SIST-TP CWA 17987:2023

SLOVENSKI STANDARD
01-julij-2023
Priporočila dobre prakse za izvajanje raziskave o sledenju poklicni poti imetnikov
doktorata
Good practice recommendations for implementation of career-tracking survey of
doctorate holders
Ta slovenski standard je istoveten z: CWA 17987:2023
ICS:
03.180 Vzgoja in izobraževanje Education
2003-01.Slovenski inštitut za standardizacijo. Razmnoževanje celote ali delov tega standarda ni dovoljeno.

CEN
CWA 17987
WORKSHOP
May 2023
AGREEMENT
ICS 03.180
English version
Good practice recommendations for implementation of
career-tracking survey of doctorate holders
This CEN Workshop Agreement has been drafted and approved by a Workshop of representatives of interested parties, the
constitution of which is indicated in the foreword of this Workshop Agreement.

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This CEN Workshop Agreement can in no way be held as being an official standard developed by CEN and its Members.

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Ref. No.:CWA 17987:2023 E
Contents Page
European foreword . 3
Introduction . 4
1 Scope . 5
2 Normative references . 5
3 Terms and definitions . 5
4 Overview of career-tracking surveys . 5
5 Legal aspects . 6
5.1 General. 6
5.2 Consent form . 6
5.3 GDPR and survey protocol . 6
6 Recommendations for career-tracking surveys . 7
6.1 Objectives and methodological design . 7
6.2 Survey feasibility and management . 8
6.3 Sampling and response rates. 9
6.4 Questionnaire . 10
7 Conclusion . 12
Annex A (informative) DocEnhance Questionnaire for survey of doctorate holders . 13
A.1 AIMS OF STUDY . 13
A.2 INFORMED CONSENT FORM . 13
A.3 SECTION 1: DOCTORAL EDUCATION AND TRAINING . 14
A.4 SECTION 2: SKILLS AND COMPETENCIES . 16
A.5 SECTION 3: TRANSITION FROM DOCTORATE TO THE FIRST OR NEXT EMPLOYMENT
................................................................................................................................................................... 18
A.6 SECTION 4: EMPLOYMENT AND CAREER RELATED EXPERIENCE . 19
A.7 SECTION 5: INTERSECTORAL MOBILITY . 26
A.8 SECTION 6: GEOGRAPHICAL MOBILITY. 27
A.9 SECTION 7: DEMOGRAPHICAL DETAILS . 28
A.10 SECTION 8: QUESTIONNAIRE EVALUATION AND FOLLOW UP . 29
Annex B (informative) Example - Informed consent - Form . 30
B.1 Part I: Information Sheet . 30
B.2 Part II: Certificate of Consent . 32
Bibliography . 33

European foreword
This CEN Workshop Agreement (CWA 17987:2023) has been developed in accordance with the CEN-
CENELEC Guide 29 “CEN Workshop Agreements – A rapid prototyping to standardization” and with the
relevant provisions of CEN/CENELEC Internal Regulations - Part 2. It was approved by a Workshop of
representatives of interested parties on 2022-11-15, the constitution of which was supported by CEN
following the public call for participation made on 2022-09-29. However, this CEN Workshop Agreement
does not necessarily include all relevant stakeholders.
The final text of this CEN Workshop Agreement was provided to CEN for publication on 2023-03-29.
Results incorporated in this CWA received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research
and innovation programme under grant agreement H2020-SwafS-08-2019 “Research innovation needs
& skills training in PhD programmes.
The following organizations and individuals developed and approved this CEN Workshop Agreement:
Name organization/individual:
• The Arctic University of Norway (UiT )/Hanne Risan Johnsen, Ulrike Grote
• European Science Foundation/Julia Boman, Mihaela Rusitoru
• Riga Technical University, Latvia/Anita Straujuma, Inga Lapina, Ugis Citskovskis
• University College Dublin, Ireland/Emer Cunningham, Janet Carton
• Technical University of Munich, Germany/Tim Klinge
• UNI Italian National Standards Body/Giacomo Riccio
• CCPIT Commercial Sub-council/ Jack Yao
Attention is drawn to the possibility that some elements of this document may be subject to patent rights.
