ivr
IVR2022
SW18
DOCTORAL EDUCATION IN LAW – THEORIES, REGULATIONS, EXPERIENCES
CONVENOR: MACIEJ JUZASZEK
Until 20 years ago, the structures and principles of doctoral education in Europe varied greatly, not only at the national level but even between particular universities within one country. In 2003, however, the issue of doctoral training was included in the European Higher Education Area (the Bologna Process), associating 48 European countries. Already in 2003, EHEA ministers declared that doctoral studies should be the third cycle in the Bologna Process. After that, the European University Association (EUA) was given the mandate to investigate significant issues facing doctoral education in Europe and formulate recommendations for further reforms. The results of this work were presented in 2005 at the Salzburg conference, where ten Salzburg Principles were developed. They are widely endorsed as a golden standard, not only by many universities and academics but also by European states that have introduced the reforms of doctoral education in recent years. In the project, it is assumed that this new European approach to doctoral education encapsulates the desired vision of doctoral training for the needs of the modern knowledge society in Europe. The reforms have been successively introduced in many European countries. As we can see, they have been progressing at the level of ideas, policy papers, legal regulations and eventually organizational structures. However, a question arises as to what impact these changes have on the educational experience of PhD candidates. Could it be that the everyday reality of doctoral education remains the same, despite changes in organizational and legal structures?
The workshop concerns doctoral students in law because it is often believed that law (understood here primarily as doctrinal legal research) is distinct from other academic disciplines, especially from the sciences. From a descriptive point of view, there may be several factors underlying such claims:
1) Law is often seen as a professional, practice-oriented discipline. Its legitimacy is not its methodological status (scientific) but its social function. It is supposed to influence the application and interpretation of the law and help legal practitioners solve real-life cases. Some even claim that there is (or should be) unity of academic and practising lawyers' discourse.
2) Law as a discipline concerns, to a great extent, domestic legal norms, institutions and cases. This is related to the previous point - lawyers in domestic institutions use legal academics’ work (e.g. judges, advocates, prosecutors). Academics from different disciplines often consider more universal problems (of course, not all of them, and not in every discipline)
3) Legal academics usually deal with legal norms expressed in national languages. Since the results of their research are mainly read and interpreted by domestic legal practitioners, it is not surprising that they also publish primarily in the national languages.
4) Also, the subject of legal research is mainly normative (legal norms), argumentative, interpretive and often ‘commentating’. This approach is often difficult to understand by other, especially empirically oriented, scientists. It is noticeable in particular in the multidisciplinary bodies during grant competitions.
5) Last but not least, legal methodology (mainly doctrinal method) is often seen as implicit, self-evident and not well-defined, not only by academics from other disciplines but even by legal scholars themselves. In legal theory, there is a long-lasting dispute about the scientific character of law and the methods characteristic for this discipline.
While doctorates in the sciences are often focused on the practical application of knowledge and technology in business (which is manifested, for example, in the increasing popularity of industrial doctorates), and doctorates in humanities and social sciences on academic research (these are, of course, broad generalizations), doctorates in legal sciences often stand somewhere in the middle, precisely because of the specific role of doctrinal legal research in the service of legal practice. A good illustration can be the fact that in many countries, e.g. in Poland, many lecturers and researchers at the faculties of law also work as advocates, legal advisers, judges, notaries, etc.
During the workshop, we will be particularly interested in discussing:
a) theories concerning legal education at the doctoral level (e.g. concerning the aims of doctoral education, the relations between doctoral education and legal practice, or methodology of doctoral education)
b) regulations of doctoral education in law in various countries and universities
c) educational experiences of doctoral candidates in law and lecturers.

The workshop is part of the research project ‘The impact of legal and institutional conditions on the educational experience of doctoral candidates in law’ (no. 2021/41/B/HS5/04468) funded by the Polish National Science Centre and carried out in the Centre for Legal Education and Social Theory, University of Wroclaw, Poland.