Principles
The Doctorate in Cultural and Global Criminology has the following characteristics.
■ A focus on emerging, culturally-relevant, global, criminological issues, including international security, transnational crime and criminal justice, green criminology, human rights, social change and exclusion.
■ The alliance of global and cultural criminological perspectives with innovative research methodologies and a combination of unique expertise in cultural criminology, green criminology, transnational organised crime research, human rights research, and qualitative methodology.
■ Collaborative European and international cooperation involving four centres of excellence and four distinctive cultural contexts, each providing different yet complementary specialisms, supervision and training in an integrated programme.
■ Interdisciplinary provision with a unified criminological focus and approach, and a balanced input from the social sciences (Kent, Hamburg) and law (Utrecht, Budapest).
■ In addition to training in transferable employability skills, an emphasis on the competence of global-critical citizenship , directly relevant to and emerging from mobility between the university and non-university sectors located in wider society.
■ Directly related to supervised research in areas relevant to policy and social action, as well as the key transversal competency of citizenship, work with a range of local, national and international organisations in the governmental, non-governmental and criminal justice sectors.
■ An integrated, structured training programme incorporating core taught courses, and a range of specialised courses offered by each of the centres, which can be taken according to the research path of the individual.
■ A programme drawing on the doctoral candidates’ different, national and cultural identities, perceptions, and disciplinary backgrounds as a key resource in their mutual training. Not only do candidates have the opportunity to understand, respect and assimilate the cultural perspectives of the other doctoral candidates, but the mobility experience is integral to the development of the wider global and cultural understanding of crime which is the basis of the programme.
■ Integral international mobility flexibly mapped according to candidate research, supervision and training requirements, including attendance at international conferences of the Common Study Programme in Critical Criminology
■ The production of doctoral graduates who are equipped to follow research and/or academic careers, to work in the public sector and civil society in a range of fields at national, European and international level, including criminal justice policy development and implementation, harm reduction, law enforcement, social campaigning, and analysis of the impact of policy.
In an area of major preoccupation and substantial expenditure, the economic, social and political value of the research by the doctoral candidates, and the high level expertise which is brought to the employment world, will be considerable.
No other programme in the field delivers the objectives of this doctorate. Because there is no comparable programme, because the four centres have international repute and bring complementary strengths, and because this is a distinctive, interdisciplinary, international programme in a priority area, it meets real needs in research and employment fields. Funding by Erasmus Mundus recognises the DCGC as a genuine global leader in doctoral training in criminology in its production of doctoral graduates oriented to addressing contemporary real-world problems.
