Doctoral Futures

Doctoral Futures is a bold three-year program that aims to assess and reimagine humanities graduate education to better prepare the next generation of knowledge producers. This collaborative initiative with the American Historical Association, the Modern Language Association, and the Society of Biblical Literature includes in-depth research, analysis, and focus groups on graduate recruitment and admissions, curricular innovation, mentoring and retention, and longitudinal outcomes for PhDs.

Doctoral Futures committees comprised of institutional leaders, academic societies, faculty, and doctoral students will develop a robust, publicly accessible inventory of research on humanities graduate education innovation efforts. The project leadership will also produce new research on promising approaches, engage institutional decision makers around adopting them, and support administrators and faculty as they put changes into practice.

Goals of the Initiative

Create a clearinghouse for research

Inventory existing research on past efforts to improve humanities graduate education. Generate new research about promising practices.

Identify promising practices and models

Identify the most promising and replicable methods and models for change from past initiatives and make recommendations for their dissemination and implementation.

Drive future-forward systemic change

Engage decision-makers across the country in the adoption of the most promising practices and models to create humanities doctoral education for 21st century challenges. 

Support leaders and institutions

Support leaders, programs, and institutions in implementing changes to their doctoral programs, including by connecting them with change-makers at other institutions.

The Doctoral Futures initiative is part of the ACLS vision of a “new academy”—where a vibrantly curious, diverse professoriate can pursue scholarly inquiry with creativity and wonder, where collaboration and mentorship are valued, and where faculty are rewarded for connecting with a generation burdened by financial worries and the pandemic’s aftermath. This work spans ACLS programs and communities, including through the Intention Foundry, ACLS Open Access Book Prizes, Mellon/ACLS Dissertation Innovation Fellowship, and Building Blocks for a New Academy.

Our vision for a new academy is of a higher education system that centers humanistic knowledge, treats people and the human beings working in the system fairly and justly, and gives people the best opportunities that they can possibly offer. ACLS President Joy Connolly

Watch Joy Connolly share the ACLS vision for a New Academy

Entering 2026, Doctoral Futures has completed its initial phase of inquiry and is shifting from reflection to action, developing concrete recommendations. Humanities graduate education stands at an inflection point, and we’re seizing this extraordinary opportunity to shape what comes next.

PROJECT TIMELINE

Phase 1: Research

Goal: Understand the current state of graduate education, identify areas in need of structural change, and survey the landscape of attempted reforms

Activities:

Survey existing research on graduate education
Organize committees and advisory group
Document successful programs and practices at different institutions
Conduct focus groups and interviews with students, faculty, and administrators

Phase 2: Recommendations

Goal: Turn research into practical guidance for institutions

Activities:

Draft recommendations from analyzed data
Host a convening to share results and refine proposals
Create toolkit(s) with frameworks and examples
Develop catalog of approaches that work
Present preliminary findings to faculty and academic leaders
Launch resource website

Phase 3: Persuasion

Goal: Build support and secure commitments to implementation

Activities:

Offer presentations and workshops at national conferences, including disciplinary association meetings
Engage faculty,administrators, and university leadership to develop institution-specific implementation plans
Secure commitments for specific reforms from institutions
Develop a plan for the next phase of doctoral education reform

Project Deliverables

Research landscape analyses
Resources and toolkits for use by faculty and administrators
Menu of best practices and models
Formal commitments from institutional leaders
Implementation action plans

Phase 1: Research

Goal: Understand the current state of graduate education, identify areas in need of structural change, and survey the landscape of attempted reforms

Activities:

Survey existing research on graduate education
Organize committees and advisory group
Document successful programs and practices at different institutions
Conduct focus groups and interviews with students, faculty, and administrators

Phase 2: Recommendations

Goal: Turn research into practical guidance for institutions

Activities:

Draft recommendations from analyzed data
Host a convening to share results and refine proposals
Create toolkit(s) with frameworks and examples
Develop catalog of approaches that work
Present preliminary findings to faculty and academic leaders
Launch resource website

Phase 3: Persuasion

Goal: Build support and secure commitments to implementation

Activities:

Offer presentations and workshops at national conferences, including disciplinary association meetings
Engage faculty,administrators, and university leadership to develop institution-specific implementation plans
Secure commitments for specific reforms from institutions
Develop a plan for the next phase of doctoral education reform

Project Deliverables

Research landscape analyses
Resources and toolkits for use by faculty and administrators
Menu of best practices and models
Formal commitments from institutional leaders
Implementation action plans

Latest Updates

Doctoral Futures is now on Medium!

Read more Doctoral Futures content on our recently launched Medium site.

Doctoral Futures: Perspectives

Doctoral Futures Committees

Meet the Project Leadership

Led by the Society of Biblical Literature, participants will examine recruitment and admissions practices, experiments in revising selection criteria, undergraduate program preparation, and efforts to diversify the applicant pool.

Led by the Modern Language Association, participants will look at advising and mentoring practices, retention strategies (particularly for members of underrepresented groups), curricular innovation, exams, the future of the dissertation.

Led by the American Historical Association, participants will consider how we might realign humanities graduate education with the need for advanced educated professionals with humanistic skills and perspectives, inside and outside academia.

Learned Societies Supporting Doctoral Futures