to solve many of society’s challenges. More people everywhere need to know this fact.
Policy-makers must understand and support doctoral education and research more than ever to affect needed change and face growing global challenges.
Key dimensions of improving doctoral education worldwide revolve around three dimensions:

equitable distribution of intellectual capital
diversity in all its forms
intellectual risk-taking and interdisciplinarity

We encourage all policymakers worldwide to learn more about the network of Forces & Forms of Change in Doctoral Education Worldwide and to join with us in our efforts.

Key Quotes from Kassel
The following quotes from a variety of expert presenters and participants at the Workshop address key issues discussed and provide insights about them:

“If intellectual capacity remains inequitably distributed, we will face far more challenges than we do now. We must face the fact that…countries need many differently talented people. This means renewed emphasis on and support for doctoral education.”
-Mary Louise Kearney
Director of the Secretariat of the UNESCO Forum on Higher Education, Research and Knowledge, New Zealand/France

“This is a defining moment for academia to reposition itself…”
-Mary Louise Kearney
Director of the Secretariat of the UNESCO Forum on Higher Education, Research and Knowledge, New Zealand/France

“About 95% of the new science in the world is created in countries comprising only one-fifth of the world’s population.”
-Wilhelm Krull
Secretary General, Volkswagen Foundation

“College and university presidents boast with great glee their number of international students, but this is a question of integrity—what ethical response do we in the U.S. have to teach doctoral students in the hope they will return and apply new knowledge?”
-Sandra Elman
President, Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities (U.S.)

“There are many tensions evident (in discussions regarding the future of doctoral education internationally) – a focus on the individual versus a focus on organizations. What is needed in developing countries is that they not be excluded from research and curiosity-driven research.”
-Wilhelm Krull
Secretary General, Volkswagen Foundation

“Dealing with doctoral education here and now…is not just an issue of equity – it’s an issue of expanding the richness of research.”
-Jean Chambaz, march 25
Chair of the European University Association Council on Doctoral Education Steering Committee; Universite Pierre et Marie Curie

“”For all of these inequalities, we need policies and funding for doctoral programs…It is the future of our world that is in question.”
-Jean Chambaz, March 25
Chair of the European University Association Council on Doctoral Education Steering Committee; Universite Pierre et Marie Curie

“Each and every country has to be brutally honest with itself –do we really want to serve societal needs? If the answer is yes, then we must break away beyond the institutional Ph.D.”
-Sandra Elman, March 25
President, Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities (U.S.)

“We need to bridge the micro and macro levels…how do different disciplines help the next generation become great researchers…?”
- Maresi Nerad, March 26

“We want an intellectual attitude – thinking outside, probing and inquisitive – we want them (doctoral students) to challenge authority, thus requiring a system to enable this, with various ways to do develop such attitudes in different countries.”
-Reinhard Jahn
Director, Abteilung Neurobiologie, Max Planck Institut

“Risk-taking is a mandatory prerequisite for transformative research.”
- Reinhard Jahn
Director, Abteilung Neurobiologie, Max Planck Institut

“How do we make someone become creative in doctoral research? We create a society with mentors that values imagination and creativity and will promote these ideas in a forceful way.”
- Alex Quintanilha
Director of the Institute for Molecular and Cell Biology, University of Porto, Portugal

“Risky ideas can be tested without a lot of money – testing ideas and testing principles. Many funding agencies struggle with the idea of testing principles – that some ideas may be rubbish. Yet these ideas are important in all areas of knowledge – by allowing different, small experiments everywhere, we can find at least some that work. The risks are well worth taking.”
- Alex Quintanilha
Director of the Institute for Molecular and Cell Biology, University of Porto, Portugal

Selected Photos
A selection of photos from the conference:

smaller size [400 x 300] original size [1600 x 1200]	smaller size [400 x 300] original size [1600 x 1200]	smaller size [400 x 300] original size [1600 x 1200]	smaller size [400 x 300] original size [1600 x 1200]
smaller size [400 x 300] original size [1600 x 1200]	smaller size [400 x 300] original size [1600 x 1200]	smaller size [400 x 300] original size [1600 x 1200]	smaller size [400 x 300] original size [1600 x 1200]
smaller size [400 x 300] original size [1600 x 1200]	smaller size [400 x 300] original size [1600 x 1200]	smaller size [400 x 300] original size [1600 x 1200]
smaller size [400 x 300] original size [1600 x 1200]	smaller size [400 x 300] original size [1600 x 1200]