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Isomorphic tensions and anxiety in UK social science doctoral provision

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Scholars assert that, worldwide, doctoral provision is increasingly characterised by accelerated scales of production, competitive funding, centralised administration, and interdisciplinary, cohort-based training. Richard Budd discusses the case of the UK’s social science doctorates, which have seen both marked growth and a range of policy changes, to explore the potential extent of alignment with these trends.

Image courtesy of interviewee. February 29, 2024

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This video video discusses the rising trend of doctoral production globally and in the UK, with a significant increase in the number of individuals pursuing doctoral degrees, driven by factors such as international competition and funding opportunities. The conversation highlights a variety of related themes, including the competitive nature of funding, accountability within academia, and the strategic importance of doctoral programs to universities.

In the UK, there has been a 40% increase in doctorates from 2008 to 2018, leading to changes in how institutions manage doctoral programs, often through the establishment of doctoral training centers. However, there is an uneven distribution of funding and recognition that disproportionately favors higher-status institutions, exacerbating inequalities among universities.

The discussion categorizes universities into three groups based on their access to research funding: insiders (established universities that consistently receive funding), leavers (institutions that lost funding but managed to regain it), and outsiders (those that have never had such funding). Each group's response to funding dynamics affects their capacity to graduate doctoral researchers and maintain scholarly standards.

The report emphasizes the importance of understanding underlying factors influencing organizational behavior in educational institutions, such as coercion (policy-driven changes), emulation (copying successful models), and normative practices (historical traditions). It concludes that while there are observable trends in doctoral education, the impact of policies is uneven across institutions, necessitating careful consideration of how policies are designed to avoid perpetuating existing inequalities.

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X-TIMESTAMP-MAP:LOCAL=00:00:00.000,MPEGTS=900000

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What we're seeing is internationally, globally,

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there's a massive increase in

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what we might call doctoral production,

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but basically the number of people doing doctorates,

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and this is kind of driven by different things.

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Some of it is kind of fundamentally

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about international competition.

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There's an idea that if countries have more people

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with doctorates in their, in their economies, particularly

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around, science

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and technology that we get then advances on other countries.

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It's to do with, you know, international competition.

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And this comes on the back of kind

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of a massive increase in more people

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doing undergraduate degrees.

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So in the UK there's this sort of 50% figure that,

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that Tony Blair kind of talked about a while ago now.

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But, and again, this is, it's a slightly dodgy logic,

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but the idea that if we have more people with certain kinds

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of degrees, the economy grows.

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Anyway, that's the kind of the logic.

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But what we're seeing around doctorates is not only a

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massive increase in the number of people doing doctorates,

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and that's not just PhDs.

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There are other kinds of doctorates is there's more funding.

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So governments are actually driving this too.

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Um, but what what happens is the funding is competitive.

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So it rewards those that already have a headstart.

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The winners basically keep winning.

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Um, also in exchange for more money,

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there's greater levels of accountability.

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So measurement and checks,

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and evaluations of things like research culture

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and research capacity that kind of goes along with that.

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It also means that for universities,

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PhDs are something that have strategic value.

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So it's not something that we do

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and something that we are good at,

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but actually it's something that is kind of managed

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and curated much more than it used to be

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because it makes a difference.

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And on the back of this, there are changes to the doctorate,

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sort of what the content is, what subjects get kind

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of researched or what doesn't get researched.

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And the idea that, that people, that the,

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before the, it was an idea that the thesis was kind

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of enough, whereas now there's the idea

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that there's a thesis, plus you do lots

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of additional training for employability around teaching or,

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or non-academic work.

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Um, and one of the things that goes with

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that is they have these, rather than having individual

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people going to do doctorates, they have groups of people

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who all do individual doctorates,

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but in groups so they move through together,

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particularly in labs and that kind of stuff.

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So that's what we're seeing internationally.

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That's the wider context. Lots of the same stuff

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that we are seeing internationally we're seeing here.

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So from 2008 for the next decade,

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there was a 40% increase in the number of doctorates.

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So to give you some numbers as to what that looks like,

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in 2008, there was 17,000 doctorates a year coming out

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of UK universities.

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A decade later, that's 24,000.

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So what this means that every four years

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or so, there are a hundred thousand doctorates out there in

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the academic and non-academic labor markets.

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So it's a fairly big chunk of chunk of people.

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Um, but alongside this,

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there are major changes within universities.

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We have kind of what are known as doctoral colleges

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or graduate colleges as universities kind

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of change their structures to, I guess better manage farm

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and harvest PhDs in a way.

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Um, and also greater sort of thematic

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and disciplinary centers and partnerships.

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And you have this idea of what's known

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as a doctoral training center

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or doctoral training partnership.

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And now there are more than 300

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of these across different disciplines.

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Um, sometimes within unis, sometimes

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with multiple unis involved.

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But what's particularly interesting in the UK is

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that the level of hierarchy

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and competition we have between universities is probably

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quite unusual compared to many other countries.

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The fact that we have this intense hierarchy

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of certain universities at the top

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and then tailing down to, so-called lower quality unis,

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means that whatever policy happens tends

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to land unevenly in a way.

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So we have these trends, but

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because of the way the UK system is kind of a, a pyramid,

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how it lands will vary.

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And the idea of what a better uni is is massively subjective

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and problematic, but it's something that we've got

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and it's something that is built into

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public perception and policy.

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So we basically have this issue

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with massively uneven funding awards.

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So what's known as the golden triangle between Oxford,

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Cambridge and London sucks up a huge proportion

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of what's available in terms of research funding.

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90% of all doctorates in the UK come from around half

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of the unis in the country.

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So there's a level of

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unevenness, let's call it.

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And then within the social sciences, you start

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to see similar trends where, more specifically in 2011,

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the ESRC, which is the Economic Social Research Council,

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they launched a new policy as of 2011,

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or it started in 2011.

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They kind of started winding up from 2009.

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And there were 86 unis

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that received ESRC funding or recognition.

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This was cut in half overnight.

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And the timing of this was tricky

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because it was, during sort of austerity and budget cuts

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after the global financial crisis.

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So the money that research councils were

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getting was cut massively.

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So they had to try and do less with less I guess.

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Um, and then

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the winners were nearly all the larger older universities

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that kind of kept this funding and status.

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And the same thing happened with other research

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councils, give or take.

