Publications
Below you will find further publications offering valuable insights and in-depth information related to doctoral education in Ireland.
National good practice and skills statements
- HEA Principles of Good Practice in Research within Irish Higher Education Institutions
- Ireland’s Framework of Good Practice for Research Degree Programmes
- Irish Universities Doctoral Skills Statement - Third Edition
- The Technological Higher Education Quality Framework (Part III)
National framework and national quality assurance guidelines
- The National Framework for Doctoral Education in Ireland: Report on its Implementation by Irish Higher Education Institutions
- Statutory Quality Assurance Guidelines for Providers of Research Degree Programmes
National strategies to support research and innovation in Ireland
- Impact 2030 Ireland's Research and Innovation Strategy.pdf
- Global Citizens 2030: Ireland's International talent and Innovation Strategy.pdf
- Charting Ireland’s Research and Innovation Future: Research Ireland strategy 2026–2030
National reports developed via the National Framework for Doctoral Education (NFDE) Advisory Forum
In 2020, a review on the level of implementation of the National Framework for Doctoral Education (NFDE) was carried out by EUA Solutions. The report included a recommendation that “building on already on-going data collection, career tracking should be further developed.”
The Career Tracking Working Group (CTWG), a subgroup of the National Framework for Doctoral Education (NFDE) Advisory Forum, was established with the aim of carrying out a scoping exercise to develop a proposal for the development of a national postgraduate researcher career tracking project. In order to inform the work of the CTWG, a pilot project was setup by the Higher Education Authority (HEA) and Central Statistics Office (CSO) to analyse data on Doctoral graduate outcomes in the CSO’s Educational Longitudinal Database that is not currently being captured in existing reports.
The CTWG utilised the data analysed as part of the pilot project and drew on learnings from consultations with other countries who have implemented similar career tracking initiatives to produce its “Developing a national system for understanding career outcomes of postgraduate researchers from the Irish system” report. The HEA also created a separate report “Findings from CSO Analysis of Doctoral Graduate Outcomes” which underpins some of the recommendations made in the CTWG report.
Both reports are available below.