Conference Agenda

A Ph.D. often requires several years to complete; throughout this time, students face both intellectual and emotional challenges. As many of the students experience enthusiasm in the process, others have negative feelings (Stubb et al., 2011). The extraordinarily competitive academic environment, stressful conditions (Mattijssen et al., 2021), lack of permanent contacts and research funding, and increasingly difficult working conditions (Olsthoorn et al., 2020) have negative effect on academic well-being and mental health. Thus doctoral students were seen as high-risk group for problems with their mental health and well-being that may affect the quality and quantity of the researcher’s output (Levecque et al., 2017).

Researcher Mental Health Observatory (ReMO) COST Action network (234 members representing 34 EU countries) is one of the first coordinated and evidence-based European initiatives addressing mental health and well-being issues in academia. In the public declaration called ReMO Manifesto, ReMO aims to develop strategies for researcher well-being and mental health which are prioritized by World Health Organisation (WHO), International Labour Organisation (ILO), and European Commission (EC) in the past decade. ReMO aims to promote and improve mental health and well-being of researchers through developing strategies for how Europa and national level organizations proposed frameworks for improving career development for doctoral and early career researchers in academia and beyond.

Thus, it is crucial to examine how and in what ways doctoral organizations such as Eurodoc and Vitae have been known to provide support for doctoral candidates and address well-being and mental health needs. Eurodoc, European Council of Doctoral Candidates and Junior Researchers is an international federation of 26 national associations of early career researchers (ECRs) from Europe. Eurodoc was established as a non-profit, global volunteer organization in 2005 based in Brussels after first being launched in 2002. Eurodoc interacts with all significant European stakeholders and plays important role to inform policy at the European level. Eurodoc (2018) proposed a transferable skills and competency framework that consist of nine competence categories for early career researchers to be used in doctoral training as follows: career development, cognitive, communication, digital, enterprise, interpersonal, mobility, research, teaching, and supervision. Besides, it conducts projects, and training activities for researchers, and creates a learning community among researchers.

Another important organization supporting the professional development of researchers is Vitae with over 50 years of experience. Vitae aims to empower doctoral researchers, provide professional and career development support for researchers, and inform policy related to researcher development. To achieve this, Researcher Development Framework (RDF), developed by Vitae with the help of the United Kingdom Higher Education sector and other stakeholders, provides a highly comprehensive approach to researcher development (2010). The RDF is a professional development framework for planning, promoting, and supporting the personal, professional, and career development of researchers in higher education. The RDF has four domains as follows: knowledge and intellectual abilities, personal effectiveness, research governance, organization, engagement, influence, and impact. Similar to Eurodoc, Vitae organizes events for researchers such as project meetings, conferences, training, and creating a learning community. Both of these organizations originally were focusing on developing academic skills and competencies, and only more recently they have expanded their focus to include the mental health and well-being of doctoral students.

In this context, the aim of this study is to compare and contrast the steps these two prominent organizations, which play a crucial role in doctoral researcher development, are taking related to the well-being and mental health of doctoral students that have a crucial role in doctoral researcher development. More specifically, the research question for this exploration is:

- How are doctoral researchers’ well-being and mental health needs being addressed by Eurodoc and Vitae?

The international higher education sector has developed growing interest in the concept of ‘sense of belonging’ for students over recent years. Understanding sense of belonging is about understanding how students come to feel connected with their peers, their place of study and their university community. This paper engages with the conversations happening across the United Kingdom, United States and Europe, about what sense of belonging is, how it can be fostered to improve students’ academic outcomes and experiences within their educational communities, and the key role of evaluation in making change for students.

Through insights from a literature review of international research and from primary research conducted in an English higher education institution, the paper aims to connect the worlds of research and evaluation to further knowledge of both sense of belonging research and a Theory of Change evaluation framework. The use of a case study will demonstrate how research-engaged evaluation methodologies can be used to assess the real-world application of research findings and their potential impact on students. Alongside the UK context of the case study, research and real-world findings from other contexts will be integrated e.g., student-led bonding and belonging activities in universities based in Denmark, Sweden, and Norway.