CEN-CENELEC policy on patent rights is described in CEN-CENELEC Guide 8 “Guidelines for
Implementation of the Common IPR Policy on Patent”. CEN shall not be held responsible for identifying
any or all such patent rights.
Although the Workshop parties have made every effort to ensure the reliability and accuracy of technical
and non-technical descriptions, the Workshop is not able to guarantee, explicitly or implicitly, the
correctness of this document. Anyone who applies this CEN Workshop Agreement shall be aware that
neither the Workshop, nor CEN, can be held liable for damages or losses of any kind whatsoever. The use
of this CEN Workshop Agreement does not relieve users of their responsibility for their own actions, and
they apply this document at their own risk. The CEN Workshop Agreement should not be construed as
legal advice authoritatively endorsed by CEN/CENELEC.
Introduction
According to the Salzburg II Recommendations (EUA, 2010) [1], “The core component of doctoral training
is the advancement of knowledge through original research. At the same time, it is recognised that
doctoral training must increasingly meet the needs of an employment market that is wider than
academia.”
Career tracking has become increasingly recognised as a necessary monitoring tool to map doctorate
holders’ career paths in academia and beyond, and to evaluate doctoral programmes. Career-tracking
surveys enable collecting high-quality data on doctorate holders’ employability and skills utilisation, as
well as tracking the quality of doctorate education, and its impact assessment at individual, institutional
and systemic levels. Career tracking studies are useful for:
1) Getting feedback from doctorate holders working in the variety of academic and non-academic
sectors to identify any skills mismatches and adapt doctoral skills training curricula.
2) Enabling universities and alumni services to enlarge and exploit their professional networks, to get
feedback on relevance of doctoral training curricula and to conduct better and more appropriate
career counselling.
3) Gathering doctorate holders’ contact information and enabling local alumni networking and
mentoring initiatives, and therefore improving involvement of the non-academic sector in doctoral
training.
4) Supporting, by promoting standards for implementation, higher education institutions to adjust and
improve their doctoral training based on actual career trajectories of doctorate holders and market
requirements.
One of the main outputs of the DocEnhance project, the career-tracking survey of doctorate holders from
nine European universities (Boman et al, 2021) [2], intended to enable gathering of information on
doctorate holders’ employability and skills utilization and to facilitate a sustainable and harmonized
assessment of doctoral education in Europe. Thus, the current good practice recommendations for
implementation of the survey represent a practical guide for the universities wishing to implement a
career-tracking survey similar to the one carried out as part of the DocEnhance project. The issues
covered include survey design, planning, survey management and legal aspects.
In this regard, the guidelines with recommendations are published as a European voluntary standard to
increase outreach, impact and longevity of career paths tracking beyond the DocEnhance project
partners. The purpose of this document is to assist higher education institutions in running their own
doctorate graduate tracking for increasing the relevance of their doctoral research and training.
1 Scope
This document gives practical recommendations for implementation of career-tracking surveys. The
current guidelines are meant for universities wishing to set up an institutional career-tracking survey.
These surveys can be set up by higher education institutions, grant funding agencies or national statistics
bodies, with the purpose to improve doctoral education and/or assess its quality and impact at an
institutional or national level. It includes among others, surveys that trace back doctorate holders’ careers
over several years, cohort studies at several moments in time or longitudinal surveys (based on the
definition of career tracking of researchers, European Science Foundation, 2012 [3]; definition of tracking
in EUA’s “Tracking Learners’ and Graduates’ Progression Paths” project [4]).
2 Normative references
There are no normative references in this document.
3 Terms and definitions
For the purposes of this document, the following terms and definitions apply.
