This article explores the perceptions of Portuguese students enrolled in industrial doctorates, regarding potential conflicts that may arise from their supervision, their research topic and their research outputs. The study uses data collected from focus groups and subjected to content analysis. The findings suggest that industrial doctoral…

Universities are renovating the formats and configurations of their doctoral programs to become more international, collaborative and attentive to labor market needs. In a competitive global setting doctoral programs compete to attract students, promote international partnerships, engage with industry and provide students with the social capital…

The integration of coursework in doctoral programmes is becoming increasingly common worldwide. In Portugal, too, coursework is now part of many doctorates and is usually assigned to the first year. This paper aims to understand if coursework is also an element of the relatively recent industrial doctorates in Portugal and, in this case, if it…

Background: Scientific excellence is one of the most fundamental underpinnings of medical education and its relevance is unquestionable. To be involved in research activities enhances students' critical thinking and problem-solving capacities, which are mandatory competences for new achievements in patient care and consequently to the improvement…

Although an understanding of nature of science is a core element in scientific literacy, there is considerable evidence that school and university students hold naive conceptions about it. It is argued that, whilst the failure to learn about nature of science arises from its neglect in formal science education, a major reason is the adherence to…