By Lise Wogensen Bach, vice-dean for Talent and Ole Steen Nielsen, vice-dean for Research, Aarhus University.

The past few weeks have seen an active debate about the PhD degree programme in Denmark, which culminated in the Ministry of Higher Education and Science’s conference on the future of the PhD degree programme on 30 April.

The debate has generally been dominated by statements to the effect that there are too many PhD fellows and that the PhD programme in general is a waste of public funds and that it ought to have higher quality. It has also been claimed that the country's most talented students take their PhD degree abroad and thus undermine the quality of the programme at home. Most recently, the Danish universities were ascribed an unambitious strategy of not wanting to reach a world-class status. In his role of Head of Research at The Think Tank DEA, Martin Junge wrote in his article ‘World-class research needs a change of culture’ (dea.nu) that "… while all the while companies are crying out for qualified labour and are often forced to look abroad to fill positions."

Staying with the football metaphor: We need to kick that one out of the stadium. Because of course we want to get in the premier league. We already play in the best leagues.

PhD students send Denmark to the top

Clinical and biomedical research is top class in Denmark. It is measured via impact and mean citation scores and is an indicator for how Denmark is positioned in relation to the countries with which we normally compare ourselves. A large part of the research which makes us top class takes place with the support of PhD students. It might not even be possible to get to this level if it were not for the efforts of our PhD students. We cannot calculate it precisely, but there is no doubt that Danish PhD students should be credited for the fundamental knowledge that leads to remarkable research results.

More Industrial PhDs needed 

Even though the number of PhD students who find employment in the private sector is the largest compared with a number of countries in Europe, Asia and the USA (OECD/Eurostat, Careers of Doctorate Holders, 2009) within the health sciences, we would very much like to strengthen our collaboration with business and industry, for example with more Industrial PhDs – and there is great potential for this.

The PhD degree programme lives up to the international framework conditions for the highest level of academic education and the work of the European organisation ORPHEUS and its “Standards for the PhD Education in Biomedicine and Health Sciences in Europe" is modelled on it.

PhDs are a good investment

We have a hard time believing that anyone can fundamentally disagree that Denmark and the international community needs well-educated people in all fields of study to ensure it has research talent.

In the field of health sciences, we must be able to compete in an international environment. This requires not only solid research grants, but also a strong and well-educated labour force and a large basis for recruitment, so we can remain at the forefront of research now and in the future.

The Danish government allocates DKK 3.6 billion annually to the PhD degree programme as a whole. This is a very significant amount of money and it is obviously important that we as a society also benefit from the investment. Furthermore, a large part of the research activities are covered by funding from private foundations, so the Danish state is not the only one paying.

170 PhD fellows graduated from the Faculty of Health Sciences at Aarhus University in 2014. Some of them will continue with their research activities, while others will contribute to developing research-based patient treatment and safeguarding health and welfare in an increasingly complex world.

Strengthen the quality of the PhD degree programmes

Let us now work together on how to systematically safeguard the quality of our highest academic education. It is narrow-minded to observe the development of our welfare society solely from the point of view of productivity considerations. And it is short-sighted to believe that we can manage in the competition we face from the USA and China, if we do not continue to prioritise our most talented researchers.

And yes, we WILL compete in the best international leagues – otherwise we would not be vice-deans or heads of graduate schools.

The debate was brought in Altinget the 5th of June 2015