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Um, and so

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what we had is we had individual universities receiving it

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or university partnerships receiving it.

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And increasingly over time,

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that's become nearly all partnerships apart from some unis

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which are in partnership with themselves.

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They have a partnership, but it's an internal partnership.

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And, and the research councils are kind of dictating

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what happens within the doctorate

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around research training and those kinds of things.

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They're not leaving it entirely up

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to university's own expertise and discretion.

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They're becoming more directive over

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what happens within and how it works.

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But what we still see is

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that there's an increase in social science doctorates.

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So even the, so across the sector, everyone,

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different groups of universities are still pumping out

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more in a way.

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So we have this uneven policy,

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particularly in the social sciences,

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but this is only a proportion of social sciences.

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The literature shows, as I kind of laid out

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before, is it looks like there's, there's this degree

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of convergence at the global and national level that by

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and large you're seeing the same kinds of trends in

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and around doctoral provision.

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Um, but in the uk in the social sciences,

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there's very little research

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outside those that get the funding.

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So there are, there were a bunch of papers

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that looked at kind of the national picture

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and then there are a couple of papers that looked at those

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that actually retained the funding

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and sort of the difficulties of having that.

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But we didn't know much about everybody else,

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which was the majority, right?

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It's, you know, we knew something about the 40,

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we didn't know any much about the other 120 in a way.

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So this is important

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because we need to have a look at what's going on

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outside this kind of, this small group, the select few,

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but also there's a, it offers an opportunity

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to look at this convergence.

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So if we do have this convergence, how is it happening

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and what does it look like and what's happening?

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How is it happening in different kinds of institutions?

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So then from a theoretical perspective,

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if you're gonna look at convergence,

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you need to look beyond the surface.

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So at the national level we can see, yeah, by

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and large the same kinds of things seem to be happening,

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but actually what's happening underneath that

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and kind of what are the dynamics that are going on within,

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within universities.

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So if it looks like everyone's doing the same thing

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or if they're not, what's going on within that?

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So there's this idea called institutional isomorphism.

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This is the theory and this is really well used across

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particularly management studies and

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and sort of big sectoral things where there's a,

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a long running observation

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that organizations in the same field tend

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to look like one another.

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So whether it's hospitals, car manufacturers, banks,

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newspapers, governments, political parties

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or militaries, they all resemble each other quite greatly.

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Now the question is, is what underpins this?

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There's the conventional sort of management textbook logic

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that all decisions made

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by organizations are based on efficiency and effectiveness.

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We looked at the options and we chose the best possible one,

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which is to be better and or more profitable, right?

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So that's the logic. And of course that does happen

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to a certain extent, but it's not

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the only thing that's happening.

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One of the other things that happens is you've got policy

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and law standards and regulations.

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So someone says that if you are doing such

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and such, you have to do it in this way.

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You know, we have standards, safety standards,

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whatever it is, you know, that governs how things are done.

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So this is known as coercion.

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There's also emesis, which is copying.

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So organizations for example, will not know what

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to do in a particular situation.

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So they'll look at the leaders in inverted

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commas and they'll copy them.

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They may not know if what they're copying is the best model,

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but they also, what is interesting here,

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it's about looking better rather than

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necessarily being better.

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So it's like having a gold stamp on your website to say

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that we've been McKinsey audited or whatever.

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And that doesn't mean you are better,

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it just means you've been McKinsey audited like other people

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who are supposedly good and have been McKinsey audited.

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And then the other thing is what's known as normativity,

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which is kind of standard practice.

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This is the way we've done stuff

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and we don't question it anymore.

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So it's not just about organizations doing the best thing,

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it's also about what influences them

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in terms of government policy, in terms of norms,

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but also in terms of copying each other,

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particularly high status players.

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So that's a way of understanding how convergence works

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and how organizational behavior works.

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Um, we interviewed 30 staff,

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all senior staff within UK universities.

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The research directors, senior, senior academics

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or senior leaders, ratio of men

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to women was four to one.

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Um, and this is kind of a recognition of the problem

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that we have in terms of promotion and pipelines

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and who gets to senior positions and who doesn't.

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Um, but all of the people that we spoke to were in positions

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where they're able to kind of see direct

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and manage to some extent

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how their institutions acted when it comes to doctorates

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and kind of what they basically have a fairly good view

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and sometimes a hand on the research and

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or PhD strategy, particularly in relation

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to social sciences.

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So they're well placed to know

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what the organization's doing and why.

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And they quite often they're very hands-on in doing it.

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Um, so as I mentioned before,

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'cause there are these major hierarchies within the UK

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university system, it was really important for us

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to recruit participants from different kinds of unis.

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So, from the, so-called elite universities

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to the more inclusive ones

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and this means that the course, they have different track

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records and different research profiles

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and different doctoral profiles.

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And one of the things we did is we divided them into three

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different groups based on their kind of access

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to research funding for their doctorates,

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particularly social science research funding.

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So one group were known as, we called them the insiders

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and these are the ones that always had ESRC

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funding and then kept it.

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So in a way nothing changes.

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And they're generally older, generally larger Russell group

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and highly developed across all disciplines.

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So they're kind of big across the board.

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Then you have what we call the leavers

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and these are the ones that

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always had access to the funding.

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But in 2011 lost it.

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So they nearly all regained it in 2016,

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but at the time when we did the interviews they'd lost it

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and they were feeling that.

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Um, and this was a mix of kind of 1960s

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and former polytechnic universities generally pretty big.

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Um, and with a long doctoral history,

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but maybe not strong across all slash most subject areas.

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And then you get what we call the outsiders

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who never had this funding, were still excluded from it.

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Um, they're often newer to the doctoral game.

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Um, tending to be a bit smaller, more undergraduate focused

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and more teaching oriented but still undertaking research.

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And it's important to point out that this is kind

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of a spectrum rather than these

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groups are kind of artificial.

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We created them. There is a spectrum of different ways

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of thinking about unis, but this was a kind of a useful one.

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So we interviewed these people kind

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of fairly wide ranging discussions

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around their doctoral provision, what they were doing

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and why, how they saw the wider

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and local situation, what impacted them, what kind

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of helped them and what got in the way.

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Um, one of the things

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that was really unusual about this project is it can be

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really hard to recruit participants to projects,

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but this was dead easy, partly

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'cause we know who we wanted to speak to,

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but also lots of people were really,

12:49.045 --> 12:50.685
agitated about the situation.

