Doctoral Students in Asia

Over the last decade, many Asian governments and universities have made various attempts to strengthen their higher education system and develop world-class universities. As a result, the research productivity and status of Asian universities is rapidly increasing in various global rankings. However, despite the quantitative growth, the quality of graduate school, especially doctoral programs, is still questionable in Asian countries. In order to provide practical and theoretical implication for further development of Asian doctoral programs, this research will compare students attending three leading Asian research universities through collecting empirical data. Specifically, this study will pay attention to doctoral students’ socio-psychological experiences such as the academic socialization process in each academic discipline, their interactions with professors and colleagues and their future plans after graduation. The Center for Higher Education and Knowledge Studies (CHEKs) is the research center for studying knowledge as well as Higher Education Studies. The CHEKs is a network-based research center which invites scholars from all over the world as co-researchers. In addition, CHEKs is actively networking with internationally recognized research centers and institutes including the East-West Center in Hawaii, University of Hong Kong, and Center for Innovation, Technology and Policy Research, Instituto Superior Tecnico. Our main research themes include higher education studies in general (governance, finance, academic profession, and policy studies) and broad range of knowledge studies (knowledge and social development, knowledge and school curriculum, contextualization of knowledge, etc.).