The article feels more like a rant than a well-thought-out argument. It hardly says concretely what the problems with current PhD training are (it mentions a fe

The article feels more like a rant than a well-thought-out argument. It hardly says concretely what the problems with current PhD training are (it mentions a few problems in different places, but misses important ones like the ongoing mental health crisis in academia [0]), and it makes very few suggestions about what concretely should change to address them. The authors don't even say what they mean by 'PhD training', ignoring the vast heterogeneity in the structure and duration of doctoral education programs between countries, institutions and even between different programs in the same institution. In the US, PhD training typically consists of a coursework phase and a research phase, with a target duration of about 5 years. In the EU, a PhD has a target duration of 3 years, according to the European Qualifications Framework [1]. While some coursework will typically be demanded in EU PhDs, it would usually be more lightweight than the coursework in a 5-year US PhD. Some EU institutions will offer doctoral schools that mimic the US model, some institutions will actually offer multiple styles of doctorates in parallel programs (even for the same subject). The UK has 'Centres for Doctoral Training' (CDT) and 'Doctoral Training Partnerships' (DTPs) which look like a compromise between the US and EU models (with typically one year of coursework preceding the research phase). CDTs can be joint programs between multiple universities, with students commuting to other institutions to take classes. CDTs and DTPs are are offered alongside regular PhD programs in the UK (the latter will look more like the EU model in most cases and more like the US model in some). Other countries and regions will often have a similar mix of US- and EU-style training programs. Add to this various lesser known types of doctoral programs like part-time PhDs, professional doctorates, DBAs (Business Doctorates in the US), 'PhD by Publication' in the UK, PhDs that are primarily based at non-university research labs like CERN, Max-Planck-Institutes,... and you will see that the term 'PhD' or 'Doctorate' can refer to vastly different types of academic programs, lasting anywhere from 2 to 8 years, being based at one or multiple or no university, with coursework being anything from absent to equivalent to a 2-year Master's program, funding being provided by a professor, a university, a foundation, a government, a corporation or not at all, having one or multiple supervisors, administering letter, numeric or no grades at all, requiring substantial teaching to none at all,... There is really no point in talking about 'PhD training' or its shortcomings without clarifying which of those countless different types of programs you mean. The premise of the article seems to be that there exists a uniform model of PhD training that emerged in the 19th century and hasn't been reformed since, which simply doesn't stand up to closer inspection. [0] https://www.ecn-berlin.de/mental-health/the-mental-health-crisis-in-academi.html https://www.ecn-berlin.de/mental-health/the-mental-health-cr... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bologna_Process https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bologna_Process