12:51.185 --> 12:53.285
So we approached 60 people and got 32

12:53.285 --> 12:55.125
and I've never had a project that went that well.

12:55.425 --> 12:59.595
Um, so the analysis was then looking at what they were doing

12:59.595 --> 13:01.315
and why and kind of what else was going on.

13:01.315 --> 13:05.655
Coming back to this notion of coercion, ESIS optimization

13:05.655 --> 13:06.855
and normativity as a way

13:06.855 --> 13:08.135
of understanding what they're doing.

13:08.595 --> 13:11.095
The overall finding was we were expecting in a way

13:11.095 --> 13:12.375
to find this convergence

13:12.375 --> 13:14.375
that universities are kind of doing the same thing.

13:14.435 --> 13:15.975
And that was broadly true.

13:16.525 --> 13:17.935
They were all making changes

13:17.995 --> 13:19.735
to their doctoral provision in terms of

13:19.735 --> 13:21.095
how it was structured and organized

13:21.095 --> 13:22.495
and what happened within the doctorate.

13:23.205 --> 13:26.095
They were all looking to increase their doctoral numbers.

13:26.995 --> 13:29.895
Um, but there were also differences.

13:29.955 --> 13:32.255
So the levers and insiders were doing these kind

13:32.255 --> 13:34.215
of group cohorts things, the others weren't.

13:35.035 --> 13:37.335
So there is convergence, but there was a big but

13:37.395 --> 13:39.455
or lots of buts in a way in terms of

13:39.455 --> 13:40.495
how and why they were doing it.

13:41.355 --> 13:44.095
In terms of coercion, this is the policy element.

13:44.845 --> 13:46.615
What we're able to see is that what's known

13:46.615 --> 13:48.215
as the research excellence framework,

13:48.215 --> 13:51.215
which is a periodic policy which

13:51.955 --> 13:53.935
to some extent evaluates research quality

13:53.955 --> 13:55.815
and then allocates funding on the basis of it.

13:55.815 --> 13:57.895
But it also impacts eligibility for funding.

13:58.435 --> 14:01.915
So if you get below certain scores, you can't bid

14:01.935 --> 14:02.955
for certain things.

14:03.775 --> 14:06.635
Um, and this in part includes doctoral numbers.

14:07.755 --> 14:10.935
So in a way there's this kind of, if you don't do well,

14:11.635 --> 14:14.255
you can't do well, you can't bid for stuff in the future.

14:14.475 --> 14:17.895
So the ref was basically the, the main reason why all

14:17.895 --> 14:21.695
of these universities were trying to boost, increase,

14:21.805 --> 14:25.575
augment their doctoral provision for the outsiders, the kind

14:25.575 --> 14:26.775
of the smaller institutions.

14:26.775 --> 14:28.735
They had to do this at a low cost level with some

14:28.735 --> 14:30.655
of their own scholarships but also

14:30.935 --> 14:31.975
creative ways of funding them.

14:31.975 --> 14:33.215
Self-funding part-time

14:33.215 --> 14:34.815
or getting their staff to do them at no

14:34.815 --> 14:38.065
fees for the leavers.

14:38.255 --> 14:40.785
What they generally did was funded their own scholarships

14:40.845 --> 14:44.725
and also recruited international PGS postgraduate

14:44.965 --> 14:47.005
researchers for the insiders.

14:47.305 --> 14:49.125
Um, this was external scholarships

14:49.325 --> 14:51.045
'cause they had them, there was internal funding

14:51.405 --> 14:53.725
'cause they had it and they also recruited international

14:53.725 --> 14:56.165
people because they're high status and they can,

14:57.265 --> 15:00.245
but they also faced problems in the, the bureaucracy

15:00.245 --> 15:01.965
that came with the funding was significant.

15:02.705 --> 15:04.085
So you get it but there's also a

15:04.085 --> 15:05.205
whole lot of crud that comes with it.

15:05.665 --> 15:07.965
Um, and also there's a visa policy issue

15:07.965 --> 15:11.285
where if you're recruiting international applicants,

15:11.285 --> 15:13.805
which you have to, there's a problem if the

15:13.855 --> 15:14.925
visas make that difficult.

15:15.025 --> 15:17.605
So the government says you need international students

15:17.625 --> 15:19.445
to survive, but we're gonna make it really hard for them

15:19.445 --> 15:21.565
to come, which is kind of a,

15:21.705 --> 15:23.565
so you have the policies which push against each other

15:24.585 --> 15:25.725
in terms of emesis.

15:25.725 --> 15:28.165
This is the kind of the copying and the status element.

15:28.945 --> 15:31.925
So this the, this is about the status game.

15:32.065 --> 15:33.405
So having the funding

15:33.545 --> 15:35.685
and having the stamp of the recognition that comes

15:35.685 --> 15:37.325
with the funding was a really big deal.

15:37.585 --> 15:40.765
So for the outsiders, they were already low in status

15:40.905 --> 15:43.285
and no longer having, it just meant there was the continued

15:43.285 --> 15:45.285
indignity of being cut outta the group

15:45.345 --> 15:46.645
and not being able to grow.

15:47.685 --> 15:50.405
'cause this funding is seen as a kitemark, a badge, right?

15:50.625 --> 15:52.325
And for the leavers who lost it,

15:52.555 --> 15:54.045
this was a massive indignity.

15:54.045 --> 15:55.325
This was a real shock to them.

15:55.945 --> 15:58.725
So what they by and large did was they massively reviewed

15:58.725 --> 16:00.405
their postgraduate provision,

16:00.405 --> 16:02.005
particularly their doctoral provision

16:02.585 --> 16:04.685
and boosted it, augmented it

16:04.905 --> 16:06.925
and invested lots of their own funding in it.

16:07.865 --> 16:09.045
For the insiders.

16:09.115 --> 16:11.085
They were concerned about keeping it so they had

16:11.085 --> 16:13.325
to make sure they stayed in the right space

16:13.625 --> 16:15.525
but they were maintaining what they were already doing,

16:15.935 --> 16:17.085
augmenting it slightly.

16:17.705 --> 16:18.765
But this was about status.

16:18.985 --> 16:20.365
So status was really important

16:20.525 --> 16:21.845
'cause not having the funding hurts

16:22.825 --> 16:24.725
and losing it scares you.

