Doctoral Candidates: Individual Accompaniment to Promote Development of Skills for a Successful Professional Career

From European Ambitions to Effective Implementation Within a French Doctoral School

The European Commission has provided guidelines to improve European Doctoral Education while making it more attractive and competitive at the international scale. One major component of such reform is to render the PhD an individual and professional journey in personal development equipping the candidate to enter the job market. In line with such reform, AgroParisTech and its doctoral School ABIES are implementing an accompaniment procedure assuring doctoral candidates of both scientific excellence and competences in the numerous transversal skills sought on the job market. To meet this challenge they are implementing the use of an individual Skills Portfolio as well as a Personal Career Development Plan (PCDP). At present both documents are in their first cycle of usage and training programmes are underway targeting both candidates and supervisory staff. This new vision of Doctoral Education implies changes in the roles of all actors and thus is a very structuring approach for the Doctoral schools.