The seminar themed “Common challenges in PhD research” was arranged as a knowledge exchange event about challenges that doctoral researchers commonly encounter. Around 40 participants joined the event that was open to all doctoral researchers at Lancaster University’s Educational Research/Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences and Tampere University’s Faculty of Education and Culture. The programme included short presentations by three PhD supervisors – Dr Nataša Lacković, Dr Vesa Korhonen and Dr Johanna Annala – who reflected on some of the key challenges that, from their experience, doctoral researchers commonly grapple with.
Nataša Lacković, co-director of CHERE, addressed the issues related to academic writing and ways of developing authorship, coherence, and theoretical conceptualisation in dissertation writing.
Vesa Korhonen, HET group co-leader, spoke about different considerations when writing a dissertation in a form of a monograph (single author written work) or an article-based dissertation (composed of several journal articles).
Johanna Annala, HET group co-leader, focussed on managing a PhD project to ensure a steady progress and a sustainable doctoral pathway.
Each presentation was followed by doctoral researchers’ group talks and open discussion facilitated by reflections and comments in a shared whiteboard space. The event was introduced and chaired by Vesna Holubek, HET group’s doctoral researcher at Tampere University and a visiting researcher at Lancaster University’s Educational Research department. The organisers agreed to arrange similar events in the future as the seminar raised some important questions and offered valuable advice on conducting doctoral research.
Text: Vesna Holubek
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