Statement on doctoral students and doctoral students’ rights

Introduction: Doctoral students as a structural pillar of European higher education

Doctoral education constitutes the third cycle of the Bologna Process’ commitment to a three-cycle structure of higher education and is a foundational component of Europe’s higher education and research systems. ESU believes that doctoral education must not be considered a peripheral sector, but rather a structural pillar of higher education and the
European research ecosystem.

At the same time, doctoral students should be perceived as key actors of the European Higher Education Area, both as contributors to learning and teaching, and as creators of new knowledge, through their research activities.

However, across the European Higher Education Area, the legal status and institutional roles of doctoral students remains fragmented. They may be classified as students, employees, researchers, scholarship holders or various combinations of all of the above, depending on the national systems. These differences frequently result in uneven regulation, interpretation and implementation of their rights, inconsistent working conditions and limited social protection.

ESU asserts that doctoral education must be understood as a structured study programme, which incorporates and is carried out through teaching and research work. This dual nature must be reflected in legal frameworks, ensuring that
doctoral students and students are fully covered by both educational and labour protections
and rights. Student-centered and qualitative doctoral education is a shared responsibility of European, national and regional public authorities and higher education institutions.

Without coherent and comparable frameworks for doctoral studies based on common principles, Europe risks undermining the sustainability of its research workforce, discouraging students from pursuing doctoral studies and weakening the long-term capacity to produce new knowledge.

The European Students’ Union advocates for a coherent, enforceable and rights-based framework for doctoral education across the EHEA and the European Research Area (ERA). This framework should be aligned with the Bologna Process, the European Charter for Researchers and the ERA Research Careers Framework.

ESU’s position and the content written in this statement are grounded in the data from an ESU-wide survey of 2800 doctoral students, consultations with national unions of students (NUS) and doctoral representatives, reviews of European frameworks as well as the comparative analysis of national regulatory models. ESU is following a rights-based, systemic and policy
oriented approach.

ESU’s approach is guided by the following principles:

1. Rights-based recognition
   ESU believes that doctoral students must be legally recognised as students, early- stage researchers (R1) and rights-holders within higher education and research institutions.
2. Employment-based coherence
   ESU considers employment-based recognition with full social protections to be the structurally most coherent model for doctoral education across the EHEA, supported by secure, adequate and predictable funding and employment frameworks.
3. Equity and inclusion
   Social dimension policies must extend fully to doctoral education to address structural barriers for underrepresented groups, including full social protection, access to healthcare, pensions and parental leave.
4. Quality and accountability
   Transparent supervision, structured training frameworks and institutional responsibility are essential for high-quality doctoral education.
5. Research integrity and academic freedom
   ESU urges for national and institutional frameworks for safeguarding academic freedom and responsible research conduct.
6. Participation and collective representation
   In accordance with the EHEA fundamental values, ESU stresses that doctoral students must have meaningful participation and representation in higher education governance structures.

1. Doctoral students in Europe – current status and reality

In EHEA, doctoral students undertake numerous responsibilities typically associated with academic staff: teaching, assessing assignments and examinations and performing various administrative duties within their departments. However, existing funding structures often fail to reflect their full workload and responsibilities. This fragmentation directly contributes to
inequality in rights, financial stability, and research conditions across the EHEA.

Financial support for doctoral studies varies considerably across European countries, ranging from stipend-based systems to employment contracts, with international funding programs offering alternative pathways but often creating disparities between well-resourced and underfunded regions. Only 31% of the respondents report that their monthly income is sufficient to cover their basic needs, while 47% indicate that it’s insufficient. While some countries such as Finland, Sweden, Norway and
the Netherlands have moved towards employment-based models of doctoral students, others still such as Ireland and Romania continue to recognise doctoral students primarily within the students category, which limits their access to employment rights, social security access and a fair remuneration. The European Research Area Act seeks to address some of these issues through the implementation of the Research Career Framework, but much more effort is needed in order to
properly address this issue, at both European and national levels, and in order to bridge the gaps and create a framework of comparability and compatibility between doctoral studies systems in all European countries.