ISO and IEC maintain terminological databases for use in standardization at the following addresses:
• ISO Online browsing platform: available at https://www.iso.org/obp
• IEC Electropedia: available at https://www.electropedia.org/
3.1
career-tracking of doctorate holders
systematic approach set up to follow doctorate graduates’ career pathways
3.2
doctoral programme
programme that is designed primarily to lead to an advanced research qualification (EQF Level 8), are
devoted to advanced study and original research and are typically offered only by research-oriented
tertiary educational institutions such as universities (International Standard Classification of Education
(ISCED) 2011) [5]
3.3
doctorate graduate
doctorate holder
person who has successfully completed their doctoral degree (includes both graduates with doctorates
and PhD holders)
4 Overview of career-tracking surveys
Career-tracking studies of doctorate holders can be organized at international/European, national,
regional and institutional levels.
The European University Association – Council for Doctoral Education (EUA-CDE) groups existing career-
tracking initiative under four types based on their purpose and methodology (EUA-CDE, 2020, p. 10-11)
[6]:
a) graduate surveys and exit pools;
b) national graduate surveys;
c) surveys based on registered data;
d) digital alumni platforms.
The EUA-CDE report stresses that it is important to fully consider the purpose of the study to choose the
best fitting methods to collect data on doctorate graduates. The report discusses the advantages and
disadvantages of each type of survey: e.g., low response rates in case of institutional or national surveys
of doctorate holders, as well as the lower reliability of data (based on respondents’ perceptions or
opinions) compared to e.g., register-based data on employment. On the other hand, institutional surveys
allow for more fine-grained data to be collected compared to national surveys and register-based surveys,
adapted to the needs of the participating institutions or programs (e.g., on satisfaction with doctoral
training, or its impact on careers), and enable to reach and collect data on doctorate graduates who have
moved abroad.
5 Legal aspects
5.1 General
The universities setting-up a career-tracking survey are responsible for complying with the applicable
international, EU and national laws (in particular, at the EU level the GDPR [7] (see 5.2), national data
protection laws and other relevant legislation) on the protection of individuals with regard to the
processing of contact and personal data. When carrying out a career-tracking survey, data privacy laws
and regulations should be respected while contacting doctorate graduates and collecting data.
5.2 Consent form
Before starting to fill out the questionnaire, respondents should sign an informed consent form. An
example of the Informed Consent Form used for the DocEnhance project is provided in Annex B. The
informed consent form should consist of two parts:
1) Information sheet (for sharing information about the purpose of research, type of research
intervention, participant selection and voluntary participation, procedures and duration of the
questionnaire, risks and benefits, confidentiality and sharing of results, right to refuse or to withdraw
and contact to do it, if needed), and
2) Certificate of consent (for signature).
5.3 GDPR and survey protocol
There are some aspects to bear in mind:
1) Organizations are responsible for respecting the GDPR regulation at the European, national, and
institutional level for guaranteeing the respect of personal data; contacting a university data
protection officer or legal advisor is necessary to explore the possible ways to contact the doctorate
alumni and handle the collected data.
2) Some organizations require to first obtain the consent from the graduates to contact them for a
follow-up career-tracking survey after graduation. Other organizations may only have institutional
emails which may have become outdated or not used.
3) Ideally, at the moment of collecting doctoral researchers’ personal contact details, e.g., their personal
email address or telephone number when enrolling, during their doctoral programme, before
graduation or when for instance becoming member of university’s alumni association, such consent
could be sought to be able to contact graduates in the future. If country-specific laws allow for the
involvement of third parties and universities wish to pass on the doctorate graduates’ contact data
to a third party that would carry out a career-tracking survey on their behalf, rather than contact
their doctorate graduates directly, universities must have the prior consent from the graduates while
also acting within the data protection regulations of the university.
4) Universities should strive to maintain a database of contact details of all doctorate graduates,
including the information on their faculty and year of graduation (and possibly other characteristics),
in a centralized manner at the university level or at the level of the alumni office.