16:25.025 --> 16:28.885
So in terms of normativity, this is kind of doing stuff

16:28.885 --> 16:30.005
that we've always done.

16:30.755 --> 16:33.845
What we also found was that, you know, PhD is a part of

16:33.845 --> 16:35.285
what universities do give or take.

16:35.315 --> 16:37.645
It's just part of the nature of you need

16:37.645 --> 16:41.245
to have people doing PhDs 'cause they're future academics.

16:41.315 --> 16:43.325
It's research production, it's all of this stuff.

16:43.355 --> 16:45.245
It's part of kind of what we do.

16:46.185 --> 16:47.925
But all of these policies means

16:47.925 --> 16:49.685
that there are changes in standard practice.

16:49.865 --> 16:52.445
Any kind of organizational change creates a headache

16:52.445 --> 16:54.245
because you've gotta amend what you do

16:54.245 --> 16:55.765
and get used to new ways of doing things.

16:56.465 --> 16:58.445
And some of those things can be a real pain,

16:58.445 --> 16:59.925
particularly if stuff is centralized

16:59.925 --> 17:01.925
and you lose control over what you've already done.

17:02.845 --> 17:06.645
Particularly for the insiders, the, the big universities

17:06.645 --> 17:09.125
that that retained this funding.

17:10.235 --> 17:12.605
What happened was that if you are in a university

17:12.605 --> 17:14.525
partnership, you've got universities that compete

17:14.525 --> 17:15.525
with each other that don't have to

17:15.725 --> 17:16.765
collaborate and that's quite tricky.

17:16.905 --> 17:19.165
Or departments that compete with each other for scholarships

17:19.325 --> 17:20.565
that then have to collaborate.

17:21.065 --> 17:22.125
And that's quite hard.

17:22.425 --> 17:24.725
You also get into disciplinary differences where

17:25.425 --> 17:27.685
if the research councils are saying your research training

17:27.745 --> 17:30.045
has to include these things, there are some disciplines

17:30.045 --> 17:31.325
who say, well they make no sense to us

17:32.265 --> 17:35.205
for some social sciences such as, so let's say sociology

17:35.225 --> 17:37.125
to some extent it's a fairly broad church

17:37.125 --> 17:38.165
in terms of methods.

17:38.825 --> 17:40.045
But if the economists are saying,

17:40.045 --> 17:41.525
well qualitative research makes no

17:41.525 --> 17:42.685
sense to us, why would we bother?

17:43.385 --> 17:45.965
And the historians or the anthropologists such are just

17:45.965 --> 17:48.445
saying multilevel modeling is just utterly pointless to us.

17:48.465 --> 17:51.725
It it's what we might call epistemologically pointless.

17:51.725 --> 17:53.445
It doesn't really tell you anything of value.

17:54.185 --> 17:57.245
So you have this and then in terms of optimization,

17:57.245 --> 17:58.405
that was the last one.

17:58.835 --> 17:59.925
This is the idea that

17:59.955 --> 18:01.805
what you are doing achieves better outcomes.

18:01.875 --> 18:06.085
This was there too. So for some it was about cost savings

18:06.185 --> 18:08.405
but also reducing unnecessary duplication.

18:08.425 --> 18:10.245
So in a way there's no point having all

18:10.245 --> 18:12.205
of these different departments offering the same training

18:12.685 --> 18:14.885
independently when you can actually put it together.

18:15.665 --> 18:17.365
So in, in some ways that works.

18:17.905 --> 18:21.735
Um, but also there was a definite recognition that

18:22.525 --> 18:25.815
reviewing and augmenting your doctoral provision means

18:25.895 --> 18:28.495
that the postgraduate researchers have a better experience

18:28.495 --> 18:31.335
and they're likely to have better outcomes in the sense that

18:31.335 --> 18:33.535
what you can do is you can check your standards of provision

18:33.675 --> 18:36.295
and even though everything's kind of good, you can make sure

18:36.295 --> 18:41.075
that you can more, more confidently state

18:41.075 --> 18:43.075
that everyone will have a good time give or take.

18:43.415 --> 18:44.995
But that standards are

18:45.135 --> 18:47.875
strong across the board rather than probably strong

18:47.875 --> 18:51.165
but we're not sure less people are slipped through the gaps.

18:52.065 --> 18:53.765
And then there was also the recognition

18:53.765 --> 18:56.645
that people are now graduating with a doctoral three thesis

18:57.425 --> 18:59.845
and a degree what they've learned from it ification,

18:59.845 --> 19:02.085
but also a whole lot of other transferable skills.

19:02.985 --> 19:04.525
So there we have EMIS in terms

19:04.525 --> 19:05.805
of copying and loss of status.

19:05.945 --> 19:08.885
We have normativity in terms of having

19:08.905 --> 19:10.365
to change what we've already done.

19:10.545 --> 19:13.925
We have optimization and that there are some cost savings

19:13.985 --> 19:16.525
and better outcomes, but also there's a very

19:16.525 --> 19:17.685
strong policy influence here.

19:17.685 --> 19:21.245
So all of these different isomorphic forces are happening at

19:21.245 --> 19:23.525
the same time, going right back to the beginning

19:23.595 --> 19:27.005
that while there is convergence at the bigger level,

19:27.035 --> 19:28.525
it's not uniform in the detail

19:28.625 --> 19:31.325
and how it plays out is very much nationally flavored.

19:31.425 --> 19:34.725
So we can see that at the national level there's the kind

19:34.725 --> 19:38.085
of the domestic policy, the economy, the economic situation,

19:38.085 --> 19:39.925
the history and the culture flavors,

19:40.585 --> 19:42.365
how global trends play out.

19:42.665 --> 19:44.205
And this is kind of something which is known,

19:44.205 --> 19:46.125
but this actually kind of shows

19:46.185 --> 19:47.365
an example of how that works.

19:47.465 --> 19:48.885
It reinforces what we know.

19:50.075 --> 19:51.895
What's kind of interesting here is that

19:52.315 --> 19:53.695
who you are as a uni matters.

19:53.995 --> 19:55.855
So I talked before about the hierarchy

19:55.855 --> 19:57.815
and actually where you are in the hierarchy means

19:57.815 --> 20:00.375
that the policy helps or hits you in different ways.

