This paper intends to present a preliminary study focusing doctoral education in NOVA Lisbon University. This University is less than fifty years old and it is growing, but a slight decrease in the doctoral population was observed in the last years, the completion times are not the ideal and attrition exists. So it is important to know the characteristics of the doctoral population of the University, in terms of profile and main difficulties, envisaging what can be done to promote lower attrition and shorter completion time. Using a national database (RAIDES) and public institutional documents, it was possible to initiate a research that aims at characterizing not only the student population, but also the supervision practices, monitorization and evaluation.