Surfacing Knowledge from Doctoral Research: mining the hidden potential of international doctoral theses

Doctoral research, as constructed by the PhD programme, is rarely constructed as a coherent body of knowledge which can inform disciplines and push forward science. There is a lack of studies that have consistently and system project aims to surface under-used doctoral research and explore its contributions to knowledge and disciplines. Since 2019, Prof Montgomery and Dr Stewart have been working in partnership with the British Library focusing on their EThOS collection, a digital repository of approximately 637,000 doctoral theses completed in UK universities. The power of this vast resource of research was already being explored by organisations such as the FLAX project (led by a New Zealand university), the Royal Society of Chemistry, and the Alzheimer's Society but previous use-cases of the EThOS repository involved laborious and time-intensive by-hand searches (Montgomery, 2019; 2020; Montgomery and Poli, 2024; Montgomery et al, Forthcoming). The project has developed a prototype of an Artificial Intelligence tool which substantially speeds up and facilitates analysis and can narrow down a large set of theses to a more relevant subset. It uses clustering and text summarisation to automatically organise the theses into a user-specified number of categories, based on their content. The team has trialled the new tool with community and scientific organisations which include Kew Science and the Museum of London Archaeology. Original research unknown to these organisations was surfaced.

There are three strands of this Major Project are:

1. Themes and networks: consideration of the content of the EThOS collection using two approaches: one largescale analysis and one centring on qualitative life-histories. Patterns patterns of themes, disciplines, timescales and geographies in the doctoral research in EThOS will be analysed. Ten ten key theses will be identified and qualitative life histories of a differentiated sample of ten internationally mobile doctoral students of Southern, transcultural and/or Indigenous contexts developed. The aim will be to illustrate the complexities of patterns of mobility between the Global North and South and contributions to research development and capacity in ‘home’ contexts following the doctorate. In this way,  some aspects of the contribution of the doctorate to the development of global research capacity will be explored but also to highlight global inequalities in patterns of resource and development.
   
   
2. Technologies and tools:  exploration of the development and refinement of the AI tool prototype to improve its capacity to mine, analyse and summarise the theses in the digital collection. A more refined version of the AI tool,  which will enable further impact with community and scientific organisations, is hoped to be developed. The team will engage in discussions with experts in Computer Science and with the Institute of Advanced Research Computing to identify the ways in which the tool could be improved and aim to put the improved tool on an accessible platform so it can be used by researchers who hold the link. The ultimate aim is to release the AI search tool as an open source resource.
   
   
3. Histories and philosophies: the EThOS collection holds records dating back to 1650 and reflects a history of academic disciplines across almost four centuries. The PIs will explore some of the histories represented in the collection but also in the histories of the doctorate itself. There have only been a few scholars around the globe who  have explored the histories of the doctorate.  A  selected collection of doctoral theses from EThOS will be identified which illuminate ways of incorporating transcultural and Southern perspectives and the knowledge of First Nation communities into our conceptualisations of doctoral research.

Project activities:

1. A bi-weekly interdisciplinary discussion group for the project with representation of staff, ECRSs and doctoral students from Physics, Philosophy, History, Geography as well as Education and Computer Science
2. Bi-weekly writing session

Project outputs: *New version of the tool and further testing with scientific and community partners through the British Library’s network

*Seminar at the British Library, engaging their EThOS project team and their digital scholarship research teams and 2 seminars at Durham in IAS to present the outcomes of the three areas of research: themes and networks; technologies and tools; and histories and philosophies.

*10 life histories of Southern, transcultural and/or Indigenous doctoral scholars whose theses appear in the EThOS repository

*Plan for further funding application and 3 joint published papers and a book proposal

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Events and Activities: