Encouraging PhD supervisors to attend trainings: feedback from trainers in France

Encourager les encadrants de thèse à suivre des formations: retours de formateurs en France

Lucie Roudier () and Simon E. B. Thierry
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Lucie Roudier: IFG Lab - UP8 - Université Paris 8 Vincennes-Saint-Denis, Adoc Mètis
Simon E. B. Thierry: Adoc Mètis

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Abstract: Adoc Mètis is a training company specialized in human resources management for the academic sector in France. Since 2013, the company provides training for doctoral supervisors in various institutions. This communication gives our feedback regarding the ambivalent feeling supervisors have towards supervisory training. We start by recalling the french context of PhD supervision : a diploma ("HDR" meaning "habilitation to supervise research") is mandatory in order to officially supervise doctoral researchers, and co-supervisors with no HDR have no legal definition. One may ask the research committee of the university for a temporary habilitation (usually granted for people preparing the HDR). Disciplinary traditions vary with regards to co-supervision : in STEM, co-supervision is standard and co-supervisors frequently do not have the HDR ; in humanities, co-supervision and thus supervision by non-HDR-holders are less frequent. Since 2016, all universities must offer training to supervisors. Yet, no training is mandatory to obtain the HDR, according to national regulations. We have seen different types of calls for training : - simple presence of a training course in the staff training catalogue, - targeted information about the training (HDR candidates, recent HDR graduates, …), - communication pretending that the training is mandatory to obtain the HDR, - incentives (attendance taken into account in funding applications or career development, no registration fee for the HDR), - mandatory training in order to supervise autonomously without the HDR, - mandatory training to obtain the HDR. This variety probably stems for resistance to the idea of supervisory training. We give examples that testify to that resistance. We feel that there is less resistance with junior supervisors and formulate hypotheses as to why : training habit, changing context, lesser feeling of questioning for supervisors with little experience. Finally, we detail the consequences we observed when supervisory training is made mandatory : reduced changes in supervisory practice, even for motivated people ; critical attitude of the attendants and time needed to demonstrate the usefulness of the training and relevance of the trainers. We give two examples leading us to believe that the mandatory aspect is the main explicating factor of these behaviors : first of all, we do not observe these behaviors in people who have been incentivized to take the training but have not been obliged to do so ; second, we clearly see different attitudes in mixed groups containing people who think the training is mandatory and people who came on their own volition.

Date: 2024-09-30
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Published in Nordic Conference on PhD Supervision, Sep 2024, Karlstad, France

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