Matthew Sillence: So welcome back to the PGR matters podcast.

This episode, we have two very special guests who are co

authors of a recent book called doctoral supervision and

research culture, published by Taylor and Francis. This is the

first time we've really addressed research degree

supervision on the podcast. So we're very fortunate to benefit

from their insights from across the HE sector in the UK. Dr

Karen Clegg is a reader in doctoral education in the school

for Arts and Creative Technologies at the University

of York. And Dr Gill Houston is an independent researcher and

former Chair of the UK Council for Graduate Education, the

UKCGE. Together with Dr Owen Gower, Director of the UKCGE,

they produced an informative and timely publication that draws on

many years of data about the supervisory experience. I've

enjoyed reading it, and I think that many of our listeners will

as well. So welcome to you both. Great to have you here, Gill and

Karen,

Karen Clegg: So I will kick off, Matthew, thank you very much for

having us. Gill and I go back a long way. I started my PhD at

the University of Central Lancashire, for which I had a

great time. And I know them a lot, because I got huge amounts

of teaching experience while I was while I was there as a GTA.

And my PhD was focused on self and peer assessment and

reflective practice and how that really can transform the way in

which we learn. And there were, then the time, a lot of

activities that were being advertised around areas of

learning, learning and teaching. And one of them was a project

being run by the University of Bristol, in collaboration with

other institutions, looking at self and peer assessment. So I

was very new, keynote of my PhD, and I applied for this role,

knowing, really, that I didn't have tons of experience, but,

but the upshot was, I was offered the post by Gill. So

Gill hired me a long, long time ago, and then I carried on

supporting PGRs and early career researchers, and I spent some

happy time at Bristol and at Warwick, and then I've been at

York, primarily supporting PGRs, but having spent so much time

working with them, it became so apparent the the reliance and

and the importance of the supervisory relationship. And so

I was able then to to to be poacher turned gamekeeper, if

you like, and put together a bid for a very large project for

which I'm now leading. That's the research supervision

project. So So Gill, I have known each other a long time and

crossed over when we were both on the UK Council for Graduate

Education also.

Matthew Sillence: Oh, brilliant. Thank Thank you, Karen, for

that. It's great, great to know your academic trajectory, how

you've gone into this. And also it's brilliant that the you

know, the two of you, are kind of linked over your careers. I

guess you've gone gone through the last few years. I guess it's

probably natural that you've also come to co author this book

with, with, with Owen Gower as well. So that you're, you know,

working together professionally, writing together Gill, that was,

that was Karen's side of the origin story. Do you want to

tell us? Tell us yours.

Gill Houston: Well, mine's a bit different. It's a different

route. I don't have a first degree. I did my master's degree

in it at City University now city St George's while I was

working at Bristol in the Careers Service. Then I moved to

the university's planning office in a role that included some

statistical work on teaching and supervisory loads in all

departments and what this meant for their annual income. So I

was a planner for a while.

At that point, I got involved in research education, which

developed over time. My interest developed over time, and I

became head of the university's central Education Support Unit.

When doctoral degrees became my specialism. I think it's about

at that time that Karen and I first started working together,

and I was recruited into a part time secondment with the Quality

Assurance Agency, which in those days had a bit more muscle. And

I chaired the group that developed QAA's, first detailed

Code of

Practice for Research Degrees in 2004

and then I went on to do the codes of practice for student

assessment and external examining. During that period at

Bristol, I contributed to some masters teaching and to the

introductory program for new academic staff, including the

assessment and doctoral supervision modules, and with

the graduate dean of each faculty, I delivered some

targeted CPD for supervisors, which was really, really

interesting and a huge learning experience. The University and

QA roles were really complimentary. The former

offered me credibility with the latter, nationally and

internationally, and then, at a late stage in my life, in 2010 I

began a part time PhD. I left the university. I was working

with UK Council for Graduate Education at the time, and my

PhD was about the final examination of the PhD. So a PhD

on the PhD, and it felt at that point as though all my

professional experience had led to it. And latterly, I was a

member of their board, the council's board, for nine years

in the roles, ultimately of Chair and Vice Chair.

Matthew Sillence: Thank you, Gill, thank you. And I've got to

say, really, I've really enjoyed dipping into your PhD thesis

over the last few years, because it really is like, you know, we

always, we always worry about what happens to our thesis after

we get through a viva. But yeah, yeah, yours is yours one I've

been going back to time and time again, just simply because it's

offered such amazing, unique insights into that kind of

closed door examination experience, I think. And it's

really, yeah, really valuable work.

Gill Houston: Thank you, Matthew. I really appreciate

that.

Matthew Sillence: Yeah, thank you. Well, thank you both. And

really, what we're here to do today is talk about your recent

book. And this is one of the things I really love doing with

my job, is actually going out there and looking at new new

texts that have come out around doctoral education and

postgraduate research generally. And

who would like to kick off?

Karen Clegg: I'm going to kick off because it was all my doing.