5) It is important to regularly update the email addresses of the doctorate graduates with the help of
Newsletters, engagement with alumni activities or other scientific events.
6) Personal data, including personal email addresses, need to be stored and used in compliance with
legal and regulatory requirements.
Collecting no personal data (e.g., name, date of birth, thesis title) and minimal potential identifying data
in the survey is advisable and is likely to increase response rates and to enable respondents to truthfully
answer questions e.g., on satisfaction with their doctoral training programme. The disadvantage of fully
anonymous surveys is that it is not possible to follow up the same respondents with follow-up surveys, if
the goal is to track their career paths in the future.
If the survey is fully anonymous, it is recommendable, at the end of the survey, to ask respondents for a
contact email and their agreement to be approached in view of future surveys.
6 Recommendations for career-tracking surveys
6.1 Objectives and methodological design
Each survey has its own objectives and characteristics and implicitly, it is addressed to a specific and
targeted population and has an appropriate set of questions. The scope of the survey should be carefully
considered, as well as the method and expected outcomes. One needs to take into consideration the
available resources, including the budget and staff and expertise.
It has to be checked whether at national or regional level there exist surveys collecting similar data. Other
universities and organizations also conduct similar studies, and it is important to research what is being
available - there is no need to duplicate efforts collecting the same type of data or designing a new
questionnaire where good examples exist elsewhere. The questionnaire provided in Annex A can be used
as a template for institutional career-tracking surveys, to be adapted to the particularities of an individual
institutional context and the target population.
As far as the type of survey of doctorate graduates to be conducted, universities can consider several
options:
— cross-sectional retrospective studies that trace back careers over several years,
— cohort studies;
— longitudinal panel study;
— cross-sectional retrospective study composed of consecutive cohorts.
If the university already has available data/registers, it may influence the choice of the type of study and
methodology.
Longitudinal surveys, where a sample of doctorate graduates is traced at several moments in time (e.g. at
graduation, 1 and 3 or more years after graduation) allow dedicated questionnaires to be developed for
the various stages; e.g., a questionnaire on satisfaction with doctoral training at graduation, questions on
the entry into the labour market at 1 year after completing the doctorate, and questions on occupational
career patterns at 3 or more years after completing the doctorate, etc.
The current template questionnaire is based on the DocEnhance survey targeting early-career doctorate
graduates of up to 5 years after completion, and explores a range of topics such as first employment,
current employment, type of contract, moves across sectors of employment and in and out research,
added value of the doctorate, satisfaction with their doctoral training and employment, match between
their degree and their job, skills match, job satisfaction, etc. Having a sample of doctorate graduates of
e.g. up to 10-15 years of completion would provide richer data, including those with more career history.
The choice of the timeframe in this case should be guided both by the goals and objectives of the career-
tracking study and the availability of the contact database of the doctorate graduates.
The questionnaire topics can vary depending on the objectives for the survey and the target population.
For instance, if your primary goal is to receive feedback on the doctoral training programme (satisfaction
with training, supervision, etc.) then the survey population should mainly include early-career doctorate
graduates. If such a study is conducted immediately after graduation (exit poll), it would be suitable to
ask about the intensions for subsequent study or career aspiration (e.g., intended employment sector,
type of job, involvement or not in research, etc.) If you are interested to study the broader impact of the
doctoral degree on careers of the doctorate holders, also in later career stages, then it would be preferable
to extend the target population to the doctorate graduates of up to 10-15 years after graduation, or to
set-up a longitudinal study that would follow doctorate graduates for 10-15 years following graduation.
In any case, it is advisable to keep the length of the questionnaire reasonable (e.g., questionnaire
completion time should stay under 15-20 minutes), and topics focused on collecting data that is relevant
to the study questions and objectives.
Keeping in mind that career-tracking surveys are labour- and cost-intensive, having several organizations
take part in the study enables economies of scale and offers benefit in terms of exchange on e.g., the
questionnaire design. Having several organizations use the same questionnaire also generates
possibilities for cross-institutional benchmarking using the collected data.
Having the survey set up and carried out online rather than conducted by phone or using paper
questionnaires for instance, has its advantage in terms of cost and time flexibility for the respondents.
6.2 Survey feasibility and management
To assess the feasibility of setting-up a career tracking survey, check if your university has a database of
contacts of dotorate graduates, including their names, valid personal emails, year of graduation and
possibly other details. Without available contact data, it would not be possible to conduct a survey. In this
case, the first step would be to set up such a database, in compliance with GDPR.
Planning is key for a successful career-tracking survey : whether it is done as part of a coordinated effort
with several organizations (as in the case of the DocEnhance survey) or as an institutional initiative,
setting aside enough time and financial resources, and thoroughly planning for the various phases and
professional project management are needed: e.g., questionnaire development and quality assurance,
stakeholder relations (e.g. career services, IT, legal advisors, alumni officers, etc.), dealing with the GDPR
aspects and preparing a data management plan, data cleaning and analysis, report preparation and
dissemination. Having appropriate expertise (in-house or through consultancy) in survey design and
statistical analysis and software as well as coordination and management are important.
In the framework of the EU-funded project, the timeline was agreed in advance and partners were
informed of their involvement in each work package. From the needs assessment to the publication of
the final report on the data findings, it took 18 months.
An example of the main steps of a survey is shown in Figure 1.
Figure 1 — Example on a career-tracking survey timeline
A career-tracking survey should include:
1) Study purpose definition and reviewing the needs of the participating organizations (if several
organizations are involved);
2) Designing the questionnaire and coordination of partners’, stakeholders’ and experts’ feedback
collection;
3) Designing the survey protocol;
4) Setting up and testing the survey in an online platform;
5) Coordinating data collection;
6) Performing data cleaning and data analysis;
7) Preparation of the report with findings.
6.3 Sampling and response rates
The DocEnhance survey aimed to collect data from all doctorate holders in the target population and
therefore used a census-like approach without any specific statistical sampling. This approach has an
advantage of obtaining information from a larger number of respondents and the absence of statistical
and technical issues related to sample selection.
Having a good response rate is reportedly one of the biggest issues when it comes to career-tracking
surveys of doctorate graduates.
To reach a good response rate, the following recommendations can be provided:
1) Provide good rationale for the survey so that respondents understand the importance of the study
for the university in the survey introduction message.
2) Have the invitation message signed by a representative of the University (e.g., Graduate School) and
build on the doctorate graduate’s relationship with the university.
3) Provide up to 2-3 reminders, one or two weeks after survey launch.
4) Keep the survey open for a period of up to 4 weeks, have a final reminder before the survey closes to
engage respondents and provide the possibility to start and continue filling out the survey later.
5) Provide clear indication of the time it will take to fill out the survey (15-20 minutes maximum).
6) Provide clear indication on the GDPR aspects (e.g., how personal data will be handled).
7) Offer incentives - e.g., offering to send out survey report to respondents.
6.4 Questionnaire
The DocEnhance questionnaire was developed by the European Science Foundation (ESF), the partner
organisation responsible for the DocEnhance Career-tracking Survey and built on the questionnaire used
in the ESF Career-tracking study conducted in 2017. The questionnaire was further developed to adapt
to various career paths of the doctorate working in and outside the academia and to explore the aspects
related to the skills training. The list of skills (both research and academic skills and groups of broader
transferable skills) was enlarged and clustered based on results of the DocEnhance project activities (e.g.,
skills prioritisation workshops, brainstorming and group work at the project kick-off meeting) as well as
relevant literature, i.e., the ESF Member Organizations Forum report “Research Careers in Europe –
Landscapes and Horizons” (ESF, 2009 [8]) as well as the OECD survey “Careers of Doctorate Holders”
(Auriol et al., 2013 [9]).
