Training PhD graduates for greater societal impact
It’s that season again at UKZN, as Masters and PhD supervisors prepare their candidates for the highly anticipated 2025 Spring Graduation ceremonies.
Reflecting on my own PhD research, I recall it as a long and demanding process—grappling with complex concepts, fieldwork challenges, and months of drafting and revising. Academic research can be frustrating but also very rewarding. You start with your initial ideas and trips into the field, and over many months, with the support of your trusted supervisor(s), your work slowly takes shape until it becomes a polished final thesis after a couple of years.
Over more than a decade of mentoring and supervising PhD students, I have repeatedly observed this demanding but rewarding journey from the perspective of my students. It challenges their endurance and resilience, but completion brings a great sense of relief and, when the work is deemed to be of a high scholarly standard by the panel of examiners, both the student and supervisor share a well-earned sense of accomplishment and satisfaction.
Supervising PhD research is far from a smooth journey. Supervisors and students often face systemic obstacles that make completing the degree a challenging process. Supervisors, often have to manage extensive workloads and multiple mentees, and frequently unable to provide the depth of guidance and support students require. Meanwhile, many students enter their studies underprepared for the demanding academic requirements, while also grappling with financial pressures, work commitments, and personal responsibilities, all of which can hinder their progress and add to the complexity of the doctoral journey. These factors place considerable strain on the student-supervisor relationship often contributing to extended completion times and increased stress for the student and supervisor.
In the contemporary context, where the PhD is being judged in terms of its direct contribution to employability and career success, there is also growing scepticism regarding its relevance and efficacy. Many have questioned the rigid academic model of PhD research training, which is rooted in isolated scholarship within narrowly defined disciplines, because it increasingly seems at odds with the demands of a rapidly evolving and interconnected global landscape. While disciplinary research is foundational for mastering the core knowledge and skills of specific fields (e.g., theoretical physics, paleontology, psychology), I contend that it must be complemented—especially in the later stages of study—by broader competencies to fully prepare PhD candidates for diverse career paths and professional challenges. Excessive disciplinary insularity at the PhD level can limit graduates’ ability to engage effectively with complex, real-world problems and may hinder their capacity to translate academic research into meaningful societal impact.
One effective way to address these challenges is for PhD training to expand its theoretical and methodological frameworks beyond traditional disciplinary boundaries. By adopting broader conceptual approaches, we can enhance our ability to tackle complex societal problems—ranging from environmental crises to public health and social inequities—with greater depth and creativity. In this regard, interdisciplinary research (IDR) has becoming more prevalent in recent years. where scholars from two or more distinct academic disciplines collaborate, integrating theories, methods, and perspectives to address complex problems that cannot be solved by a single discipline alone. It involves synthesizing knowledge and approaches from these varied fields throughout all stages of research—from design and data collection to analysis and conclusions—to produce a more holistic understanding or innovative solution to complex societal problems.
COVID-19 pandemic research during 2020-2023 saw intensive collaboration, for instance, across infectious diseases, immunology, emergency care, and pediatrics that produced novel clinical care strategies and vaccine developments. This is one clear illustration case where biology, epidemiology, and public health integrated with mathematical modeling and social sciences for pandemic management. Further, advancements in technology and data accessibility may have also driven the development of large-scale IDR, as they have facilitated the transfer of methods across disciplines. New tools, shared data platforms, and computational models have now made it easier for scientists to access cross-disciplinary data and apply methods from different fields. This not only lowered the cost of study for conducting IDR but also provided new data, technologies, and solutions for longstanding research questions.
While discipline-specific research has its place in academia, PhD students can benefit greatly from engaging with different academic fields. Exploring diverse perspectives will broaden their perspectives while increasing the relevance and impact of their research. More generally, graduate training programs that emphasize real-world impact by involving external groups such as communities, policymakers, and industry can also help research move beyond academia and achieve meaningful practical change. Adopting an epistemic-type praxis approach may also help student to better grasp the ethical dimensions of their research and develop tools, methods, and applications that are sensitive to the diverse needs, histories, and values of different communities. I believe PhD training would also benefit from incorporating broader skills such as leadership, communication, project management, and digital literacy. As PhD programs are being encouraged to expand to include these areas, they should also offer greater flexibility through modular coursework and group or cohort-based learning to better support candidates.
PhD graduates play a critical role in society, acting as key drivers of innovation, knowledge advancement, and economic development. To remain relevant, the qualification needs to continually adapt, to avoid becoming an outdated rite of passage. Central to PhD training must be the development of innovative thinkers, the inclusion of diverse epistemic communities, and the cultivation of problem-solvers who contribute meaningfully and enduringly to society.