Independence, Interdisciplinarity, Internationality: Toward “Higher Bildung” in Doctoral Education

In this article, we introduce the concept of “higher Bildung,” which we developed as a pedagogical approach to doctoral supervision and mentoring guided by principles of emancipation and individual freedom. The pedagogical framework builds on a combination of higher education and the educational concept of Bildung to foster an idea of higher education that highlights growth, cooperation, and sustainability. We discuss three fundamental pillars for this concept – independence, interdisciplinarity, and internationality – and explain how we applied this conceptual framework in an international seminar for early-stage researchers, which resulted in articles published in the special section of this peer-reviewed journal.