Current trends of nursing doctoral education in Europe

Abstract

This article aims to provide an overview about Nursing Doctorates in Europe and to consider some of the challenges in developing and implementing such programmes. The Bologna Declaration and the Tuning Project represented significant milestones in the establishment and growth of doctoral level education throughout Europe. The development of doctoral programmes in nursing however, has been a more protracted exercise. The continuing and accelerating professionalization of nursing and the need for evidence-based practice has meant that the development of doctoral nursing programmes across Europe has become inevitable. Challenges facing the development of these programmes include the cost of mounting such programmes, the lack of faculty to teach on the programmes, the variety of different academic systems and structures, the lack of a research tradition in some countries and the continuing ambiguity and lack of clarity about the nature of the doctorate itself. We argue that nursing has a long way to go to catch up with other disciplines in Europe in the area of doctoral education. However, the benefits of developing such programmes for the advancement of nursing in terms of knowledge generation and clinical application are profound.