20:01.635 --> 20:06.105
So, your positioning in terms of

20:06.105 --> 20:09.465
that hierarchy and different policies really matters.

20:10.645 --> 20:13.745
So for the outsiders, the smaller universities,

20:13.745 --> 20:16.225
they have this continued indignity of being excluded

20:16.245 --> 20:18.385
and penalized for not being old

20:19.145 --> 20:21.125
and not being well developed and they can't grow.

20:21.825 --> 20:24.485
So they're making changes but they can't make major changes

20:24.765 --> 20:25.885
'cause they don't have the expertise

20:25.885 --> 20:27.085
and they don't have the resources.

20:27.105 --> 20:29.365
And so they want to grow,

20:29.585 --> 20:32.165
but they're being held back by this policy situation

20:32.165 --> 20:35.125
and this wider situation for the leavers, the kind

20:35.125 --> 20:36.685
of mid rage institutions,

20:37.115 --> 20:39.765
they had a massive shock at the loss of the funding

20:39.785 --> 20:41.485
and recognition that really hit them.

20:41.905 --> 20:44.925
But they had the track record, the resources

20:44.925 --> 20:46.725
and the know-how to be able to catch up

20:46.825 --> 20:47.925
and most of them did.

20:48.705 --> 20:52.325
So they basically augmented what they already had

20:53.145 --> 20:55.885
and kind of turbocharged it managed to get back into the,

20:56.435 --> 20:59.605
back into the select group for the insiders.

20:59.605 --> 21:01.325
They were really worried about losing the status

21:01.345 --> 21:02.645
and the funding, but by

21:02.645 --> 21:04.325
and large it was kind of business as usual,

21:05.165 --> 21:06.925
although they did still have headaches

21:06.985 --> 21:10.165
around the work involved in doing all of that stuff.

21:10.165 --> 21:12.005
So they had the benefit of the funding and the status,

21:12.425 --> 21:14.725
but at the same time they had headaches

21:14.725 --> 21:16.445
around additional bureaucracy.

21:17.665 --> 21:20.915
So what this shows in a way is this, this idea

21:20.915 --> 21:23.315
of isomorphism and these different things that influence

21:23.955 --> 21:27.755
convergence is these things work for and against each other.

21:27.915 --> 21:29.035
I mentioned some of this before.

21:29.095 --> 21:31.835
So in terms of policy, it encourages growth and change,

21:31.855 --> 21:33.595
but it also impedes it at the same time.

21:33.775 --> 21:37.155
So the bureaucracy and policy changes slow things down.

21:37.155 --> 21:38.195
They make it harder to do

21:38.195 --> 21:39.355
what the policy's trying to achieve.

21:39.375 --> 21:42.915
If there's too much paperwork, it's not about an absence

21:42.915 --> 21:43.955
of checks and balances

21:43.955 --> 21:45.235
or you know, the supposed red tape

21:45.235 --> 21:47.515
that gets vilified right out there or demonized.

21:48.095 --> 21:50.155
But actually it's about having something more manageable

21:50.155 --> 21:52.795
and trusting of institutions rather than imposing these

21:52.795 --> 21:55.555
massive audit kind of, changes

21:55.855 --> 21:57.235
and data that has to be collected.

21:57.935 --> 22:00.875
But also the policy basically says that universities have

22:01.035 --> 22:02.315
to internationally recruit, but the

22:02.315 --> 22:03.675
visa situation hampers it.

22:04.375 --> 22:06.315
So you can see that the policy is helping

22:06.535 --> 22:09.515
and not helping at the same time norms.

22:09.855 --> 22:11.835
In a way you can see that PhDs a part

22:11.835 --> 22:13.555
of university's DNA in a way.

22:13.555 --> 22:15.115
It's part of how we think and what we do.

22:16.295 --> 22:17.715
But there are some things

22:17.715 --> 22:20.595
that push against standard practice man, standard practice,

22:20.595 --> 22:22.035
particularly disciplinary norms.

22:22.035 --> 22:23.435
And so change are difficult

22:23.435 --> 22:26.195
because it's not, if you take something

22:26.195 --> 22:27.915
for granted, changing is then hard.

22:28.535 --> 22:31.435
Um, in terms of miis, there's lots

22:31.435 --> 22:33.035
of copying the leaders for status reasons.

22:33.255 --> 22:35.795
You know, status is really important in a hierarchical

22:35.795 --> 22:38.115
market or a hierarchical setup set up.

22:39.215 --> 22:42.035
And in terms of optimization, we also saw better outcomes

22:42.495 --> 22:44.195
for doctoral researchers potentially.

22:44.695 --> 22:47.995
Um, but also the changes that were people were able

22:47.995 --> 22:49.875
to make depending on the local setting,

22:49.945 --> 22:52.035
depending on their expertise and their resources.

22:52.735 --> 22:55.195
So what this really means in terms of policymaking,

22:55.455 --> 22:57.835
unless we want to maintain this massive inequality,

22:57.985 --> 23:00.795
this ongoing inequality, we need to think about

23:00.815 --> 23:02.995
how certain policies will land on different kinds

23:02.995 --> 23:06.235
of institutions and then basically build into them ways

23:06.235 --> 23:08.395
of not penalizing certain ones.

23:08.815 --> 23:10.915
Um, so in a way the logic

23:10.935 --> 23:13.115
of consistently rewarding the winners is cheaper

23:13.895 --> 23:16.555
and more efficient, but it's not fair

23:16.615 --> 23:19.075
and it potentially increases inequality over time.

23:19.295 --> 23:20.555
So for our three groups,

23:21.455 --> 23:23.515
the insiders are ahead and stayed ahead.

23:23.575 --> 23:25.195
The leavers were able to catch up,

23:25.655 --> 23:27.355
but the outsiders kind of get left behind

23:27.375 --> 23:28.755
and then this gap grows and grows.

23:28.755 --> 23:30.755
So they're never gonna catch up unless something changes.

23:31.695 --> 23:35.435
Um, so there's also a point about not designing

23:35.735 --> 23:36.875
policy and schemes.

23:36.875 --> 23:38.115
So they're excessively bureaucratic.

23:38.245 --> 23:40.195
There needs to be some kind of checks and balances,

23:40.195 --> 23:41.555
but also at the same time,

23:42.055 --> 23:43.835
if you're designing a policy which then

23:43.835 --> 23:45.035
becomes counterproductive,

23:46.595 --> 23:47.595
What are you supposed to do? It

23:47.595 --> 23:49.685
just doesn't work. So all

23:49.685 --> 23:51.005
of these things kind of work together.

