Opinion: 'Double doctorates are a premier showcase for interdisciplinary collaboration'

It is time for the Netherlands to structurally make room for double doctorates. In health research and innovation, clinicians, engineers, data scientists, and social scientists have long worked closely together. In practice, the boundaries between disciplines have blurred, yet administratively institutions still too often operate as islands.

While researchers move across institutional boundaries every day, PhD candidates are still often expected to fit into a single academic box. That no longer reflects how we work today.

By Prof. Dr. Sanne de Vries, Medical Delta Chair

Health research and technological innovation

Innovation in healthcare cannot succeed without strong input from clinical practice itself. Nearly all health-related innovation research is multi-, inter-, or even transdisciplinary. This is reflected in interviews with Medical Delta PhD candidates, who note, for example, that technological innovations in the operating room only succeed when the impact on the workflows of surgeons and the OR team is also considered. Another PhD candidate points out that AI applications in healthcare are impossible without clinical validation and close collaboration with medical specialists, nurses, and patients.

At the same time, there are countless examples of technological solutions that originate within health research itself: from data analysis and AI methods to MRI techniques, new diagnostic tools, and health apps. Health research and technological innovation are therefore deeply intertwined.

Joint appointments for professors are becoming the norm

For decades, scientists in health and innovation have collaborated across boundaries. In the province of Zuid-Holland, this has taken shape over the past twenty years within Medical Delta, where interdisciplinary - and now increasingly transdisciplinary - collaboration is standard practice. This is reflected in joint programs, living labs, education, and PhD trajectories. The most visible example is the group of more than forty Medical Delta professors, all of whom hold appointments at at least two academic institutions. What was still innovative in 2014 has now become commonplace. We see that it works.

Yet PhD trajectories still lag behind.

The PhD candidate in a silo

PhD trajectories are pre-eminently suited to strengthen collaboration between disciplines and institutions. Within Medical Delta, dozens of PhDs have now been completed that were jointly designed. For the aforementioned PhD candidate from a technical university who conducts research in the OR, it is natural to work regularly in an academic hospital. It is equally logical that in such trajectories a second supervisor or co-supervisor from the hospital is involved.PhD trajectories are pre-eminently suited to strengthen collaboration between disciplines and institutionsIt is illogical, however, that a PhD candidate who actually conducts research within two institutions, can usually only obtain their doctorate at one institution.

A double doctorate for dual appointments

Therefore, it is time to give the double doctorate a structural place. Joint doctorates are already legally possible in the Netherlands, but are only applied to a limited extent. Various universities already work with double doctorate agreements, in which one thesis leads to two separate doctoral degrees at two institutions. Other universities and faculties do not do so, or only sparingly, or work with an (overly) complicated process. The possibilities are there, but practice proves recalcitrant, as many Medical Delta professors indicate.

Administrative and organisational differences between universities currently create barriers. However, these can be overcome if institutions make clear agreements on responsibilities, supervision, assessment, the defence ceremony, degree conferral, and funding. Once these barriers are addressed, the door opens to truly structural collaboration. This would also fully acknowledge the reality of contemporary research: collaboration across domains and the involvement of multiple areas of expertise.

Joint doctorates can become a double PhD: a substantive recognition for the PhD candidate, and the best way to promote greater collaboration between knowledge institutions and between innovation and health research, which benefits us all. Broad implementation of double doctorates is also an opportunity for the institutions involved, allowing them to demonstrate how well they collaborate in key research areas.

Practice is already calling for it, and the structure exists in various places; now it is time for broader adoption. It is time for the next step.

This opinion-article was previously published on ScienceGuide.nl