The Women's Studies Ph.D. in Europe: An Archive

In the spring of 2003, Jean Fox O'Barr and Stephanie Shields reported in the NWSA Journal on Ph.D. programs in Women's Studies that exist in the United States and Canada. Since many European countries witness similar events in graduate education as in North America, in particular the emergence of Ph.D. programs in Women's Studies, we thought it would be helpful to list such existing programs in Europe.

Before offering such a list, however, it might be useful, especially for North American readers, to describe briefly the context in which new efforts in graduate education in Women's Studies take place in Europe. For these purposes, we will sketch a general picture—tricky territory given the many differences in higher education in Europe but nevertheless worth doing for purposes of this article.

In the last ten to fifteen years, many changes in graduate education in Europe have taken place. One important change is that graduate students tend to spend time in coursework, whereas previously they spent their time solely on researching and writing the dissertation, largely in isolation. This general trend has been accelerated by the 1999 Bologna Declaration which introduces the Anglo-Saxon structure—with bachelor's, master's, and Ph.D. degrees—into the European university system, enabling a model of relatively quick, targeted degree training also at the Ph.D. level.

In order to provide structures within which graduate students can do coursework rather than isolated work on the dissertation, many new organizations have emerged. In France, for instance, interdisciplinary doctoral schools (écoles doctorales) were founded while in the Netherlands national (largely disciplinary) research schools emerged. These organizations provide doctoral training and simultaneously often serve, either at the local or national level, as organizations in which both new and established scholars can exchange information.

When it comes to graduate education in Women's Studies, there remain significant differences among European nations. In a large number of countries, graduate students still cannot receive a Ph.D. in Women's Studies but only in a traditional discipline. In addition to their training in the discipline of choice, they may participate in local or national women's studies research schools, but this is done in addition to their regular graduate training. This situation exists in countries such as Poland, Belgium, and France.

In other countries, such as England and the Netherlands, it is possible for graduate students to receive a Ph.D. in Women's Studies. This degree will be pursued at a particular university. The coursework that the graduate student is expected to do is either done locally, at the university itself or, in the case of the Netherlands, at a national research school. The Netherlands Research School of Women's Studies (NOV), based at Utrecht University, is a national organization in which many other universities participate. In its ten years of existence, it has been able to organize expertise and various efforts at a national level, thereby maximizing the available resources. This is especially important in relatively small countries such as the Netherlands.

A new initiative is under way in the Scandinavian countries, where the Nordic Research School in Interdisciplinary Gender Studies has been approved for a trial period of five years. This new organization consists of more than 30 universities in several countries: Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Northwest Russia, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. One of the main purposes of this new research school is to provide Ph.D. training not at a local or national level but at an international level, again to bundle the necessary energy and the variety in expertise existing in different countries.

The emergence of such cooperative ventures is expected to continue throughout Europe in the years to come. At the same time, pressures in countries such as France and Poland for governmental permission to establish individual Ph.D. programs in Women's Studies are also expected to...