The issues affecting doctoral students go far beyond just employment issues, however in many cases the employment status of doctoral students is the primary underlying cause. Doctoral students frequently suffer from higher rates of stress and burnout than their undergraduate contemporaries, are put under massive institutional pressure to perform at a high level and create high quality publications, thus not receiving fair remuneration or recognition for their work and contribution. While 37% of the respondents report a healthy balance between doctoral work and personal life, 30% experience poor balance and 33% report only moderate balance.

2. Access, equity and social dimensions

Doctoral education remains the most inaccessible higher education cycle.
Access to doctoral studies is strongly shaped by socio-economic
background, funding availability, institutional capacity, previous access to
research opportunities, language, migration status, disability and other
structural barriers. For international students, access is particularly difficult
in many European countries. ESU strongly believes that mechanisms of
widening access to higher education must extend beyond the first and
second cycles, and be systematically integrated into third-cycle education
policies.

The highly specific nature of third-cycle programmes results in a reduced
number of students, often with low yearly admissions and intense
competition for access. ESU believes that public investment in doctoral
education should be strengthened, in order to develop adequate capacity
and ensure that no candidate is excluded from pursuing a PhD due to
funding or capacity limitations within institutions.

The application process for PhD programmes and grants should be
transparent, publicly available and accessible for interested students.
Higher education institutions have the role of streamlining the procedures
and supporting the applicants.

The drop-out rates of doctoral programmes can be significant, with
estimates suggesting that about 34% of PhD students in Europe do not
obtain their degree within six years (Hasgall, Saenen, and Borrell-Damian
2019), a worrying sign of insufficient institutional support for retaining
doctoral students. ESU believes that policies for doctoral studies should
promote inclusion and equity throughout the PhD track – from access, to
research, thesis completion and career transition.

ESU recognises that difficulties in accessing and completing a PhD
programme are exacerbated by longstanding structural barriers in higher
education, connected to social exclusion.

Doctoral students, in their role not only as staff or researchers but also
students in the academic community, should be awarded the same access
to student benefits and student support services as their counterparts in the
first and second cycles of higher education. ESU strictly opposes any sort of
discrimination or exclusion on the basis of age or study cycle and underlines
the importance of student support in helping students of any level to access,
participate in higher education.

ESU has identified the lack of financial viability and material support as the
central structural constraint on equitable access to doctoral education
across all regions, but with markedly different intensity. According to the
findings of our study, this is the top-ranked issue in Europe, indicating that
financial barriers are particularly acute in the latter and remain a primary
determinant of who can enter and sustain doctoral study.

Beyond this common foundation, regional differences emerge in how
access is framed.
In Western and Northern Europe, outreach and early research pipeline
development (16.4% and 15.4%) and information visibility (15.2% in Western
Europe) indicate that access is increasingly understood in terms of
transparency, preparedness, and structured entry pathways. In contrast,
responses in Eastern (14.4%) and Northern Europe (13.0%) highlight that
access is already sufficient or should remain selective, reflecting ongoing
tensions between widening participation and maintaining competitive
standards.

In the EU’s Eastern Neighbourhood, information visibility and centralized
guidance is the primary concern (21.9%), surpassing financial issues (15.6%),
alongside challenges related to internationalisation and mobility (9.4%),
suggesting that informational and structural barriers to entry are
particularly significant in this context.

Taken together, the findings suggest that while financial constraints
constitute a universal baseline limiting equitable access, regional
differences lie in whether policy attention is directed primarily toward
funding, the structuring of entry pathways or the balance between inclusivity
and selectivity.

3. Funding, employment status and working conditions

Funding, employment status and working conditions have long been
recognised as being fragmented in the European Higher Education Area, a
matter which the European Research Area Act seeks to address, by
harmonising the policies and systems governing research & innovation,
setting a benchmark of 3% GDP funding for R&I, and establishing a Research
Career Framework that establishes doctoral students as being R1 Early
Career Researchers.

ESU believes that doctoral students deserve proper employment rights both
to improve their quality of life but also to strengthen the research &
innovation ecosystem of the European Research Area as a whole. If doctoral
students are employed, they receive proper remuneration, access to labour
rights and trade union representation and a healthy work-life balance built into their research degree. Factors
such as contract duration, social security coverage, possibilities for long
term employment and workload expectations create significant disparities
across contexts.

