ENHANCING DOCTORAL RESEARCH THROUGH EXPERT-LED WORKSHOPS

Drawing on my supervisory plan implemented over more than three years with doctoral candidates at SSBM Geneva, I have become increasingly committed to a clear mission: systematically enhancing my students’ academic rigor, research maturity, and doctoral thesis-writing skills. With this objective in mind, I designed a series of focused doctoral research workshops, inviting well-established professors and distinguished scholars from diverse disciplinary backgrounds to share not only methodological expertise, but also how they think, argue, and write as researchers. It is important to emphasize that these invited scholarly speakers do not replace my supervisory role. Rather, they complement the supervision process by exposing doctoral students to a plurality of researchable perspectives, epistemological positions, and scholarly practices. Through these intellectual encounters, students are encouraged to broaden their academic horizons, sharpen their critical reflexivity, and develop a more nuanced understanding of the global research landscape, capabilities that are essential for producing doctoral work of international quality. One highlight of this series took place today, when we had the privilege of welcoming Prof. Matthew Hibberd, Dean of the Faculty of Media and Communications at Università della Svizzera italiana. In his session, he generously shared his doctoral thesis structuring logic, critical writing principles, and hard-earned advice drawn from years of supervising and examining doctoral research. What impressed me most was the level of engagement: my doctoral students actively questioned, challenged, and reflected transforming the session into a genuine intellectual exchange rather than a one-way lecture.

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