Building Equitable Futures – Doctoral Education as a Catalyst for Social Change

Section 1: Opening – Introducing the Social Turn

Good morning, it’s great to see so many familiar and new faces. It’s a privilege to stand here alongside colleagues who are helping shape the future of doctoral education — not only in their own institutions, but across the sector.

The title of this talk — Building Equitable Futures: Doctoral Education as a Catalyst for Social Change — is both an invitation and a challenge. It invites us to reflect on the social role of doctoral education, and it challenges us to ask whether our current systems, structures, assumptions, ways of working are up to the task.

This image is the Infinity Book Tower from the Prague Municipal Library. It is made of 8,000 books, stacked in a cylindrical structure. There is a mirror at the top and the bottom symbolizing endless knowledge. For me, it represents the constructive power of knowledge.

Over the past couple of years, I’ve started to explore in my own work the idea that we may be witnessing something of a​‘social turn’ in aspects of research on doctoral education. The term is borrowed, with a twist, from art historian Claire Bishop (2006), who used it to describe collaborative art practices that take place outside traditional institutions — work that is grounded in participation and aimed at constructive social change.

This turn, I argue, is not yet fully formed, but we can see the direction of travel. Scholars such as Deem (2020) have called for a reimagining of doctoral study in terms of its potential contribution to the public good. Chiappa et al. (2020) argue for social, ethical, and cultural responsibility as core values in doctoral training. Going back to The Hannover Recommendations (2019) there is a centring of civic engagement and impact in doctoral reform. And more recently, a study published by the Civic University Network in 2024 highlighted the social not just the economic value produced through funding PhD students, especially when the projects aligned with the civic role of universities. By that I don’t mean, projects from the social sciences but more across a discipline-agnostic portfolio of doctoral research. 

There are shifts that suggest a growing appetite — both within and beyond the academy — for doctoral education that is more collaborative, more accountable, and more attuned to the challenges of our time. 

Crucially, for me, the social turn is neither about particular disciplines nor just about widening participation and capturing impact metrics, it is about rethinking the purpose and practice of doctoral education. It means asking what kinds of knowledges we value, how that knowledge is produced, and in whose interests.

It challenges the dominance of Mode 1 knowledge production (Gibbons et al., 1994) — basic research, disciplinary, investigator-led, and largely detached from societal application — and calls instead for more Mode 2 and Mode 3 (Carayannis and Campbell, 2012) approaches: transdisciplinary, problem-focused, and produced in collaboration with external partners. It aligns with the Quadruple Helix model, which positions universities as one actor among many — alongside government, industry, and civil society — in the co-production of meaningful, usable knowledge.

In this context, the doctorate becomes more than a qualification. It becomes a vehicle for social innovation, for shaping futures that are more equitable, sustainable, and inclusive.

This image is Louw’s Soul City (1967) –​‘Pyramid of Oranges’ which exemplifies participatory art by inviting viewers to physically engage with the work. Take an orange – change the sculpture’s form. The act shifts the role of the audience from passive observer to active participant. This idea rejects art as static and embraces the process and interaction. I’m arguing that this​‘social turn’ in contemporary art which emphasises the relational shared experience and challenges boundaries between art, artist and audience, is aligned with a social turn in how we’re starting to think about doctoral education.

Section 2: The Social Turn Across Disciplines – Rethinking Structures and Purpose

The social turn I’ve described is not limited to any one area of study. Its effects — and opportunities — are visible across the disciplinary landscape. What differs is how this shift plays out in practice, and what institutional support is required to enable it.

In practice-based disciplines, the social turn may involve collaborative research with community partners, co-creation of knowledge with underrepresented groups, or embedded engagement with policy and public service. These approaches are powerful — but they also stretch existing doctoral frameworks. They require more flexible timelines, recognition of diverse forms of expertise, and assessment structures that can accommodate outputs beyond the traditional thesis.

In theoretical or laboratory-based disciplines, the social turn may manifest differently — through deep engagement with ethical questions related to research use and reflexivity about the purpose and implications of research. Increasingly, researchers in the sciences are looking to engage with publics, industry, and policymakers not just as audiences, but as contributors to shaping research direction. Some doctoral schools or equivalent have tested the viability of institution-wide steering/​advisory boards already. These governance structures have long-existed in cohort-based programmes.

Across the research endeavour, we are seeking answers to deeper questions around:

• Who has the right to do research?
• Who benefits from this research?
• What responsibilities come with the privilege of knowledge creation?

For me, these questions challenge us to explore systemic, structural changes that include:

• Redesigning admissions and recruitment to better recognise non-traditional forms of readiness and potential
• Embedding interdisciplinary and applied opportunities into programme structures
• Supporting doctoral researchers to engage with civic and professional partners
• Expanding supervisory skills, understanding and capacity to reflect new forms of inquiry and collaboration

This is not about stretching existing models to breaking point. It’s about evolving the doctorate so it can live up to the ambitions we are placing upon it — ambitions that include producing graduates who are not just experts, but ethically responsible agents of social change.

