I have lost count of how many PhD examinations I have been involved in - either as an internal or an external examiner. In the latter capacity I have undertaken vivas with only the other examiner and the candidate present, or with a room full of supporters and friends: I have been involved in examinations in three different countries, and in two different languages; some theses have been passed outright, others have been referred, sometimes with a lot of work yet to be done. I have examined theses based on a wide variety of methodologies (or in some cases apparently none).
Today I have examined a PhD in what to me have been unique circumstances. Today's PhD viva was of a candidate presenting for a PhD by publication. I have been involved in examining such theses before - it is the standard Scandinavian model and candidates normally submit around four papers plus a commentary. In most cases the four papers submitted are the only ones the generally young researcher has published to date.
Today's examination was of a 'student' whose publication list runs to nearly 300 items - certainly twice the number in my own cv. Fifteen of these had been selected to constitute the thesis. Around half were single authored items - mostly in very high quality journals. The others were collaborations but the role of the candidate was made very clear in the supporting documentation.
There was little doubt that a PhD would be awarded by my fellow examiner and me. But we got into an interesting three-way discussion with the candidate. The individual concerned had completed an MPhil within two years of the award of a relevant first degree but had not then gone on to undertake a PhD. Instead a series of posts in research units had come up and now, perhaps 25 years later, our candidate was well into a career as a full-time researcher. Of those 300 publications, a considerable number were actually 'grey literature' in the form of reports to commissioning bodies. We had the chance to read some of these in the thesis, and the pity was that the findings and arguments within them had not been made more widely available. But, as the candidate explained, the relentless need to keep a research unit going by constantly finding new funded projects to undertake meant that on completion of a particular piece of funded consultancy research there was always a need to move straight on to the next client. There is no time to step back and produce the more reflective piece that might set the particular research task in a wider context and then make the results available to a far wider audience.
Many young academics come into a university career through an enjoyment of discovery and of research. Yet a career built entirely in a research institute with little or no baseline funding and the constant need to chase the next contract does not seem to me to be the way to complete happiness as an academic - certainly not for me. And I think our candidate today agreed: when asked what the ideal way of spending the next twelve months would be the answer was to have that period to take some time to reflect on all the work and studies completed over the past few years, and to tie those projects and findings together into something more substantial.
Even without that bigger period of reflection, it was still a very impresive body of work that we awarded a PhD to today.
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