ESU emphasises that doctoral funding must provide a living wage
compatible with local cost-of-living conditions, ensuring that doctoral
students are able to conduct research without financial insecurity.

Financial precarity is a key determinant of doctoral well-being across
regions. Calls for living-wage pay are particularly strong in Eastern (24.27%),
Northern (22.6%) and Western Europe (17.21%), while in Southern Europe the
main concern is overall funding volume (25.57%), followed by living-wage
pay (21.29%). This highlights that both the adequacy and availability of
funding remain central challenges.

Funding structures also vary in importance. In Western Europe, 15.81% of
responses emphasise the need for secure funding covering the full doctoral
period, while increased funding volume is highlighted in Eastern (16.14%) and
Northern Europe (12.05%), reflecting ongoing financial instability.

Employment conditions are another key issue, with doctoral students in
Southern Europe (11.24%) stressing the need for formal employment status,
including stable contracts and social protection. In addition, many doctoral
candidates rely on supplementary income, particularly in Eastern (10.84%)
and Northern indicating insufficient baseline funding. Europe
(9.42%), indicating insufficient baseline funding.

Addressing these areas is likely to yield the most significant improvements
in doctoral well-being across diverse regional contexts.

ESU calls for national solutions:

• To provide doctoral students with a total monthly income (in form of a
  living wage, or a stipend, scholarship, or an equivalent) that covers their
  cost of living and allows for the doctoral candidate to devote themselves
  to a full-time third-cycle studies;
• To offer doctoral students a recognised and established status as an early
  career researcher, a junior researcher, an employee, or similar, that go
  hand-in-hand with compensation associated with these roles; and
• To increase general funding available to third-cycle education, and to aim
  for at least 3 % of GDP to be used in R&I, inclusive doctoral education.

4. Research

Doctoral students are central knowledge producers within European
research systems. Despite that, they often encounter systemic barriers or
obstacles in their research activities and work.

Firstly, the most common are those related to intellectual property. ESU
considers it is crucial that doctoral students retain intellectual ownership
and academic autonomy of their research and that adequate safeguards
are in place to ensure that their right to intellectual property can be properly
exercised. In addition, institutions must ensure that integration into
externally funded projects does not compromise academic independence. Safeguards are required to prevent structural
dependency on short-term funding cycles. Institutions must establish clear
authorship criteria, data ownership and intellectual property rules, with
doctoral students recognised as legitimate authors and rights-holders in
accordance with integrity standards.

Another challenge often encountered by PhD students in their research work
is publication pressure. Metric-driven evaluation systems risk distorting the
educational purpose of doctoral education. Research quality, ethical
practice, and educational purpose must take precedence over quantity
based performance indicators. Doctoral students must not be instrumentalised
to performance metrics.

In their research activities, doctoral students must also be protected by
clear research integrity frameworks, confidential reporting mechanisms and
robust safeguards for academic freedom.

Lastly, in order to be able to properly and qualitatively conduct their studies
and their research activities, doctoral students must be granted equitable
access to laboratories, digital databases, fieldwork funding and research
mobility opportunities.

5. Supervision, academic environment and quality

Quality doctoral education depends on transparent supervision standards, supportive
 research cultures and institutional accountability. ESU will highlight the need for
 doctoral students to have clear academic rights, feedback mechanisms and protection
 from abuse.

5.1 Supervision

Supervision is a defining element of doctoral education as it differentiates
doctoral studies from other types of academic research. It is also a
structural power relationship requiring clear safeguards and accountability
mechanisms. Supervisors are key players in shaping the doctoral students’
study time, showing examples of good scientific conduct and guiding the
student in subject-related areas. Supervisors also are a link between the
doctoral students and an academic world beyond one’s home institution.

Supervisors hold significant structural power over doctoral students, which
can directly impact academic progress, working conditions and career
outcomes. Supervisors can significantly affect doctoral students’ academic
progress, working conditions, career opportunities and well-being. In some
cases, power imbalances may lead to exploitative or abusive situations,
exacerbated by unclear reporting mechanisms and institutional hierarchies.
Such situations might be cumbersome to tackle due to the hierarchical
structure of academia and the abovementioned power imbalance between
supervisors and doctoral students.