The research questions driving this work, and framing the structure of this proposed presentation, are:

• What is ‘sense of belonging’ in the higher education context and why does it matter?

• How can researchers and evaluators contribute to developing a sense of belonging and community for diverse student groups in universities across different geographical contexts?

• How can researchers and evaluators work together to improve outcomes for students in real-world applications of research?

These research questions align with the key purpose of this presentation: to articulate how research and evaluation can collaborate to establish, and ideally to improve, the impact on outcomes when planning and delivering interventions intended to facilitate a greater sense of belonging and community for students. The paper also investigates how university colleagues (including researchers, evaluators, and practitioners) can use existing research findings to inform how they facilitate diverse and inclusive communities and spaces for students. This objective will be met by sharing insights from key research on sense of belonging, including defining how ‘fit’ is influential for students’ belonging academically, socially and in the spaces which combine the academic and social.

These concepts of ‘fit’ come from the conceptual and theoretical frameworks underpinning the paper, which have been developed and challenged by the growing pool of literature on these topics. The conceptual frameworks for ‘sense of belonging’ span psychosocial, sociological, and educational theories; as my understandings have been influenced by multiple authors and ways of thinking, there is opportunity to share multiple theoretical perspectives within the paper. Crucially, I draw on the work of Lewis and Hodges (2014) who consider the two dimensions of “social fit” and “ability or academic fit” as the foundations of sense of belonging; this distinction acts as stimulus for the case study of encouraging greater student engagement in academic school-related societies.

Alongside the conceptual frameworks relating to sense of belonging and community, this paper is also informed by, and engaged with, the evaluative framework of Theory of Change. This approach is often used to evaluate community-based change interventions, aiming to make visible the complex interactions between actions and their outcomes. The paper will share insights on how a Theory of Change works and how it can be practically used in response to, and alongside, research and evidence in real-life application - in this case, in interventions aimed to facilitate university students’ sense of belonging to their academic school (/academic department).

The evolution of Irish Institutes of Technology (IoT) to Technology University (TU) status is near completion. These changes have resulted in a heightened need for the new TUs to continue to build on previous success in competing for research funding and attracting higher numbers of PhD students. Success of this nature depends, in part, on individuals identifying new sources of social, economic, and technological innovation. Building a research culture of interdisciplinarity (ID) will be a key aspect of achieving these milestones. At the centre of this move toward ID are the Principal Investigators (PIs), actors who find themselves responsible for delivering research projects; something which requires them to think and talk across disciplinary boundaries.

Until relatively recently, the use of the term ID has been inconsistent with respect to how and in what way it is defined. Therefore, conducting a review of the extant literature is helpful to explore different approaches and conceptualisations of ID and their historical emergence. Furthermore, conducting this review will identify the underlying theoretical positions as a first step towards the completion of a successful research study aimed at augmenting current knowledge on how to manage interdisciplinary research and development environments. Ultimately, better enabling PIs and their research teams to think and talk beyond their core discipline; to overcome the troublesome knowledge of disciplinary barriers; and to communicate across professional disciplinary boundaries.

The aim of this paper is to explore the historical emergence of interdisciplinarity and its main conceptualisations.

The following questions guide the literature review:

1. How is interdisciplinarity defined?
2. How has the concept of interdisciplinarity developed over time?
3. What are the key conceptualisations of interdisciplinarity within the literature?

Theoretical Framework:

The concept of ID has, over the last few decades, rapidly gained popularity within the research arena – including Higher Education Institutes (HEIs). It has impacted all areas of research, including practice, teaching, and policy. Proponents of ID posit arguments for why it is not only beneficial but necessary for tackling the large-scale challenges facing society. Examples of such support can be seen across the research landscape, from funding agencies introducing requirements for interdisciplinary collaboration in competitive calls (European Commission, 2018), to HEIs reducing the number of research centres so that researchers are coalesced into more interdisciplinary settings (EUA, 2021). Substantial innovation relies on the ability of research leaders to facilitate diversity and integration across disciplinary boundaries within their teams. (Gray, 2008).

