The 2003 Berlin Follow-up Conference on the Bologna Process added “promoting closer links between the European Higher Education Area and the European Research Area” to its action lines. At the same time doctoral studies were conceived as the third cycle of studies, linking the EHEA and the ERA with each other. This has been strengthened by the EU’s Lisbon Strategy which emphasises, among other things, modernization of universities. Within this context graduate education has become an important part of science policy in most European countries, leading to restructuration of existing programmes and governance structures. General principles of the Bologna Process affect graduate education the same way as they affect undergraduate education. Due to its special nature, however, graduate education demands more developed practices than the first and second cycles of studies (e.g. in regard to mobility). An important issue is the increasing demand for interdisciplinary and intersectoral research.
The paper studies the changing context of political science graduate education in different European countries from this perspective. An important part of the analysis is the conflict between interdisciplinary and disciplinary education/research, as the call for interdisciplinarity challenges the autonomy of political science as a discipline. Graduate education in political science has to face new challenges in the future which are not only about teaching and learning.