These issues can be countered by supervisor training, which offers
supervisors skills to supervise and reflection to academia as a workplace for
early-career researchers, such as doctoral students. Supervisors and
doctoral students often work quite independently. Often, in individual
departments or other sub-divisions the work is done in, relationships
between the supervisor and administration are close. Moreover, guidelines
and processes to report any potential wrongdoings might be either informal
or otherwise not clear to the doctoral students. Clear guidelines help with
the prevention of troubles inside a supervisor-supervised relationship. In
addition, a right to change supervisor provides the doctoral students some
tools to deal with potential troublesome situations, although such an option
should not be used lightly or indefinitely. When changing supervisors, the
doctoral students should be minimal interruptions to their study and research work.

ESU calls for HEIs to:

• Establish robust institutional safeguards that protect doctoral students
  from abusive supervision and prevent excessive concentrations of power
  by supervisors over students’ academic progression and professional
  development;
• Provide regular training for supervisors and where possible, make such
  training mandatory at institutional level;
• Establish clear guidelines and procedures for preventing, addressing and
  resolving potential conflicts between doctoral students and their
  supervisors;
• Ensure that doctoral students have the right to request a change of
  supervisors, through transparent and accessible institutional procedures.

5.2 Academic environment

Doctoral students and early-stage researchers across Europe continue to
face significant precarity due to inconsistent employment statuses,
financial insecurity and unequal access to labour protections. In many
cases, doctoral students remain financially dependent on senior academic
staff, externally secured grants or scholarships, while some are excluded
entirely from formal employment frameworks and the rights, protections
and social security these frameworks provide. ESU acknowledges that
working conditions across the European Higher Education Area vary
considerably, but maintains that such disparities must not undermine equal
rights, dignity and fair treatment.

ESU therefore calls on higher education institutions to recognise the
international and diverse nature of academic environments by proactively
addressing cultural, linguistic and structural barriers. HEIs must ensure that
doctoral students are fully informed of their rights, responsibilities and
available protections, while also promoting institutional practices that
safeguard mental health, well-being and a sustainable work-life balance.

5.3 Quality

Quality assurance of doctoral education must reflect the specific nature of
the third cycle while remaining aligned with broader European frameworks.
While approaches vary across the EHEA, core elements of doctoral
education must be clearly defined, transparent and consistently
implemented.

Doctoral education must be supported by structured supervision, clear
frameworks and fair, independent assessment procedures. Public defence
and peer review of the doctoral thesis remain essential components of
awarding a doctoral degree.

ESU stresses that quality assurance mechanisms must take into account not
only formal programme structures, but also supervision quality, working
conditions, access to resources and doctoral students’ participation in
decision-making processes. In addition, disruptions in funding must not
compromise the completion of doctoral studies.

Doctoral education should also prepare students for diverse career
pathways beyond academia. While maintaining its primary focus on
research, third-cycle education must support the development of
transferable skills and competences applicable across academic, public,
private and civil society sectors. Higher education institutions should
integrate career development into doctoral programmes by providing
access to tailored career support services, transparent information on
career outcomes and opportunities for skills development. Non-academic
career paths must be recognised as valid and valuable outcomes of
doctoral education, and quality assurance processes should take into
account how doctoral programmes support students in their transition
beyond academia.

ESU calls for:

• Inclusion of doctoral education within internal and external quality
  assurance systems;
• Monitoring of supervision quality, research environments and institutional
  support structures;
• Participation of doctoral students in quality assurance processes;
• Transparent study plans, including learning outcomes and expected
  competences;
• Integration of career development and transferable skills support within
  doctoral programmes, and consideration of career outcomes as part of
  quality assurance processes.
• Safeguards ensuring fair and independent assessment of doctoral theses.

6. Well-being, mental health and safe learning environments

Doctoral students face high pressure, isolation and increasing mental health
risks which affects their wellbeing and ability to complete their
programme.These challenges are structurally linked to precarity, workload,
and unclear expectations. Doctoral mental health challenges are as broad
as they are systemic. While stress is a common surface level challenge, it is
only through addressing the root cause of it can doctoral mental health
begin to be addressed.

