Crossing the Borders and the Cultural Gaps for Educating PhDs in Software Engineering Antti Knutas Software Engineering Research Group Lappeenranta University of Technology Lappeenranta, Finland antti.knutas@lut.fi Ahmed Seffah Software Engineering Research Group Lappeenranta University of Technology Lappeenranta, Finland ahmed.seffah@lut.fi Lene Sorensen Center for Communication, Media and IT Aalborg University Copenhagen Copenhagen, Denmark ls@cmi.aau.dk Andrey Sozykin Institute of Mathematics and Computer Sciences Ural Federal University Yekaterinburg, Russia andrey.sozykin@urfu.ru Fawaz Al-Zaghoul Department of Computer Information Systems University of Jordan Amman, Jordan fawaz@ju.edu.jo Alain Abran Ecole de technologie superieure University of Québec Québec, Canada alain.abran@etsmtl.ca Abstract—Software systems have established themselves as the heart of business and everyday living, and as the pillar of the emerging global digital economy. This puts pressure on educational institutions to train people for the continuously evolving software industry, which puts additional demand for new PhDs and educators. While large universities and research centres have the required expertise and infrastructure to providing a cost- effective training by research as well as covering wide spectrum of software engineering topics, the situation in small universities with limited resources is challenging. This is even more difficult for some countries where the discipline of software engineering is totally new, which is the case of emerging countries. This paper describes the Pathways to PhDs project funded by the European Commission. The long-term aim is to support the development, modernization and international visibility and excellence of higher education, namely education by research at the PhD level in Europe, while helping partner countries to develop new PhD programs and consolidate existing ones in the field of computing in the area of software engineering. This paper presents the creation of a common educational framework that consist of seven specialized short-intensive schools, each of them feature the expertise and “savoir-faire” of participating universities. The collaboration and communication among partners and the schools is supported by an innovative communication platform, which is also presented in the paper. Keywords—PhD education; cross-culture and multi-institution education; problem-based learning; soft skills; training by research I. INTRODUCTION Software engineering (SE) education at the PhD level differs in content and structure from the master and bachelor ones. For example, some masters-level programs may be principally concerned with management of software activities, whereas PhDs should be focused on methods and tools for software development. For example, the PhD program at the Lappeenranta University of Technology (LUT) is focused on empirical, human and sustainability aspects in software systems. The master’s program is a more general program that also includes courses from open innovation and business. PhD studies differ in career emphasis. PhD programs, by their nature, prepare graduates for research and academic teaching positions – though many PhD graduates choose to work in industrial development instead. Some of the master’s programs are designed specifically to support PhD programs. Still, most master’s programs are designed to prepare their graduates for professional practice at a high level of technical or management responsibility (and not for entry to a PhD program). PhD studies are most often an individualized track, meaning that if two PhDs are in the same program, they may have a different profile in content and structure. Indeed, while focusing on a specific research topic (generally the supervisor’s interest), students are also required to develop a deep understanding of a wider range of topics such as software architecture and design, software assurance and program analysis, measurement and tools, teams and organizations, and end-user programming in the field of software engineering. They are required to master and develop their skills in conducting and communicating research results, managing research activities as well applying for funds. We argue that PhDs in software engineering, like any professional engineers, should be prepared to work in multidisciplinary teams, multi-cultural contexts that cross many borders and organizations. They should have exposure to other related concerns such as business, management, engineering profession and ethics. While some PhDs continue in the academia, a majority of PhDs will work in industry and will require a wide range of skills. For industry, PhDs should be able to work on problems on the cutting edge, similar to what they do for academic research - except that their ideas should get implemented. The 30th IEEE Conference on Software Engineering Education and Training 2377-570X/17 $31.00 © 2017 IEEE DOI 10.1109/CSEET.2017.49 256 The 30th IEEE Conference on Software Engineering Education and Training 2377-570X/17 $31.00 © 2017 IEEE DOI 10.1109/CSEET.2017.49 256