Abstract
Much research on doctoral supervision has been motivated by widespread interest in articulating what constitutes ‘good supervision’ to improve both student experience and completion rates. In this paper we identify and seek to address a more fundamental problem with doctoral supervision, namely that it is overly informed by and weighted in favour of narrow concerns and practices of the Academy. As such, we argue that current supervisory practices may be failing doctoral candidates by neglecting to sufficiently prepare them for professional practice of any kind. Drawing on identity work theory and especially identity work in relation to liminality, our intended contribution is to develop a pedagogy which, through reflecting the embeddedness of practice in scholarship, better prepares and supports candidates for using their acquired skills in scholarship within practice contexts and which articulates and justifies the value of doctoral programmes beyond the mere production of more highly academically qualified individuals.