In this text is taken the issue of doctoral studies as the highest level of formal education as well as the first stage of their research careers. Use the category of “critical mass” I put questions about the PhD program in the discipline of Pedagogy. One of the context of analysis of “critical mass” is the number of the pedagogy students I and II degree and the social contexts of education as well as employability qualified pedagogs. Then, I ask, who and why needs a PhD in pedagogy. At the end I discuss the European trends in doctoral education with comparing it to the dominance the administrative and bureaucratic approach to doctoral studies in Poland.

In 2015 Supreme Audit Office published the report concerned the quality of doctoral studies in Poland. Result of the conducted audit is alarming: “there are serious doubts both about quality and effectiveness of mass doctoral education” (SAO 2015). The text presents an overview of university regulations concerned the evaluation of annual achievements of PhD students (in the area of social sciences) and indicates its potentially negative consequences for the quality of their academic activity. The article refers to two terms – “running for points” and “parametric game”– introduced by Emanuel Kulczycki to describe consequences of economization of research evaluation system, i.e. measuring academic activities and turning them into points-based rewards.