Interdisciplinarity, although sometimes presented as being in a dichotomy with disciplinarity, fundamentally relies on an integration of different disciplines. Ways of thinking within individual disciplines have certain similarities (Donald, 2002; McCune & Hounsell, (2005): i) a deep engagement with the epistemology, ii) command of the vocabulary and theory of the field, that leads ultimately to iii) a different mindset or way of thinking and practising that is distinctive of the discipline. The differences between disciplines are often subtle and lie in the type of language used, the logical structure, preferred criteria for validating knowledge and most pronounced methods or modes of inquiry (Apostel, Berger, Briggs & Michauud, OECD, 1970; Dirkx, 1996; Becher & Trowler, 2001, Lave & Wenger, 1999). Donald’s working model of thinking processes across the disciplines reveals six thinking processes and behaviours that are coded across five methods of inquiry: hermeneutics, critical thinking, problem solving, scientific method and expertise (2002, pg24).

While universities are expected to enhance graduate employability, the role of different higher education features in this process has been overlooked due to an overreliance on employment-based measures. This holds even more in the context of European liberal arts education (LAE) and its distinctive features, the implications of which on student employability gains are still unknown. The resurgence of LAE in Europe has been taking place since the late 1990s, especially in the Netherlands, where ten university colleges have been established. Inspired by the American liberal arts model but maintaining its own specificities, Dutch university colleges are defined by several unique features that distinguish them from traditional bachelor’s programmes. Firstly, university colleges are broad, general academic programmes that are not professionally oriented. Furthermore, university colleges are distinguished by their self-tailored, interdisciplinary curricula that allow students to combine courses from a wide range of fields, a student-centred learning environment involving small-scale teaching and extensive student-faculty interactions, as well as selective admission policies. In contrast to this, traditional bachelor’s programmes in the Netherlands are typically more professionally focused and monodisciplinary, with a fixed curriculum structure, large-scale teaching, and non-selective admission.

Dutch university colleges have been lauded for their commitment to academic excellence, but also criticized for the alleged impracticality of their degrees. While the proponents of LAE stress its ability to provide an optimal response to the demands associated with the contemporary workplace, little is known as to how the distinctive characteristics of LAE programmes relate to enhancing student employability. The current paper addresses this research gap. Its main goal is twofold. Firstly, it seeks to propose an alternative, developmental approach to assessing the contribution of undergraduate programmes to fostering employability. Secondly, it aims to determine how a university college performs in this regard compared to a traditional bachelor’s programme in Law at the same university. It does so by applying the graduate capital model, a well-established employability framework proposed by Michael Tomlinson (2017), and using it to answer the following research question: How does employability develop in university college students during the course of their studies compared to their peers from a traditional programme?

Adjusting the graduate capital model to fit the study purpose, the paper focuses on six skills that enhance employability: creativity, lifelong learning, career decidedness, self-efficacy, resilience, and personal initiative. The framework adjustment has been guided by four main considerations, focusing on employability constituents which: (a) are malleable and can be developed within higher education, (b) fundamentally stem from the overall learning environment, (c) are expected to reflect the distinctive features of LAE, and (d) can be measured with adequate instruments. To measure employability growth, a cross-sectional pseudo-cohort research design is adopted, comparing first-, second-, and third-year student cohorts. The study employed a DiD approach, looking at the differences in the development students make within a programme.

The results show that attending an LAE undergraduate programme leads to visible progression in a range of career-relevant skills. This is especially the case with regard to creativity and personal initiative, in which second- and third-year LAE students both scored significantly higher than freshmen. As for career decidedness, self-efficacy, and resilience, significant gains were found for second-year LAE cohorts. Lifelong learning scores revealed no significant differences between the three study years. Compared to the traditional programme, the gains in creativity and personal initiative particularly stand out, reflecting the differences between interdisciplinary and monodisciplinary learning, and self-tailored and fixed curriculum structure. This refutes the stereotype that a liberal arts degree does not prepare students for the labour market and points to the relevance of programme-specific features for employability development in higher education.