Surfacing knowledge from doctoral research: mining the hidden potential of international doctoral theses

Abstract

What happens to doctoral theses once they are complete? How is the cutting-edge knowledge from doctoral research used to further our understanding of disciplines and global science? In fact, doctoral research, as constructed by the PhD programme, is rarely explored as a coherent body of knowledge which can inform disciplines and push forward science. This IAS project aims to reconceptualise doctoral research as critical site for the creation of new knowledge (Manathunga et al., 2022) and to surface its potential contribution to research capacity in the academy and the scientific community.

Here we focus on the EThOS collection, a digital repository of approximately 637,000 doctoral theses dating back to 1650 and completed in UK universities. The power of this vast resource of research has been explored by organisations such as the Royal Society of Chemistry and the Alzheimer's Society but previous use-cases of the EThOS repository involved laborious and time-intensive by-hand searches (Montgomery, 2019; 2020; Montgomery and Poli, 2024; Montgomery et al, 2024). The project developed a prototype of an Artificial Intelligence tool which substantially speeds up and facilitates analysis and can narrow down a large set of theses to a more relevant subset. It uses clustering and text summarisation to automatically organise the theses into a user-specified number of categories, based on their content. Now we are considering the training of AI tools and other software development which could enable the discovery of significant knowledge lying hidden in these huge digital repositories.

The IAS project has enabled us to involve Prof Catherine Manathunga (University of the Sunshine Coast) and Prof Carolina Guzmán-Valenzuela (Autonomous University of Barcelona) in the work. Prof. Manathunga brings poststructuralist and interdisciplinary expertise in decolonising doctoral education, Indigenous Knowledge Systems, transcultural doctoral education and social and epistemic (in)justice. Prof Guzmán-Valenzuela's expertise in decolonial theories and methodologies and her work on the geopolitics of knowledge, social justice and the decolonisation of higher education provides critical insights into how largescale methodologies can be used not just for efficiency, but as a tool for equity and transformation. In this seminar we will explore how their insights are pushing our thinking forward. We hope to illustrate the complexities of patterns of knowledge mobility between the Global North and Global South and explore the contribution of doctoral knowledge to the development of global research capacity. Alongside this, we also intend to highlight global inequalities in patterns of resource and development.

Places are limited and so any academic colleagues or students interested in attending in person must register here for a place. 

Find our more about this IAS Major Project.