Training doctoral students and supervisors together at Inra, a multidisciplinary research institute

Abstract

Doctoral supervision has been described as a complex process, where research, knowledge and individuals are intertwined in a bidirectional transformative process involving both the student and his/her supervisor(s). In this article, we present EDEN, an original training programme for the supervisory dyad in which the doctoral candidate and his/her supervisor(s) are educated together for multidisciplinary collaboration in the French research institute Inra. We explain our vision of the PhD process as a professionalization and peer-learning process that relies on a mentoring relationship aiming to develop scientific autonomy in the young researcher. Based on these training objectives and our pedagogical posture to support the reflexivity of the dyad, we review the EDEN program after six years of training experience.