Some of the root issues in doctoral mental health include:

• Poor work-life balance
• Top-down organisational structure limiting room for doctoral input into
  academic decision-making and governance
• Financial issues and funding difficulties
• High pressure work environments that prioritise publication output and
  performance metrics
• Lack of clear career progression paths
• Issue with supervisor relationship

ESU survey findings show that doctoral students’ well-being and mental
health are strongly shaped by structural conditions, with financial insecurity
emerging as the most consistent and widespread concern. In many parts of
Europe, insufficient income and lack of housing security are the primary
stressors, often compounded by excessive workload expectations, unclear
performance standards and limited access to adequate research
environments.

At the same time, financial precarity does not operate in isolation. In several
systems, it is closely linked to broader institutional issues, including weak
supervision structures, lack of transparency in expectations and insufficient
recognition and fair treatment of doctoral students. In others, concerns are
more strongly related to governance and accountability, highlighting the
importance of institutional responsibility in shaping doctoral experiences.

Doctoral well-being cannot be addressed through isolated measures.
Instead, it requires systemic action targeting both material conditions and
institutional practices.

ESU calls for systemic support structures, workload regulation and safe
academic environments free from harassment and exploitation.

ESU strongly condemns sexism and gender-based discrimination in
academic environments. HEIs must implement effective safeguards,
including gender equality in supervision and leadership structures, the
elimination of gender pay gaps and accessible, confidential and
independent reporting mechanisms for cases of sexual and gender-based
harassment.

7. Mobility, internationalisation and recognition

Mobility and international collaboration are key elements of the European
Higher Education Area (EHEA) and the European Research Area (ERA).
Doctoral students often work in international research teams, participate in
conferences abroad and collaborate across institutions and countries. These
experiences strengthen research quality, support professional development
and contribute to Europe’s research and innovation capacity. However many
doctoral students still face administrative, financial and legal barriers when
engaging in mobility. Visa and residence procedures can be slow and
uncertain, particularly for students coming from outside of the EU. Differences
in national employment models and funding structures can also create
uncertainty regarding social security, healthcare services and coverage
an employment rights when conducting research abroad. In addition the
recognition of international research periods, joint supervision arrangements
and doctoral qualifications is not always consistent across countries and
institutions. These barriers can limit opportunities for collaboration and
create unnecessary obstacles for doctoral students.

ESU believes that mobility and internationalisation should strengthen
academic cooperation without creating additional precarity for doctoral
students. Mobility must not produce additional precarity.

ESU’s survey shows that financial barriers, unclear mobility windows,
workload constraints, administrative procedures, visa and residence issues,
and lack of recognition remain major obstacles to doctoral mobility. These
barriers affect international and non-EU doctoral students particularly
strongly.

Survey findings show that financial constraints, administrative barriers,
unclear mobility structures and lack of recognition are the main obstacles
to doctoral mobility.

ESU calls for:

• Equal social, academic and employment rights for international doctoral students
• Simplified visa and residence procedures;
• Automatic recognition of international research periods and qualifications;
• Adequate financial support for doctoral mobility;
• Clear, predictable, and accessible mobility windows within doctoral studies.

8. Participation, representation and doctoral governance

ESU considers participation and representation to be fundamental
democratic principles and structural requirements for ensuring
accountability, quality and continuous improvement within HEIs. In addition
to other groups within academia, these principles also apply to doctoral
students. This is also included in Salzburg principles that demand that
doctoral students have the status of early-career researchers.
Doctoral students must be fully represented in institutional
decision-making and quality assurance. ESU stresses that student
participation applies across all cycles, including doctoral education.
Representation rights must be ensured regardless of legal status (student,
employee or hybrid) of the doctoral candidate.

Status of doctoral students as an employee and as a student varies across
different countries, and so the limited role of doctoral students in institutional
decision-making relates to the corresponding national legislation, political
and practical factors. Doctoral students’ representation in student
organisations, such as NUSes and corresponding HEI-level organisations,
play a key role. Higher education revolves
around collegiality and collegial decision-making, and doctoral students as
third-cycle students are no exception.

A key barrier to doctoral student participation is the dual status of a
researcher and/or an employee and a student. In many HE systems,
doctoral students are being excluded from representation or inconsistently
included by either of these groups or by both, leading to an unclear
responsibility for advocating for doctoral students.

