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Academic writing in European higher education is a little explored field hidden behind fifty major language and fifty national educational systems of which it is part. The article aims at developing a perspective for studying the diversity of writing in Europe and finding a shared language for analyzing student writing. The article recaps baselines theories for the teaching of writing and reports on three important European writing traditions. The main part of the paper is devoted to three foundational conceptions for writing: The role of genres in understanding student writing, the function of writing practices for the organization of student writing and the meaning of writing competences for the teaching of writing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Doctoral education has undergone, in recent years, a revolution paralleling changes in modern society. In the last two decades, the world has witnessed a wave of doctoral education reforms driven by government funding cuts, commercialization, rationalization, internationalization, quality assurance, as well as by increasing demands from employers and doctoral graduates to train doctoral students for an ever-changing competitive job market, which goes beyond the walls of academia. With an historical view of doctoral education at international level, and paying special attention to the process of Bologna taking place in Europe, this paper investigates the different models of doctoral education developed, as well as how its initial traditional conceptualisation has evolved and diversified, driven by educational policy and changes to higher education funding, into new models of doctoral education relevant to our current society. It discusses, from an international perspective, how different higher education institutions are approaching the task of equipping doctoral students with transferable or generic skills, as well as specific skills, in order to educate active and sustainable researchers for the competitive international knowledge based societies of the 21st century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]