Academic And Career Paths For Phd Graduates

The Europe 2020 Strategy highlights the importance of investing in research and innovation to ensure the economic and social development of the European society. In order to achieve this objective, a great responsibility is assigned to universities. They m ust ensure excellence in research and teaching, regional innovation, lifelong learning, community - level interaction, and the development of collaborative activities between specialists and public and private stakeholders. Research and innovation activities mainly take place within the doctoral schools. On the one hand, they ensure the knowledge transfer to the socio - economic environment, and on the other hand, by hiring PhD graduates and involving them in innovation activities, these schools prepare experts who will later contribute to the consolidation of research in different sectors. Our paper focuses on the academic and career paths for PhD graduates. We aim to highlight their path and motivation to graduate from a doctoral program, respectively what are the implications of the doctoral degree on their professional activity. Data was collected within the European funded project SmartDoct (code no. 123008) implemented by the University of Oradea. Results are obtained based on the responses from 83 PhD grad uates who completed their doctoral training between 2014- 2019 at University of Oradea in different scientific domains. Data shows that PhD graduates mostly develop their professional activity within academia.