Higher Education Courses Provision

Wednesday, 10 May 2017

Questions (109)

Thomas Byrne

Question:

109. Deputy Thomas Byrne asked the Minister for Education and Skills if his Department or a body under its aegis has figures on numbers undertaking PhDs in each year since 2009, including PhD entry rates compared to completion rates in HEIs here; and if he will provide same. [22222/17]

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Written answers

Minister for Education and Skills

The number of PhD enrolments and awards since 2008/2009 are set out in the tables.

Table 1 shows the number of total PhD enrolments over the past eight years. The year in each instance refers to the academic year. The 2016 returns contain academic year 2015/2016 enrolments and calendar year 2015 graduates (2014/2015 academic year graduates).

Full-time PhD programmes usually span over a three or four year period, part-time PhD programmes can span many more years than this.

Table 1

Course Year	2008/2009	2009/2010	2010/2011	2011/2012	2012/2013	2013/2014	2014/2015	2015/2016
1	2,052	2,020	1,733	1,959	1,658	1,774	1,863	1,909
2	1,297	2,158	1,949	1,650	1,847	1,551	1,723	1,740
3	1,511	1,623	2,211	1,950	1,611	1,829	1,488	1,672
4	1,119	1,381	1,381	1,875	1,693	1,328	1,561	1,390
5	319	419	459	457	591	474	454	550
6	193	223	250	294	294	392	389	413
7	121	146	156	153	140	133	144	145
8	47	57	68	58	80	104	100	128
9	17	20	20	35	31	30	27	31
Other	474	522	510	559	408	495	409	390
Total	7,150	8,569	8,737	8,990	8,353	8,110	8,158	8,368

Table 2 outlines the number of PhD graduates over the past eight years. The graduate numbers in each year refer to enrolments that started between three and nine years ago in most instances.

Table 2

Award	2007/2008	2008/2009	2009/2010	2010/2011	2011/2012	2012/2013	2013/2014	2014/2015
PhD	1,048	1,210	1,222	1,447	1,532	1,737	1,749	1,429