The questionnaire is in English and includes seven sections: 1) doctorate education, 2) skills and
competencies, 3) transition from doctorate to the first or next employment, 4) employment situation and
related career experience, 5) intersectoral mobility, 6) geographical mobility and 7) demographics.
Several early drafts of the questionnaire were reviewed by the representatives of the DocEnhance
partner organizations. In addition, several international experts and representatives of stakeholder
organizations (e.g., EUA-CDE, EURODOC, etc.) provided their valuable feedback on the questionnaire.
The online questionnaire included skip logic, and the number of questions varied from 30 to 62 questions
depending on the profile of the respondent (employed/unemployed, researcher/non-researcher, etc.)
The questionnaire took from 10 to 20 min to complete. Only a few of the questions were obligatory, to
facilitate the collection of basic characteristics of respondents/profiling variables / for subsequent
analysis.
The questionnaire is provided in Annex A, including all questions and answer options. Despite the length
of the questionnaire (up to 68 questions depending on the skip logic), the survey completion rate was
rather high, at 80%, indicating that the survey was generally well adapted in terms of content and size.
The questionnaire includes mainly closed questions with several answer options to choose from. The
survey offered “other” as one option to ensure that all respondents could answer appropriately. In most
cases, the proportion of respondents selecting “other” was small (less than 10 %), indicating that the
options offered were mostly well-suited to the doctorate holders responding to the survey. Upon data
analysis, some improvements to the questionnaire can be considered:
— More appropriate answer options could be offered on current employment position (Q27: Which of
the following best describes your current main employment status? Please note that the term
'employed' includes postdoctoral positions). Exceptionally, a relatively large proportion (20 %) of
survey respondents that selected “other” as their main position of employment, rather than one of
the positions offered as potential options. This was particularly true for those not engaged in
research or non-academic positions, 38 % of whom responded “other” (compared to 12 % of those
engaged in research). Based on the most common responses specified under “other”, we suggest that
future similar surveys include the following positions as options: teacher, medical practitioner,
consultant, CEO or senior management, laboratory staff, policy/health/scientific/economic advisor,
IT specialist (including software engineers and data analysts), product manager, patent attorney.
— The options that were offered for this question on the current employment position could also be
reduced. Based on the approximately equal split of respondents selecting the different options that
were offered, this could probably be done by consolidating rather than removing options. For
example, a future sample could combine associate, assistant, and future professor, as well as
researcher and senior researcher. These options interrogated seniority more than the nature of the
work conducted by the respondent, and this aspect was probably addressed more specifically by the
question on researcher level according to the European Framework for Research Careers settled by
the EU. We would also suggest improving and harmonizing the type of positions which give us the
opportunity to make analysis not only by sector, but also by type of positions.
— Another example is regarding the question: "Did you have a paid job before or during your
doctorate?", which could also have been misunderstood by some respondents as the doctorate itself,
not like a job next to or other than, the doctorate itself. The low share of respondents (20 %) who
indicated that their doctorate was funded by contracted employment with the university leads us to
assume that the majority meant a job other than doctorate when replying to this question. For future
surveys it would be important to specify this question more.
— The same scenario happened with the notion of “collaboration” between academic and non-academic
sectors. This aspect could be improved in the future by providing a precise definition of the concept
and concrete examples of the various types of collaboration.
— In addition to asking whether respondents are involved in research as part of your current job, one
could consider a more nuanced question – e.g., to what extent they are involved in research (as
regards a percentage share of their time).
— For future surveys, additional questions can also be considered. For instance, while the questionnaire
includes the question on the minimum required education level for the current job, (Q30 – What was
the minimum education or experience level requirement for your current main job?) it would be
useful to add a question to explore whether having a doctorate was essential, desirable, or not useful
when getting the current job.
