The meeting was mainly dedicated to the presentation of the results of our interviews. A lot of new methodologies and interesting results arose from the experiences shared during these interviews: we will make them available with the publication of the handbook. Globally, we agreed that there is a need for flexibility in the mobility’s duration and rules. It is to be noted that EuroDoc, the European Council for Doctoral Candidates and Junior Researchers, was invited to attend the meeting which allowed us to involve the direct beneficiaries of this project in the discussions.
Four main conclusions emerged during the Brussels meeting:
- the Erasmus+ inter-institutional agreement should become optional, and not mandatory as it is under the current Erasmus+ programmation;
- research activities should be included in the learning agreement;
- aquired « soft skills » should be added in the learning agreement and transcript of records;
- financial conditions should be re-designed and adapted to the various situations of doctoral candidates.
During the meeting, we also decided to produce several guides instead of one single DocMob handbook, each document aiming at a specific target group :
- doctoral candidates;
- international relation offices;
- national and European institutions (Policy recommandations).
- General public (with a description of doctoral studies in Europe)