23:51.145 --> 23:52.365
The different bits push

23:52.385 --> 23:54.485
and pull against each other depending on who you are.

23:55.105 --> 23:56.325
And then this basically means

23:56.325 --> 23:58.085
that policies land really unevenly

23:58.185 --> 24:02.515
and it's one size fits all, doesn't fit all, I guess is kind

24:02.515 --> 24:03.275
of the take home point.

00:00 - What we're seeing is internationally, globally, there's a massive increase in what we might call doctoral production, but basically the number of people doing doctorates, and this is kind of driven by different things. Some of it is kind of fundamentally

00:13 - about international competition. There's an idea that if countries have more people with doctorates in their, in their economies, particularly around, science and technology that we get then advances on other countries. It's to do with, you know, international competition. And this comes on the back of kind of a massive increase in more people doing undergraduate degrees. So in the UK there's this sort of 50% figure that,

00:35 - that Tony Blair kind of talked about a while ago now. But, and again, this is, it's a slightly dodgy logic, but the idea that if we have more people with certain kinds of degrees, the economy grows. Anyway, that's the kind of the logic. But what we're seeing around doctorates is not only a massive increase in the number of people doing doctorates, and that's not just PhDs. There are other kinds of doctorates is there's more funding. So governments are actually driving this too.

01:02 - but what what happens is the funding is competitive. So it rewards those that already have a headstart. The winners basically keep winning. also in exchange for more money, there's greater levels of accountability. So measurement and checks, and evaluations of things like research culture and research capacity that kind of goes along with that. It also means that for universities, PhDs are something that have strategic value.

01:25 - So it's not something that we do and something that we are good at, but actually it's something that is kind of managed and curated much more than it used to be because it makes a difference. And on the back of this, there are changes to the doctorate, sort of what the content is, what subjects get kind of researched or what doesn't get researched. And the idea that, that people, that the, before the, it was an idea that the thesis was kind

01:49 - of enough, whereas now there's the idea that there's a thesis, plus you do lots of additional training for employability around teaching or, or non-academic work. and one of the things that goes with that is they have these, rather than having individual people going to do doctorates, they have groups of people who all do individual doctorates, but in groups so they move through together, particularly in labs and that kind of stuff.

02:10 - So that's what we're seeing internationally. That's the wider context. Lots of the same stuff that we are seeing internationally we're seeing here. So from 2008 for the next decade, there was a 40% increase in the number of doctorates. So to give you some numbers as to what that looks like, in 2008, there was 17,000 doctorates a year coming out of UK universities. A decade later, that's 24,000. So what this means that every four years

02:39 - or so, there are a hundred thousand doctorates out there in the academic and non-academic labor markets. So it's a fairly big chunk of chunk of people. but alongside this, there are major changes within universities. We have kind of what are known as doctoral colleges or graduate colleges as universities kind of change their structures to, I guess better manage farm and harvest PhDs in a way. and also greater sort of thematic

03:06 - and disciplinary centers and partnerships. And you have this idea of what's known as a doctoral training center or doctoral training partnership. And now there are more than 300 of these across different disciplines. sometimes within unis, sometimes with multiple unis involved. But what's particularly interesting in the UK is that the level of hierarchy

03:29 - and competition we have between universities is probably quite unusual compared to many other countries. The fact that we have this intense hierarchy of certain universities at the top and then tailing down to, so-called lower quality unis, means that whatever policy happens tends to land unevenly in a way. So we have these trends, but because of the way the UK system is kind of a, a pyramid, how it lands will vary.

03:57 - And the idea of what a better uni is is massively subjective and problematic, but it's something that we've got and it's something that is built into public perception and policy. So we basically have this issue with massively uneven funding awards. So what's known as the golden triangle between Oxford, Cambridge and London sucks up a huge proportion of what's available in terms of research funding. 90% of all doctorates in the UK come from around half

04:26 - of the unis in the country. So there's a level of unevenness, let's call it. And then within the social sciences, you start to see similar trends where, more specifically in 2011, the ESRC, which is the Economic Social Research Council, they launched a new policy as of 2011, or it started in 2011. They kind of started winding up from 2009. And there were 86 unis

04:58 - that received ESRC funding or recognition. This was cut in half overnight. And the timing of this was tricky because it was, during sort of austerity and budget cuts after the global financial crisis. So the money that research councils were getting was cut massively. So they had to try and do less with less I guess. and then the winners were nearly all the larger older universities

05:24 - that kind of kept this funding and status. And the same thing happened with other research councils, give or take. and so what we had is we had individual universities receiving it or university partnerships receiving it. And increasingly over time, that's become nearly all partnerships apart from some unis which are in partnership with themselves. They have a partnership, but it's an internal partnership.

05:45 - And, and the research councils are kind of dictating what happens within the doctorate around research training and those kinds of things. They're not leaving it entirely up to university's own expertise and discretion. They're becoming more directive over what happens within and how it works. But what we still see is that there's an increase in social science doctorates. So even the, so across the sector, everyone,

06:09 - different groups of universities are still pumping out more in a way. So we have this uneven policy, particularly in the social sciences, but this is only a proportion of social sciences. The literature shows, as I kind of laid out before, is it looks like there's, there's this degree of convergence at the global and national level that by and large you're seeing the same kinds of trends in and around doctoral provision.

06:31 - but in the uk in the social sciences, there's very little research outside those that get the funding. So there are, there were a bunch of papers that looked at kind of the national picture and then there are a couple of papers that looked at those that actually retained the funding and sort of the difficulties of having that. But we didn't know much about everybody else, which was the majority, right?

06:52 - It's, you know, we knew something about the 40, we didn't know any much about the other 120 in a way. So this is important because we need to have a look at what's going on outside this kind of, this small group, the select few, but also there's a, it offers an opportunity to look at this convergence. So if we do have this convergence, how is it happening and what does it look like and what's happening? How is it happening in different kinds of institutions?

07:17 - So then from a theoretical perspective, if you're gonna look at convergence, you need to look beyond the surface. So at the national level we can see, yeah, by and large the same kinds of things seem to be happening, but actually what's happening underneath that and kind of what are the dynamics that are going on within, within universities. So if it looks like everyone's doing the same thing or if they're not, what's going on within that?

