The doctorate is, by its nature, rich with tensions. Park (2005) articulated an evolving tension between product (thesis) and process (training, development of academic identity, integration into the discipline) in the policy discourse and institutional delivery of doctoral education. Fast-forward two decades and the ‘doctoral experience’ in many national contexts has expanded to incorporate generalist and specialist training and development, mobility, competitions and work-based experiences – alongside the informal ‘hidden curriculum’ (Elliot, Bengsten, Guccione and Kobayashi, 2020) of learning opportunities with which doctoral candidates must engage. The becoming-researcher is expected to do far more than create one discreet project to make a successful transition into an academic career (Clarence and van Heerden, 2023).

The time available to postgraduate researchers and supervisors to complete a doctorate has not changed, however. The tension between product and process then manifests, for postgraduate researchers and supervisors, as a persistent struggle for balance: between time for freer thinking, writing and discovery and a timeline in a GANTT chart; between enabling pauses and redirection and setting due dates that focus the production of assessable content. These tensions play out against a societal backdrop marked by rapid change, anxiety (related to conflict, war, economic pressures, climate change), and uncertainty on many fronts. This may mean, in education, greater pressure to create certainty for our students, to manage anxiety and perhaps play down the tensions inherent in any learning process, where not knowing, ambivalence and time to think are crucial parts of the learning journey. This is perhaps most marked at doctoral level, where candidates must become independent, confident and autonomous researchers, ready for an unknown future, and able to create and conduct new research projects and processes.

The time implied in the development of a doctoral identity, expert knowledge, and advanced research competencies is not only linear time (i.e., from registration to graduation). Other kinds of time play out in doctoral journeys that are critical to the kinds of learning and becoming doctorates are designed to enable. In particular, what Araujo (2005, 197) calls ‘circular’ time, marked by ‘unpredictable and iterative periods of adaptation, uncertainty, ambivalence and becoming’ (Manathunga 2019, 1230). Circular time in doctoral research implicates another form of time, what Barnett (2015, 121) has termed ‘epistemic time’ - ‘careful time, expansive time, watchful time, listening time’. Linear time implies certainty, about the process and by extension the kinds of development needed to make it happen 'in time'. Circular time, epistemic time, are uncertain by contrast, and need to unfold outside of the linear timestream to enable meaningful knowledge-making as well as meaningful researcher development. These kinds of time enable ‘lines of flight, movement, deterritorialization and destratification’ (Deleuze & Guattari,1988, 3) in thinking, which appear messy, de-centred and distracted. They are, however, necessary to a mode of deep thinking which is fundamental to the quality of the thesis, the contribution to knowledge, and the development of future-facing researchers.

But, the carer-candidate, the self-funded candidate, the international candidate remind us that time is not neutral and not equally accessible to all - any form of time involved in the doctorate. The challenge, it seems, is the structure of the PhD itself as a discreet research project, one that can be managed within the linear timestream, results in publishable outputs, and produces a particular kind of researcher. This form of the PhD may belong to the past, and what may be needed is a radical reimagining of the doctorate as a way of producing research outputs and developing researchers. This reimagining must be informed by critical understanding of temporality, and further, of equity, access, and diversity.

This conceptual paper is creating groundwork for empirical research, with doctoral candidates, supervisors and other relevant stakeholders (such as industry and community partners) to consider the role of the doctorate moving into the future. We are drawing on the New Mobilities Paradigm and Levfebre's Rhythmanalysis to 'unpack' and re-present the doctoral journey, taking a critical view of time and temporality, and mobility, into account in this analysis. We will be using policy documents that shape doctoral education in the UK and Europe, and where relevant, supplementing these with our own 'practice wisdom' gained from extensive experience, in the UK and South Africa, as doctoral educators, supervisors and administrators of doctoral programmes. We hope to get feedback and insight from the conference attendees on our analysis of the context of doctoral education, and our analysis of temporality in the doctoral journey, that can further inform this paper itself, and further work on the basis of this initial conceptual undertaking.

We have demonstrably moved forward in our universities as the world and society around them have changed, and we are looking towards a future that requires more radical, adaptive, contingent forms of thinking and doing, and researchers who are less uncomfortable with uncertainty, ambivalence, and change. Yet, in many contexts, the PhD itself has not changed or is slow to change. This has profound implications for the tools and processes we use to train, educate, supervise and develop doctoral researchers, and how we are preparing them (or not) for imagining an unimaginable future and creating research-led paths into our collective future with creativity and care. We hope to use this paper to pose provocative questions about the doctoral journey, informed by a critical view on time and temporality drawn from complementary frameworks we are using in our work. We hope that the outcome of the paper will be more critical conversations about the doctorate itself, how we imagine the form and role of the doctorate, and how we might reconsider time - and in relation equity, access and inclusion - to ensure that we are future-proofing both the doctorate and, importantly, the doctoral researcher we are developing, educating, training in our universities.

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