— For respondents working in positions not requiring a doctoral degree or not involved in research, it
would have been good to explore whether this was by choice or for the lack of better option, to
facilitate the analysis. Moreover, it would be useful to explore further to what extent different skills
were acquired (according to doctorate graduates) - during the training program, or in workplace.
7 Conclusion
As the DocEnnhance survey demonstrated, over half of all respondents are employed outside universities
and research organisations, demonstrating that doctoral training is relevant for a broad range of
employment sectors and jobs. However, the information about the various career destinations, and in
particular those outside the academia, is not readily available. Surveys such as these help Higher
Education Institutions (HEIs) to collect information about their graduates’ career trajectories and help to
improve their doctoral programmes and skills training offer.
The DocEnhance career-tracking survey has demonstrated that collecting information from the doctorate
graduates has been of great use for the participating universities enabling them to collect feedback on
their doctoral programmes and learn about their PhDs’ employment outcomes, skills utilization patterns,
as well as the satisfaction with the various aspects of the programme. It would also be useful as evidence
base to inform their PhD candidates of the various career paths and help support PhDs’ transferable skills
development and enhance career advice for PhD candidates.
Since tracking represents a considerable investment in terms of resources for individual HEIs, it is
important to look for economies of scale building on the existing studies as well as collaborating with
other organizations in joint tracking initiatives (both nationally and internationally where it is relevant).
It is also important to have a systematic approach to tracking within an organization (e.g., with surveys
conducted at regular intervals, as opposed to one-off surveys), possibly as part of the internal system for
evaluating the quality and impact of doctoral programmes.
Annex A
(informative)
DocEnhance Questionnaire for survey of doctorate holders
A.1 AIMS OF STUDY
Thank you for responding to the DocEnhance Career-Tracking Survey of doctorate holders. This survey
is conducted in the framework of the EC-funded DocEnhance project. The project aims at enhancing
existing doctorate programmes by providing a more career-oriented curriculum for doctorate
programmes.
This survey is carried out by the European Science Foundation-Science Connect (ESF-SC) on behalf of the
eight participating European universities.
You have been invited to take part in the survey because you have graduated from one of the
participating universities between 2016 and 2020.
It should take you between 15 and 25 minutes to fill out, depending on your career path. If interrupted,
you can return to the survey later and pick up from where you left it.
We greatly appreciate your input to this survey, which will enable us to better understand career paths
of doctorate holders, including skills utilisation and added value of the doctorate.
A.2 INFORMED CONSENT FORM
You can download the Informed Consent Form for more information here.
The answers will be anonymised. Any potentially identifying personal data collected by the survey such
as the year of birth, gender, or citizenship are only used for statistical analysis of aggregate trends. The
data collected will be used for research and evaluation purposes. It will only be made available to
institutions and other researchers anonymously.
Your participation in this research is voluntary. You do not have to take part in this research if you do not
wish to do so, and you may withdraw from the survey at any time.
The final report will be made widely available to the public via the DocEnhance website.
If you have any questions about the survey or the project, please write to the DocEnhance survey
coordinator, Julia Boman at jboman@esf.org. If you have any ethical or data questions, please address
them to the ESF Data Protection Officer, Isabelle Vonesch at database@esf.org.
Certificate of Consent
I have been invited to participate in a career-tracking survey designed for doctoral graduates from
European universities. I am willing to participate in this study and have read the foregoing information.
I have had the opportunity to ask questions about the study and any questions I have asked, have been
answered to my satisfaction. I consent voluntarily to be a participant in this study.