07:39 - So there's this idea called institutional isomorphism. This is the theory and this is really well used across particularly management studies and and sort of big sectoral things where there's a, a long running observation that organizations in the same field tend to look like one another. So whether it's hospitals, car manufacturers, banks, newspapers, governments, political parties or militaries, they all resemble each other quite greatly.

08:06 - Now the question is, is what underpins this? There's the conventional sort of management textbook logic that all decisions made by organizations are based on efficiency and effectiveness. We looked at the options and we chose the best possible one, which is to be better and or more profitable, right? So that's the logic. And of course that does happen to a certain extent, but it's not the only thing that's happening. One of the other things that happens is you've got policy

08:31 - and law standards and regulations. So someone says that if you are doing such and such, you have to do it in this way. You know, we have standards, safety standards, whatever it is, you know, that governs how things are done. So this is known as coercion. There's also emesis, which is copying. So organizations for example, will not know what to do in a particular situation. So they'll look at the leaders in inverted

08:57 - commas and they'll copy them. They may not know if what they're copying is the best model, but they also, what is interesting here, it's about looking better rather than necessarily being better. So it's like having a gold stamp on your website to say that we've been McKinsey audited or whatever. And that doesn't mean you are better, it just means you've been McKinsey audited like other people who are supposedly good and have been McKinsey audited.

09:19 - And then the other thing is what's known as normativity, which is kind of standard practice. This is the way we've done stuff and we don't question it anymore. So it's not just about organizations doing the best thing, it's also about what influences them in terms of government policy, in terms of norms, but also in terms of copying each other, particularly high status players. So that's a way of understanding how convergence works

09:44 - and how organizational behavior works. we interviewed 30 staff, all senior staff within UK universities. The research directors, senior, senior academics or senior leaders, ratio of men to women was four to one. and this is kind of a recognition of the problem that we have in terms of promotion and pipelines and who gets to senior positions and who doesn't. but all of the people that we spoke to were in positions

10:12 - where they're able to kind of see direct and manage to some extent how their institutions acted when it comes to doctorates and kind of what they basically have a fairly good view and sometimes a hand on the research and or PhD strategy, particularly in relation to social sciences. So they're well placed to know what the organization's doing and why. And they quite often they're very hands-on in doing it.

10:35 - so as I mentioned before, 'cause there are these major hierarchies within the UK university system, it was really important for us to recruit participants from different kinds of unis. So, from the, so-called elite universities to the more inclusive ones and this means that the course, they have different track records and different research profiles and different doctoral profiles. And one of the things we did is we divided them into three

11:02 - different groups based on their kind of access to research funding for their doctorates, particularly social science research funding. So one group were known as, we called them the insiders and these are the ones that always had ESRC funding and then kept it. So in a way nothing changes. And they're generally older, generally larger Russell group and highly developed across all disciplines. So they're kind of big across the board.

11:27 - Then you have what we call the leavers and these are the ones that always had access to the funding. But in 2011 lost it. So they nearly all regained it in 2016, but at the time when we did the interviews they'd lost it and they were feeling that. and this was a mix of kind of 1960s and former polytechnic universities generally pretty big. and with a long doctoral history,

11:51 - but maybe not strong across all slash most subject areas. And then you get what we call the outsiders who never had this funding, were still excluded from it. they're often newer to the doctoral game. tending to be a bit smaller, more undergraduate focused and more teaching oriented but still undertaking research. And it's important to point out that this is kind of a spectrum rather than these groups are kind of artificial. We created them. There is a spectrum of different ways

12:18 - of thinking about unis, but this was a kind of a useful one. So we interviewed these people kind of fairly wide ranging discussions around their doctoral provision, what they were doing and why, how they saw the wider and local situation, what impacted them, what kind of helped them and what got in the way. one of the things that was really unusual about this project is it can be really hard to recruit participants to projects,

12:42 - but this was dead easy, partly 'cause we know who we wanted to speak to, but also lots of people were really, agitated about the situation. So we approached 60 people and got 32 and I've never had a project that went that well. so the analysis was then looking at what they were doing and why and kind of what else was going on. Coming back to this notion of coercion, ESIS optimization and normativity as a way

13:06 - of understanding what they're doing. The overall finding was we were expecting in a way to find this convergence that universities are kind of doing the same thing. And that was broadly true. They were all making changes to their doctoral provision in terms of how it was structured and organized and what happened within the doctorate. They were all looking to increase their doctoral numbers.

13:26 - but there were also differences. So the levers and insiders were doing these kind of group cohorts things, the others weren't. So there is convergence, but there was a big but or lots of buts in a way in terms of how and why they were doing it. In terms of coercion, this is the policy element. What we're able to see is that what's known as the research excellence framework, which is a periodic policy which

13:51 - to some extent evaluates research quality and then allocates funding on the basis of it. But it also impacts eligibility for funding. So if you get below certain scores, you can't bid for certain things. and this in part includes doctoral numbers. So in a way there's this kind of, if you don't do well, you can't do well, you can't bid for stuff in the future. So the ref was basically the, the main reason why all of these universities were trying to boost, increase,

14:21 - augment their doctoral provision for the outsiders, the kind of the smaller institutions. They had to do this at a low cost level with some of their own scholarships but also creative ways of funding them. Self-funding part-time or getting their staff to do them at no fees for the leavers. What they generally did was funded their own scholarships and also recruited international PGS postgraduate

14:44 - researchers for the insiders. this was external scholarships 'cause they had them, there was internal funding 'cause they had it and they also recruited international people because they're high status and they can, but they also faced problems in the, the bureaucracy that came with the funding was significant. So you get it but there's also a whole lot of crud that comes with it. and also there's a visa policy issue

15:07 - where if you're recruiting international applicants, which you have to, there's a problem if the visas make that difficult. So the government says you need international students to survive, but we're gonna make it really hard for them to come, which is kind of a, so you have the policies which push against each other in terms of emesis. This is the kind of the copying and the status element. So this the, this is about the status game.

15:32 - So having the funding and having the stamp of the recognition that comes with the funding was a really big deal. So for the outsiders, they were already low in status and no longer having, it just meant there was the continued indignity of being cut outta the group and not being able to grow. 'cause this funding is seen as a kitemark, a badge, right? And for the leavers who lost it, this was a massive indignity.