The Quadruple Helix model of innovation provides one useful frame for this. It positions the university as one actor among many in the co-production of knowledge and social value. 

But in many cases, our doctoral systems are still designed around Mode 1 assumptions: individual authorship, academic insularity, and delayed impact.

If we want to support doctoral research that contributes meaningfully to solving complex, real-world problems — whether those be scientific, cultural, or political — we must recognise that the doctorate itself is a social and civic institution, not just a qualification. And that has consequences for how we fund, structure, supervise, and value doctoral work.

As represented in this photograph of an Anton Smit’s sculpture from Kirstenbosch National Botanical Garden, the doctorate becomes a collective social endeavour.

Section 3: Doctoral Education as Strategic Infrastructure — Leaning Into the Social Turn

If we take the social turn in doctoral education seriously — as a shift not only in values but in structure and purpose — then we begin to see that it offers us something far more powerful than a critique of the status quo. It offers a strategic opportunity.

Rather than positioning doctoral education as something to defend against the pressures of policy, funding, and institutional reform, we might instead ask: What if we leaned into this turn? What if we treated it not as a divergence from strategic imperatives, but as a way of meeting them — more creatively, more inclusively, and with greater public legitimacy?

We know that doctoral education often sits at the intersection of research and skills. And that intersection has become increasingly important. The new industrial strategy places strong emphasis on both — calling for skills development in key sectors, for research that fuels innovation, and for closer alignment between universities, industry, regional devolved government, and civic partners.

I would argue that doctoral education is uniquely placed to contribute across all of these fronts.

To do so, we must be willing to innovate — not only at the margins, but at the core. That means pushing forward on work to reimagine recruitment to attract and support candidates who are currently excluded. It means designing curricula and supervision models that support transdisciplinary work and applied inquiry. It means embracing alternative formats and outputs, including those that speak to local communities, industry partners, and social movements.

We need to think differently about programme design — not only in terms of structure, but in terms of partnerships. Who do we train with? Who do we train for? And who helps shape the questions we explore?

In this model, the doctorate becomes more than a research apprenticeship. It becomes a tool for inclusive growth, a bridge between universities and the places they serve, and a way to rebuild trust in institutions through locally embedded, socially accountable knowledge production.

Which brings me to Escher’s Relativity 1959 lithograph print. It depicts a world where the normal laws of gravity do not apply. Multiple staircases are orientated in impossible directions. There are three sources of gravity in this scene which gives us groups of people apparently co-existing who are actually moving at right angles to each other. For me, this speaks into the idea of the intersections and colliding agendas that have not always naturally sat together and don’t always see the world or its drivers in the same way. Bringing together universities, industry, regional devolved governments and civic partners is not easy but their varied vantage points can coexist.

And when we make this shift we do not abandon rigour — we re-situate it. This kind of re-imagined doctoral education insists that excellence includes relevance, that innovation is not just technological, but social, and that if doctoral education is to remain central to our missions as universities, it must also be central to our public value proposition.

The REF pilot on People, Culture and Environment already points us in this direction. It invites us to think about doctoral environments not just as training spaces, but as cultures of belonging, care, and co-creation. These are not soft ambitions. They are foundational to building doctoral education that can meet the challenges of the next decade — from environmental resilience to regional inequality, from skills shortages to civic disconnection.

If we can align the ambitions of the social turn with government missions, and/​or with the delivery goals of the industrial strategy, then we can make the case for doctoral education not as an indulgence, but as infrastructure. Not as niche, but as necessary.

But this will not happen by accident. It requires institutional courage, sector leadership, and policy frameworks that are bold enough to reward new forms of value.

This image is AI-generated and foreshadows speed, agility and new kinds of creativity that question how knowledge is produced, shared, and validated in and through the doctorate. This is just one example of new frontiers opening up for doctoral education; almost in real time.

Section 4: Emerging Frontiers — Professional Doctorates, Open Research, and Generative AI

One area where we can already see the complexity of this moment play out is in the provision of professional doctorates.

Recent sector data from an upcoming report that Carolyn Wynne has led on for the Council shows that professional doctorates are both expanding and contracting — sometimes within the same institution. Of the 73 institutional responses to the UKCGE survey, 56 confirmed that they currently offer professional doctorates. Yet 11 of those 56 are planning to close some of their programmes. While 28 institutions are looking to expand provision, others are reporting declining enrolment, resource constraints, or internal questions about their strategic fit.

Reasons for closure often centre on insufficient demand, lack of parity with the PhD, or limited capacity to sustain bespoke provision. At the same time, those seeking to grow their professional doctorate offer are motivated by clear strategic goals: to align with civic missions, connect with CPD pathways, and strengthen local or sector-specific research capacity.

In short, professional doctorates are a test case. They reflect both the promise and the uncertainty of sector reform. Their uneven status reveals how institutional structures, market logic, and cultural assumptions can collide — even when the pedagogical and social rationale is strong.

But they are just one part of a much broader landscape of change.

