Abstract:

Internationalization in graduate education has created diverse trends in different regions. Higher mobility of international students and increased variety of university programmes on offer has resulted in new challenges for the management of Italian university doctoral programmes. A reflection of the experiences of PhD students is useful at this time as they are the ones that this system will affect most and who will shape its future. This paper discusses the internationalization of PhD programmes focusing on urban studies and draws a general picture of the current state of PhD education in Italy for non-Italian students by examining their motives, expectations, programme environment, infrastructure and quality of teaching. With this aim in mind, we distributed a questionnaire to foreign students who studied or are currently pursuing a PhD in urban studies in Italy and also conducted a focus group with a group of foreign students attending a PhD programme in urban studies. We thus present a partial reflection on the current situation of doctoral education in Italy.

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