Because "Have You Spoken to Your Supervisor?" Can Only Solve So Much
If you're a postgraduate researcher, chances are your supervisor is one of the most important people in your university journey.
They guide your research, challenge your thinking, help you navigate academia, and occasionally send emails that make you question everything you've done for the last six months. No pressure.
That's exactly why PGR Supervision is one of the Students' Union's Top Ten priorities this year. Good supervision can make a PhD an incredible experience. Poor supervision? Well... let's just say there's a reason people keep bringing it up.
Before we get to the work, I just want to say I am so thankful to all the support from staff, students, reps, PVCs to further this top 10 item. Special thanks to Associate PVC Research Joe Devine (the lead for this Top 10) and interim PVC Research Emma Carmel (the UEB sponsor for this top 10) for their contributions. None of this would be happening without them.
So, here's what we've been working on this year.
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Through consultations, discussions, workshops, and feedback from PGRs, we're making supervision a central conversation rather than something that only gets discussed when things go wrong.
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A New Supervision Framework Is in the Works. One of the biggest developments this year has been the creation of a new supervision paper. Exciting? Maybe not. Important? Absolutely. The paper has been written by Associate PVC Research (Doctoral), consulted on by postgraduate researchers, UDSC, PG Officer, academics, Directors of Studies, and professional services colleagues and is currently in the final draft stage before moving through governance processes.
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PGR Voices Are Shaping the Changes. PGRs have been involved throughout the consultation process, ensuring proposed changes reflect real experiences rather than assumptions. Because nobody understands supervision better than the people experiencing it every day.
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Supervisor Training. Supervision workshops have been running throughout the academic year, helping supervisors develop skills and share best practices. We are looking at reviewing them, measuring impact, covering gaps, and their continuation.
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Supervision in practice. One question we've been asking is: "How do we know good supervision on paper is actually good supervision in practice?" It's an important conversation. Supervisor nominations and records provide useful information, but they don't always capture the full student experience. We're continuing to explore how we can better understand and monitor what supervision actually looks like for researchers.
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Agreement of expectations. One of the most common causes of supervision difficulties is mismatched expectations. You think meetings should happen every two weeks. Your supervisor thinks "whenever necessary" is a schedule. Neither of you are technically wrong, but somebody is definitely frustrated. That's why work is underway to introduce clearer agreements around expectations from next academic year, helping both supervisors and students understand their responsibilities from the beginning.
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Academic Milestones Reviewed. Another area of focus has been academic milestones and changes are being introduced as an outcome of the E2E after being consulted and approved by PGR UDSC reps, PG Officer and UDSC committee.
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The End-to-End Project Is Still a Priority. Discussions continue around the future of End-to-End (E2E) developments and how best to support the postgraduate research experience.
Next steps:
- Supporting the finalisation of the supervision paper
- Reviewing the impact of supervisor workshops
- ?Introducing agreement of expectations and changes to academic milestones
- ?Making sure PGR voices remain central to every discussion
Sanya Jethwani
Students' Union Postgraduate Officer 25/26