As Thierry Gaudin puts it ( De l’innovation, Ed. de l’Aube, 1998, pp.136), the difficulty for many PhD students is to move away from being a “knowledge vessel’ and to become active and entrepreneurial in order to create new knowledge and transform it into creations. Gaudin believes that the pedagogical methods are to blame and that they must be reversed, emphasizing the fact that very few creativity methods are being used at the university and research levels.

The Boyer Commission on Educating Undergraduates in the Research University: Reinventing Undergraduate Education: A Bluerpint for America’s research Universities was delivering the same message in 1995:

“The inquiry-based learning urged in this report requires a profound change in the way undergraduate teaching is structured. The traditional lecturing and note-taking, certified by periodic examinations, was created for a time when books were scarce and costly; lecturing to large audiences of students was an efficient means of creating several compendia of learning where only one existed before. The delivery system persisted into the present largely because it was familiar, easy, and required no imagination.

But education by inquiry demands collaborative effort; traditional lecturing should not be the dominant mode of instruction in a research university. The experience of most undergraduates at most research universities is that of receiving what is served out to them. In one course after another they listen, transcribe, absorb, and repeat, essentially as undergraduates have done for centuries. The ideal embodied in this report would turn the prevailing undergraduate culture of receivers into a culture of inquirers, a culture in which faculty, graduate students, and undergraduates share an adventure of discovery.”

The Réflexives ® seminars are spaces of dialogue, of reflective practice and openness which were created for and by INRA researchers; they have been organized for more than ten years within research departments and between departments to lay the foundations of a scientific and human cooperation among researchers, and between supervisors and PhD students. They are key events in the process when a PhD student must take ownership of its research subject and turn it into a research project, and develop into a researcher “by profession” ; they are also key in the training of supervisors who most of the time learn their trade from their peers.

The model developed can of course be used by any scientific group or team keen to enhance communication and to engage in interdisciplinary activities ; it can be completed by other activities to create a scientific training scheme focusing on the profession of researcher and on the building of research objects. It has already been widely used to build individual and collective research projects and interdisciplinary projects.

Many studies have observed that there are loosely defined stages common to most research projects. Most authors argue that it is incumbent upon the advisor to bridge the gaps in communication during the various stages of research by requesting regular meetings and updates, and to develop a basic level of collegiality to make the research project successful. They also find that as research progresses, students move from looking to supervisors for direction and guidance towards forming a ‘critical friendship’. Thus the roles expected and assumed by students and supervisors – as guide, project manager, or ‘critical friend’ – structure the relationship and the strategies for supervision.

We defend the idea that the research project plays a fundamental role in structuring thinking, knowledge acquisition and elaboration, and that it strongly contributes to developing autonomy, critical analysis and the capacity to synthesize ideas and experience. The methodological approach to structuring a research project is key to a successful relationship between supervisors and students .

« La connaissance scientifique ne peut pas progresser dans la confusion (…) la recherche scientifique doit être organisée et méthodique, elle doit éviter l’à-peu-près et structurer son propos. Et l’instrument pour y parvenir, peut-être le meilleur, est le projet de recherche.

Le projet de recherche est beaucoup plus qu’un plan de travail, c’est un outil de construction logique du travail de recherche... le projet est un outil organisateur non seulement du travail, mais aussi de la pensée à propos de ce travail  . (…)

Ses principaux avantages se font sentir encore plus au moment de la structuration du mémoire de maîtrise et de la thèse de doctorat. À ce niveau, c’est souvent ce qui fait la différence entre un travail réussi et un travail raté ou seulement passable».Mace, G., & Pétry, F., Guide d’élaboration d’un projet de recherche, 2ème édition, Presses de l’Université de Laval, 2000, page 132.

When placed at the centre of a debate, the young researcher or the senior researcher is given a unique opportunity to be questioned, to be listened to and eventually, to be obliged to « question his own discourse ».

Opening « spaces of transaction » and making the most of a special moment; linking conception and writing activities: three basic rules:

1. To focus on how an idea is going to be turned into a research project : in the preparation of a PhD, it is crucial to follow and accompany the process by which the subject proposed by a supervisor – i.e a formulation of his idea – will be transformed into a research project by the supervisor-student pair and to see how the young researcher will take ownership of the idea and of the work: taking ownership of the work implies both sharing intellectual property and building a harmonious relationship. Turning an idea into a project, moving from a thesis subject to a research project with clearly formulated objectives, a relevant strategy and realistic outcomes is a key stage in the PhD process: it provides the added-value of the doctoral training. Our experience shows that this transformation is best achieved within an interdisciplinary group, where supervisor and student interact in a process mediated by facilitators.
2. To focus from the start on the quality of communication (scientific articles, oral presentations at conferences, etc) : it depends on the quality of the research question and the level of ownership of the subject. We defend the idea that « communicating is the doing of science » (The Chicago Guide to Communicating Science, S.L Montgomery, 2003); the researcher must from the start link the doing of science and the communication of it. Thus defending a thesis means that the student is able to develop arguments to justify the choices he has made and to take part in a scientific controversy. The resarcher’s capacity to communicate will contribute to the visibility of his scientific production, as well as of that of the team and of the institution.
3. To focus on research practices : the quality of the training implies that the young researcher has acquired individual and collective practices. Supervisors must be able to make their know-how, knowledge and practices explicit: it is therefore essential to open spaces of debate, to create “spaces of transaction” (Nowotny, H & al, Rethinking Science, Polity Press 2001.) where situations and practices can be confronted allowing for the reflection on ethics and good practices which must be part of the doctoral training.

The Réflexives ® seminars focus on the two poles of scientific activity: formulating relavant research questions and communicating one’s research. That’s where freedom, creativity, imagination are best expressed. Such intellectual training is most likely to lead to innovation and valorization of research; it is also invaluable to most employers within or outside the academic environment. Since it is a relatively abstract kind of work, it is rather difficult and requires distanciation from the question and the discipline.

Research training heavily relies on the implicit and the tacit: the young researcher learns at the bench or by going to conferences, attending lab meetings, etc. Most of these situations are not conducive to dialogue and the often blind competition among researchers ( Publish or perish !) is another obstacle that only a “neutral” space can help overcome.

To foster knowledge sharing, to encourage reflective practice and develop interdisciplinarity, the Réflexives ® seminars provide spaces outside the laboratory where ideal speech situations (Habermas, J., The Theory of Communicative Action, Cambridge, Polity Press, 1984 ) can develop – situations where each participant gets a chance to engage into a meaningful dialogue, where dialogue is not biased, and where relations are symmetrical and reciprocal. These situations are facilitated by researchers from many different disciplines, who have developed specific competences and are well versed in the art of listening and questioning.