1. Do you agree with the above terms? If you select NO, you will exit this questionnaire
o Yes, I have read and give my consent to the terms mentioned in the Informed Consent Form
o No, I do not accept the terms of the Informed Consent Form
If participant select YES, go to Section 1
If participant select NO, exit survey
A.3 SECTION 1: DOCTORAL EDUCATION AND TRAINING
2. In which year did you start your doctoral training programme (formal admission)? If you have
more than one doctorate, refer to the one completed within the period 2016-2020
o Dropdown menu 2000 or earlier; 2000-2020
3. In which year did you defend your doctorate?
o Dropdown menu 2010 or earlier; 2011-2020
4. In which country was your doctorate awarded?
o Dropdown menu for Country Selection
5. Please select the field that best corresponds to your doctorate.
o Natural sciences (Mathematics, Computer and Information Sciences, Physical Sciences,
Chemical Sciences, Earth and related Environmental Sciences, Biological Sciences, other Natural
Sciences)
o Engineering and technology (Civil Engineering, Electrical, Electronic and Information
Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Chemical Engineering, Material Engineering, Medical
Engineering, Environmental Engineering, Environmental Biotechnology, Industrial
Biotechnology, Nanotechnology, other engineering and technologies)
o Medical and health sciences (Basic Medicine, Clinical Medicine, Health Sciences, Medical
biotechnology, other medical sciences)
o Agricultural sciences (Agriculture, forestry and fishery, Animal and dairy Science, Veterinary
Science, Agricultural biotechnology, other agricultural sciences)
o Social sciences (Psychology, Economics and Business, Educational Sciences, Sociology, Law,
Political Science, Social and Economic Geography, Media and Communications, other Social
Sciences)
o Humanities (History and Archaeology, Language and Literature, Philosophy, Ethics and
Religion, Arts, other Humanities)
6. Which of the following were your financial sources during your doctoral training period?
Please select all that apply.
o Fellowship from your university
o Contracted employment with your university
o Fellowship from government or public research fund
o Fellowship from private sector, or a private not-for-profit organization
o Fellowship from international institutions
o University position/teaching and/or research assistantship
o Job not related to the doctorate
o Non-funded
o Other (please specify)
7. In addition to the university where you obtained your doctorate, did your doctorate take place
in collaboration with any other organisation (e.g. external co-supervision, industrial partner,
additional training, etc.)?
o No
o Yes, with another university (joint doctorate – cotutelle, etc.)
o Yes, with a university of applied sciences
o Yes, with a non-university research institution
o Yes, with a private sector company (e.g. industrial doctorate)
o Yes, with a third sector organization (e.g. NGO, charity, not-for-profit)
o Yes, with another organization (please specify):
8. Was your doctorate mainly achieved through structured training programme or individually
supervised research?
o Structured training programme (graduate school/doctoral programme with specific elements
such as taught courses, milestones, mobility options etc.)
o Individually supervised research (doctoral education is led by individual supervisors with no
institutional oversight)
9. What motivated you to pursue a doctorate? Please select all that apply.
o To work as a researcher in academia
o To work as a researcher outside academia
o To work as a highly skilled expert
o To diversify career opportunities
o Personal accomplishment
o Interest in the research topic
o Social recognition
o Other (please specify)
10. How satisfied are you with the following aspects of your training while doing your doctorate
(1 = very dissatisfied; 2 = somewhat dissatisfied; 3 = neither satisfied nor dissatisfied; 4 = somewhat
satisfied; 5 = very satisfied; not applicable)
o Quality of research training (e.g. methodological skills, subject knowledge, etc.)
o Quality of transferable skills training (e.g. communication, project management, research ethics
and integrity, entrepreneurship, etc.)
o Services for doctoral candidates at your university (e.g. career support, library provision, IT, etc.)
o Supervision provided by the supervisor(s)
o Support to pursue an academic career (e.g. teaching experience, engagement in research grants,
etc.)
o Support to pursue a non-academic career (e.g. networking with non-academic partners, etc.)
11. Looking back, if you could make the decision about doing your doctorate again, which of the
following would you most likely choose?
o The same doctorate at the same institution
o A different doctorate at the same institution
o The same doctorate at another institution
o A different doctorate at another institution
o Not to do a doctorate at all.
12. Have you done any research stay(s) abroad while doing your doctorate?
o Yes
o No
A.4 SECTION 2: SKILLS AND COMPETENCIES
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