In this paper, the research design for a study on structured doctoral education and university governance is presented and critically discussed. The design is based on the study's objectives as well as methodological and theoretical issues. The study's objectives are twofold: on the one hand,
establishing and explaining the State of the Art structured doctoral education in Switzerland and Norway, and on the other hand, analysing the steering of structured doctoral education, using this example to observe university governance in these two countries. Due to the relatively recent
character of the phenomenon "structured doctoral education" in continental Europe and its quality as an issue of multi-level governance, an exploratory, inductive study based on the comparison of case studies represented by four doctoral programmes per country is chosen. Covering four different
disciplinary fields and two types of higher education institutions within two countries, these case studies take into consideration different potential structuring variables and, simultaneously, provide enough leeway for other potential explanations. At the same time, the contribution discusses the
potential of the research to provide meaningful material, including a complete picture of involved actors at the different levels. Empirical work consists primarily of interviews with actors involved in doctoral programmes and includes an analysis of existing regulations as well as contextualisation
in national and European policies.