15:54 - This was a real shock to them. So what they by and large did was they massively reviewed their postgraduate provision, particularly their doctoral provision and boosted it, augmented it and invested lots of their own funding in it. For the insiders. They were concerned about keeping it so they had to make sure they stayed in the right space but they were maintaining what they were already doing,

16:15 - augmenting it slightly. But this was about status. So status was really important 'cause not having the funding hurts and losing it scares you. So in terms of normativity, this is kind of doing stuff that we've always done. What we also found was that, you know, PhD is a part of what universities do give or take. It's just part of the nature of you need

16:37 - to have people doing PhDs 'cause they're future academics. It's research production, it's all of this stuff. It's part of kind of what we do. But all of these policies means that there are changes in standard practice. Any kind of organizational change creates a headache because you've gotta amend what you do and get used to new ways of doing things. And some of those things can be a real pain, particularly if stuff is centralized

16:59 - and you lose control over what you've already done. Particularly for the insiders, the, the big universities that that retained this funding. What happened was that if you are in a university partnership, you've got universities that compete with each other that don't have to collaborate and that's quite tricky. Or departments that compete with each other for scholarships that then have to collaborate. And that's quite hard.

17:22 - You also get into disciplinary differences where if the research councils are saying your research training has to include these things, there are some disciplines who say, well they make no sense to us for some social sciences such as, so let's say sociology to some extent it's a fairly broad church in terms of methods. But if the economists are saying, well qualitative research makes no sense to us, why would we bother?

17:43 - And the historians or the anthropologists such are just saying multilevel modeling is just utterly pointless to us. It it's what we might call epistemologically pointless. It doesn't really tell you anything of value. So you have this and then in terms of optimization, that was the last one. This is the idea that what you are doing achieves better outcomes. This was there too. So for some it was about cost savings but also reducing unnecessary duplication.

18:08 - So in a way there's no point having all of these different departments offering the same training independently when you can actually put it together. So in, in some ways that works. but also there was a definite recognition that reviewing and augmenting your doctoral provision means that the postgraduate researchers have a better experience and they're likely to have better outcomes in the sense that what you can do is you can check your standards of provision and even though everything's kind of good, you can make sure

18:36 - that you can more, more confidently state that everyone will have a good time give or take. But that standards are strong across the board rather than probably strong but we're not sure less people are slipped through the gaps. And then there was also the recognition that people are now graduating with a doctoral three thesis and a degree what they've learned from it ification, but also a whole lot of other transferable skills. So there we have EMIS in terms

19:04 - of copying and loss of status. We have normativity in terms of having to change what we've already done. We have optimization and that there are some cost savings and better outcomes, but also there's a very strong policy influence here. So all of these different isomorphic forces are happening at the same time, going right back to the beginning that while there is convergence at the bigger level, it's not uniform in the detail

19:28 - and how it plays out is very much nationally flavored. So we can see that at the national level there's the kind of the domestic policy, the economy, the economic situation, the history and the culture flavors, how global trends play out. And this is kind of something which is known, but this actually kind of shows an example of how that works. It reinforces what we know. What's kind of interesting here is that

19:52 - who you are as a uni matters. So I talked before about the hierarchy and actually where you are in the hierarchy means that the policy helps or hits you in different ways. So, your positioning in terms of that hierarchy and different policies really matters. So for the outsiders, the smaller universities, they have this continued indignity of being excluded and penalized for not being old and not being well developed and they can't grow.

20:21 - So they're making changes but they can't make major changes 'cause they don't have the expertise and they don't have the resources. And so they want to grow, but they're being held back by this policy situation and this wider situation for the leavers, the kind of mid rage institutions, they had a massive shock at the loss of the funding and recognition that really hit them. But they had the track record, the resources

20:44 - and the know-how to be able to catch up and most of them did. So they basically augmented what they already had and kind of turbocharged it managed to get back into the, back into the select group for the insiders. They were really worried about losing the status and the funding, but by and large it was kind of business as usual, although they did still have headaches around the work involved in doing all of that stuff.

21:10 - So they had the benefit of the funding and the status, but at the same time they had headaches around additional bureaucracy. So what this shows in a way is this, this idea of isomorphism and these different things that influence convergence is these things work for and against each other. I mentioned some of this before. So in terms of policy, it encourages growth and change, but it also impedes it at the same time. So the bureaucracy and policy changes slow things down.

21:37 - They make it harder to do what the policy's trying to achieve. If there's too much paperwork, it's not about an absence of checks and balances or you know, the supposed red tape that gets vilified right out there or demonized. But actually it's about having something more manageable and trusting of institutions rather than imposing these massive audit kind of, changes and data that has to be collected.

21:57 - But also the policy basically says that universities have to internationally recruit, but the visa situation hampers it. So you can see that the policy is helping and not helping at the same time norms. In a way you can see that PhDs a part of university's DNA in a way. It's part of how we think and what we do. But there are some things that push against standard practice man, standard practice,

22:20 - particularly disciplinary norms. And so change are difficult because it's not, if you take something for granted, changing is then hard. in terms of miis, there's lots of copying the leaders for status reasons. You know, status is really important in a hierarchical market or a hierarchical setup set up. And in terms of optimization, we also saw better outcomes for doctoral researchers potentially.

22:44 - but also the changes that were people were able to make depending on the local setting, depending on their expertise and their resources. So what this really means in terms of policymaking, unless we want to maintain this massive inequality, this ongoing inequality, we need to think about how certain policies will land on different kinds of institutions and then basically build into them ways of not penalizing certain ones. so in a way the logic

23:10 - of consistently rewarding the winners is cheaper and more efficient, but it's not fair and it potentially increases inequality over time. So for our three groups, the insiders are ahead and stayed ahead. The leavers were able to catch up, but the outsiders kind of get left behind and then this gap grows and grows. So they're never gonna catch up unless something changes. so there's also a point about not designing

23:35 - policy and schemes. So they're excessively bureaucratic. There needs to be some kind of checks and balances, but also at the same time, if you're designing a policy which then becomes counterproductive, What are you supposed to do? It just doesn't work. So all of these things kind of work together. The different bits push

23:52 - and pull against each other depending on who you are. And then this basically means that policies land really unevenly and it's one size fits all, doesn't fit all, I guess is kind of the take home point.

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