Effective representation of doctoral students at both institutional and
national levels is essential to ensure inclusive and participatory governance.
Doctoral students must be involved in decision-making processes affecting
their studies, working conditions and research environments.
Representation should extend across all levels of higher education
institutions, including departments, faculties and central governance
bodies. Participation must also include involvement in shaping learning
outcomes, study structures and doctoral policies. Engagement in
representation should not negatively affect doctoral students’ academic
progress, funding or employment conditions.

ESU stresses that strengthening doctoral candidate representation must not
come at the expense of first- and second-cycle student representation.
Higher education systems should ensure balanced and effective
participation of all student groups, including through the involvement in
designing inclusive and coherent representation structures.

Therefore, ESU calls for:

• Guaranteed voting rights and representation in all key institutional decision-making bodies, including senates, faculty councils, doctoral schools, research committees and quality assurance structures;
• The removal of legal, administrative and institutional barriers that prevent doctoral students from voting, standing for election or being represented, regardless of their legal status;
• Recognition and support for doctoral representation at both institutional and national levels, including cooperation between student unions, doctoral associations and trade unions;

ESU’s key policy demands for improving the quality of doctoral
studies and advancing the rights and well-being of doctoral
students.

ESU calls for all European, national and regional decision-makers, policy
makers and stakeholders to work and implement concrete actions for the
improvement of quality of doctoral studies and the advancement of the
rights and well-being of doctoral students.

European institutions

European institutions must lead the harmonization of standards and the
monitoring of research environments across the continent. To achieve this,
they should:

• Establish a European Observatory on Doctoral Working Conditions to collect comparable data on funding, employment status, completion rates, and supervision quality;
• Support a European framework for doctoral supervision training and certification to professionalize the supervision process;
• Integrate doctoral working conditions into ERA monitoring cycles;
• Ensure Horizon Europe funding requires fair employment conditions;
• Promote minimum social protection standards;
• Strengthen alignment between EHEA and ERA frameworks;
• Support portability of social rights across borders;
• Develop minimum European standards for doctoral employment and supervision conditions.

National public authorities

National public authorities hold a big responsibility for the legal and financial
frameworks governing doctoral studies. They should:

• Establish minimum salary benchmarks indexed to the local cost of living ensure researchers have a livable wage;
• Ensure access to social security, unemployment protection, parental leave and other labour and social rights for all doctoral students;
• Introduce national monitoring systems for doctoral completion and employment conditions;
• Support collective representation and social dialogue structures, ensuring
• doctoral students have a seat at the table in national policy-making;
• Clarify legal status and employment rights;
• Guarantee predictable funding frameworks;
• Ensure completion protections for project-based doctorates;
• Safeguard academic freedom.

Higher education institutions

should:

• Define maximum supervision loads per supervisor to protect the quality of guidance;
• Provide mandatory training for supervisors on mentoring, ethics, and research integrity;
• Establish doctoral progress review systems with oversight from independent committees to ensure transparency;
• Publish annual reports on doctoral outcomes, including completion rates and career trajectories;
• Provide secure employment models;
• Ensure grievance and integrity mechanisms;
• Guarantee participation rights;
• Provide well-being and career support.

Quality assurance bodies

should:

• Include doctoral education in accreditation standards for institutional
• reviews;
• Have specific methodologies for the assessment of quality of doctoral study programmes, developed in close collaboration with doctoral students;
• Monitor supervision quality and research environments;
• Assess institutional compliance with European research and social protection frameworks.

Conclusion: doctoral education as a public responsibility

Doctoral education is foundational to Europe’s knowledge systems.
Fragmented recognition, precarious employment and inconsistent
protections threaten research quality, academic freedom and institutional
sustainability.

ESU asserts that doctoral students must be recognised, protected and
meaningfully included as rights-holders within European higher education
and research systems. Sustainable doctoral education requires coherent
employment frameworks, institutional accountability and enforceable social
protections.

Strengthening doctoral students’ rights is not a sectoral demand. It is a
structural prerequisite for safeguarding Europe’s research capacity,
democratic resilience, and long-term innovation potential.

Reason & Seconders

Per Plan of Work 2025-2026, section 4. Quality of Education (Q), item 4.3.
Doctoral students, the EC was mandated to produce a policy paper on
Doctoral students in EHEA.