The Research Training Experiences of Doctoral Students Linked to Australian Cooperative Research Centres

This paper reports on the research trainingexperiences of Australian doctoral studentsworking in or funded by Cooperative ResearchCentres (CRCs), notes how their levels ofsatisfaction compare with those of theircounterparts in regular university science andtechnology disciplines and assesses to whatextent the CRC program is achieving its hopeswith respect to PhD training. Findings arebased on data from a survey of all enrolled PhDstudents in two research-intensive universitiesin Australia, together with supplementary datafrom student and supervisor interviews. Findings indicate that in the main, CRC-relatedPhD students fare well compared with theircounterparts in regular university departmentsand that on a number of indicators CRC-relatedstudents recorded higher levels of satisfactionwith their course experience. This situationsuggests that CRCs are playing a significantand worthwhile role in research training inAustralia.