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IDENTIFYING THE PH.D. STUDENTS’ NEEDS FOR CAREER ENHANCEMENT SKILLS

"In the past few years, it has been seen that an increasing number of Ph.D. graduates are following a career outside academia. CHAMELEONS1 project has undertaken the role of identifying and fulfilling the needs of Ph.D. students for following a career in the industry in digital health. This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under grant agreement No 873105. The overall aim of CHAMELEONS is to firstly identify a range of modules and secondly co-design and deliver three interdisciplinary, inter-sectoral, and international modules which will broaden the skills of 15 Ph.D. students/Post-Doctoral Fellows to improve their employability in both academic and non-academic environments. CHAMELEONS’ consortium offered the opportunity to the Ph.D. students participating in the project to attend some modules in fellow universities and outside their Ph.D. program. This work presents the choices of the students. Students were called to identify one to three modules based on their needs and interests. To that end, and towards identifying the quantitative and qualitative characteristics of the selected courses, a questionnaire was developed. The questionnaire was implemented as part of an online google classroom resource where information about the available courses for selection was made available. The questionnaire answers were completely anonymous. The questionnaire attempts to attain information regarding these courses at two levels: (i) background and skills that the students recognized as underdeveloped and the tools they used to identify them, (ii) preferences of students in terms of interest, reasons, and motivation of selection and the skills (provided by the European classification of Skills, Competences, and Occupations - ESCO2) they aim to acquire through these courses. 13 students replied to this questionnaire, all coming from diverse backgrounds (health-related or health technology-related) and the majority used a self-awareness/ self-assessment tool to identify the skills that they need to improve and make their decision. Moreover, students selected courses that do not actually improve a hard skill needed for their research, but soft skills in the business and career management direction, focusing mostly on creativity, innovation, and communication. Finally, students are willing to attain what can be considered necessary for building a successful career in every sector. To conclude, our study suggests that Ph.D. students have a need to develop skills beyond their basic scientific education. These skills are related to the perspective of developing a successful career plan and being competitive in the occupational arena."