The Finnish Union of University Researchers and Teachers (FUURT) does not support the proposal to utilise legislation to limit the time for completing a doctorate.
As part of the research project concerning the monitoring and evaluation of the national doctoral education pilot, information is being collected on the possible need for regulation, through legislation, to restrict the degree period for the completion of a doctorate. The recommendations of the Council of Rectors of Finnish Universities (Unifi) for developing doctoral education (2024) also suggest that there is a need to re-examine the target time for completing a doctorate and the limitation of the validity of the doctoral study right, and that ‘Unifi [shall begin] working on a proposal to reform the Universities Act to limit the study right for doctoral studies. In the same context, monitoring completion time and applying for extension must be resolved.’ (Unifi 2024, 39.) The research project established for the purpose of monitoring and evaluating the doctoral training pilot will consult stakeholders on the time limitation related to the doctoral degree in late 2024. It is yet unclear whether members of the academic community, other than those in university management, will be included in the consultation.
FUURT does not support the proposal to utilise legislation to limit the time for completing a doctorate. Our numerous member surveys as well as our surveys for early career researchers indicate that most doctoral researchers do not receive funding for the entire duration of their research work but for a maximum of 1–2 years at a time, thus forcing them to interrupt their research work to apply for further funding. The worst case scenario is that research work ends up being interrupted by periods of unemployment caused by these financial interruptions.
‘It is very rare for a researcher to have secured funding for the entire duration of their doctoral research, which forces many doctoral researchers to have to do their research work while, for example, working another job or simultaneously applying for funding for their work. It currently takes an average of 5–6 years to complete a doctorate, but it is worth clarifying what proportion of that time has actually been spent on full-time doctoral research. As long as it remains impossible to guarantee that doctoral researchers can complete their doctorate as full-time doctoral research, the limitation of the degree period through legislation is a bad idea’, says Tero Karjalainen, President of FUURT.
It is absolutely essential to ensure that it remains possible to continue to undertake and complete doctoral research in different situations and for different needs, including as a part-time endeavour. Furthermore, limiting the time for the completion of a doctorate would not promote equality between researchers with regard to, for example, different family situations or health conditions. On the contrary, we believe that the possibility to complete the highest degree and the diversity of researchers should be promoted in order to better realise equality issues.
If the degree period for a doctorate were to be limited, responsibility would increasingly shift from the university or employer to the doctoral researcher in terms of whether the doctoral work can be completed within the given time period and what happens – whether the researcher loses the right to a degree altogether – if it is not.
‘Early career researchers are already now suffering from high expectations and pressures, which, in the worst case, can cause mental health problems and interruptions in research. In this type of situation, who bears the responsibility for any potential occupational safety risks? Already today, many early career researchers are opting not to take holiday time or time off, which means that they do not have enough time for work recovery’, Karjalainen points out.
Research is creative work, the nature of which involves the potential for a certain degree of changes such as alterations of the research design. It is impossible to impose any strict limits on this type of creative work using legislative time frames – any delimitation would be a serious interference with the academic freedom of the researcher.
The development of doctoral training shall endeavour to define the content and requirements of the doctorate so as to ensure that it would be possible to complete the degree as full-time work within a certain period of time (for example, in four years). Attention should be paid specifically to the full-time aspect of the work, in which case different types of interruptions, such as family leaves, funding interruptions, or similar, would be genuinely taken into account in the time allotted for the completion of the doctorate. Limiting the time to complete degrees via legislation is not the right solution.
Further information
Tero Karjalainen, President
Miia Ijäs-Idrobo, Senior Adviser