ABSTRACT
The chapter analyzes the political grammar that is changing doctoral education. These changes are associated with the idea of producing “knowledge workers” in the so-called knowledge society and economy. Based on the analyzes of documents issued by the European Commission and the communiqués by the Education Ministers involved in the Bologna process, and by other relevant stakeholders in European higher education policy, the chapter critically approaches the drivers of doctoral education. The drivers setting monocultural competences and skills risk the homogenizing cultural and socio-economic contexts and institutional and individual differences in the figure of the knowledge worker. The conclusion underlines the influence of policy assumptions associated with the ideograph of a “knowledge society” while turning a blind eye to the linkage between research and education as key element of what is “higher” in higher education.
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