Two other forces — open research and generative AI — are rapidly reshaping how knowledge is produced, shared, and validated. Both raise urgent and exciting questions for doctoral education.

Open research — in all its forms — signals a shift toward greater transparency, accessibility, and participation in the research process. It invites us to think beyond the final thesis or publication, toward research as a shared, iterative, and publicly accountable endeavour. This has deep implications for how we train doctoral researchers. It challenges us to support more collaborative methodologies, more diverse audiences, and more fluid outputs.

But open research also requires infrastructure. It asks questions about cost, credit, recognition, and training. Doctoral researchers are often on the frontline of this transition — expected to adopt open practices before those practices are fully embedded in institutional systems. If we want open research to thrive, we must build environments that support and reward it — and that includes how we assess, supervise, and resource doctoral work.

Generative AI presents a different set of questions. It unsettles long-held assumptions about originality, authorship, and the boundaries between thinking and automation. It challenges us to define what it means to produce knowledge — and to do so ethically, transparently, and with integrity.

For doctoral education, this means more than revising plagiarism policies. It means rethinking how we assess independent thought. It means supporting researchers to use these tools critically and creatively, not simply defensively. And it means fostering a research culture that is alert to the epistemic risks — but also the potential — of these technologies.

Both open research and AI call us to consider doctoral education as part of a larger knowledge system — one that is dynamic, contested, and interconnected. They remind us that the doctorate is not simply a training model; it is an evolving site of negotiation between tradition and transformation, between individual expertise and collective responsibility.

And if we get this right — if we use these moments of change to renew rather than retreat — we may find ourselves better positioned to make the case for doctoral education.

Section 5: Reclaiming the Purpose of Doctoral Education — A Call to Action

We are at a moment where the future of doctoral education is still open — structurally, politically, and conceptually. But it won’t stay open indefinitely.

As financial constraints deepen and policy priorities sharpen, we will be asked — explicitly or implicitly — to justify why doctoral education matters. The sector can respond defensively, or it can respond creatively. My argument is that the social turn offers us a generative way forward: not a rejection of strategic priorities, but a reframing of how doctoral education can serve them more fully, more inclusively, and more publicly.

Just as in this image, captured by NTU PhD researcher, Frank Ruedisueli, and Runner-up in the NTU Images of Researcher Competition 2025, we need to look at things the other way round.

If we embrace this opportunity, we move beyond the narrative of crisis management. We begin to make a different kind of case — one grounded in public value, in regional engagement, in civic trust, and in knowledge that serves.

We can reimagine the doctorate as a key site of institutional connection to place — where research meets lived experience, where skills meet social purpose, and where new generations of thinkers and leaders are formed not just as specialists, but as citizens.

That doesn’t mean abandoning disciplinary excellence. It means embedding it in a wider commitment to inclusion, collaboration, accountability, and shared futures.

It doesn’t mean replacing the PhD. It means widening our understanding of what doctoral-level research can look like — and who it can serve.

And it doesn’t mean rejecting change. It means leading it — through new recruitment practices, innovative programme designs, more inclusive models of supervision, and openness to new technologies and formats.

All of this is possible. Some of it is already happening. We have touched on much of it over the last two days and will explore some aspects further today. But we need to name it, invest in it, and connect it — so that we can make the strongest case for doctoral education not just to funders and policymakers, but to society itself.

Because at its best, doctoral education is not a luxury. It is part of the intellectual, civic, and social infrastructure of a fairer future.

I think we have an obligation to use our collective voice to ensure that it’s seen that way.

Thank you.

Bibliography

Carayannis, E.G. and Campbell, D.F.J. (2012) Mode 3 knowledge production in quadruple helix innovation systems: Twenty-first-century democracy, innovation, and entrepreneurship for development. New York: Springer.

Chiappa, R., Cantini, D. and Karakaşoğlu, Y. (2022)​‘Social, ethical and cultural responsibility as core values for doctoral researchers in the twenty-first century’, in Peters, C., Maassen, P. and Vukasovic, M. (eds.) Towards a global core value system in doctoral education. London: UCL Press, pp. 201–238.

Deem, R. (2020)​‘Rethinking doctoral education: University purposes, academic cultures, mental health and the public good’, in Cardoso, S., Tavares, O., Sin, C. and Carvalho, T. (eds.) Structural and institutional transformations in doctoral education: Social, political and student expectations. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 13–42. doi: 10.1007/978–3‑030–38046–5_2.

Forces and Forms of Doctoral Education Expert Group (2019) Hannover Recommendations 2019: Forces and forms of doctoral education worldwide. Hannover: Joint Expert Group Conference under the Volkswagen Foundation.

Gibbons, M., Limoges, C., Nowotny, H., Schwartzman, S., Scott, P. and Trow, M. (1994) The new production of knowledge: The dynamics of science and research in contemporary societies. London: SAGE Publications.

Read, J., Pugh, A., Bramley, G. and Riley, R. (2024) A review of the economic and social value produced through funding PhD students. Birmingham: Civic University Network / City-REDI, University of Birmingham.