The report, which investigated the earnings of first-year doctoral candidates in 2024'25 across 26 countries, was published by the European Council of Doctoral Candidates and Junior Researchers (Eurodoc) in September. 'Collecting comparative data on remuneration across Europe is notoriously difficult,' says Norbert Bencze, one of the authors of the report and president of Eurodoc ' an international federation based in Brussels that represents early-career researchers and doctoral candidates across Europe. 'Our aim is to draw attention to the disparities, and to encourage more data collection.' Co-author Pil Maria Saugmann, an academic governance researcher and former Eurodoc president, says that these figures contribute to a 'brain drain' directed towards Scandinavia and the Benelux countries from many other parts of Europe (see 'Is it a job''). But Estonia has shown that it is possible to buck that trend, Saugmann adds. A 2022 doctoral education reform replaced a student stipend of...
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