And it kind of struck me almost as a light bulb moment that we

knew extensive amounts about PGRs and about their

experiences. And there are lots of surveys. And obviously, you

know, in the UK, postgraduate research experience survey

prayers being the obvious one. And yet, Gill and I were both

working very much in the field of doctoral education and and it

struck me that we knew very little about the supervisory

experience. There were no surveys in the UK that looked at

this at all. So it was, it was a huge gap. And at that time, we

had a colleague from Wellcome Trust who was part of the

council, and I had this conversation with her, and she

got straight back to me and said, how fast could you get me

some data on this. And I said, I don't know. I reached out to

Gill, and I reached out to Owen, and I said, Oh, they seem to be

quite keen on this. We should, we should do this. So really, we

wanted to find out and fill the gap that about the topics that

weren't covered by other surveys, and they were about,

generally, the supervisor experience. But you know what?

What is it that supervision brings to to their portfolio as

an academic, if indeed they are academics that are so who was

taking part in supervision? What contribution were they? Were

they making? How many of them are there that are involved in.

preferred numbers of candidates per supervisor, and there are

very few. No, that's not fair. It isn't that there are very few

policies in place where institutions have policies in

place around minimum and maximum numbers of candidates.

Supervisors don't always know that. In fact, there was, there

was not much sense that supervisors typically knew what

their institutional guidance was, and these are very

committed people with some some wonderful qualitative data

that's coming through. So it's, you know, it isn't really

ignorant. It's that we felt that the light was being shone on the

lack of transparency around these areas.

Matthew Sillence: That's fascinating. Thank Thank you.

Thank you, Karen. It's great to understand the history of this,

and particularly very, a very difficult time, I mean, from all

institutions in driving something forward during a

global emergency. So at that particular moment, I've got to

say, applaud you for getting through that period of time and

getting something off the ground so quickly.

Gill, did you? Did you have any other kind of comments or things

that you wanted to feed in?

Gill Houston: Just a couple of sentences, really, aside from

what we're talking about today, I would say that was the one,

one of the most intensive periods of work for the council

ever during the pandemic, because we produced some

guidelines on the conduct of virtual vivas, as you know,

Matthew, and other things. And it was a, it was a very intense

and intensive period of work. But as far as the survey is

concerned, I was immensely proud of the outcomes of the first

survey, really the richness and the quality of the data, and

again, in 2024

so it's very I think it's good to embed some of these practices

quite regularly, not too often, because of the load on

supervisors, but just to keep the temperature of it as things

and be able to monitor trends. So I'm really pleased we started

it. And as far as I think you were going to ask us about

comparability of the surveys and so on, and I think we couldn't

really try and match anybody else's question set, because,

for a start, Doctor of Education is so individual, and we knew we

would get different sorts of, um,

Responses in some areas, not not all, from different groups of

disciplines, but also doctoral education in each country is

organized so in such a diverse way that we've taken, as Karen

mentioned, the comparability that we can about, you know, the

expected numbers of candidates being supervised, but otherwise,

it's very difficult to do that.

Matthew Sillence: Thank you. Yeah, and you're absolutely

right. I mean, as one of the kind of first things that struck

me, I think, was right back in chapter two of the book, where

you're talking about these different surveys. So Australia,

South Africa, that you've mentioned, Karen, the

Netherlands, UK, 2021 and also, I think France as well, in 2021

so and yes, they did. They do have very different systems. I

think one of the one of the things that perhaps might

transcend some of these national idiosyncrasies, I suppose, of

our higher education systems, is actually one thing that really

jumped out for me in the findings that you were talking

about was the the importance of supervisors feeling valued, and

that was really that kind of resonated with me, because I've

worked with supervisors for a number of years in my own

institution, and I think behind a lot of questions that people

have, there is a sense of how people are treated, not by their

institution and outside their institution as well through

their supervisory practice. So can you elaborate on how

institutions can better recognize and value the

contributions of their doctoral supervisors?

Gill Houston: I think, as we saw in chapter three of the book,

I'm going to set the context first, and chapter three is is

one of Owen's chapters. Supervisors often feel

undervalued and overworked. That's on page 43 of the book. A

slightly more positive picture emerged from the 2024 survey.

36% of respondents did not feel valued by their institution,

compared with 40% in 2021 but that's quite a small difference,

given also the increase in numbers and a corresponding

increase in those who do feel valued. So 56% in 2024 and 52%

in 2021

but I think most supervisors many, especially in non-Russell

Group universities, would welcome more overt signs from

their institutions that their value is recognized. And I think

that's summed up by this quote I'm going to give you from the

2024 report, which is, there needs to be clearer recognition

of the importance of supervision in the purpose of the university

to include generous time allocation and explicit

distinction from one's own research goals where those goals

also need more generous time and space. And I think in many

universities, the undergraduate numbers have grown so much over

the last 10, 15 years, and also taught masters programs and

taught education has sort of eclipsed doctoral education. So

I think there's a real mismatch between the value that they're

giving to the university. In other words, they're supporting

and guiding the life blood of the universities, because those

are the doctoral researchers, are the next people who are

going to take up those responsibilities, and that is

not overtly recognized by by universities. So I think what

they can do is have time, time allocations for supervision, and

admit that actually, supervision isn't something you do on top of

your 100%

Etcetera. Yet the candidates realize, even if not right at

the beginning, they realize how much the supervisor is giving

them.

Matthew Sillence: Thank you. Thank you, Gill, that's really,

really nice to sort of drill down into those areas that

you've just discussed there. And I think that issue of how

motivated and invested supervisors are, you know, are,

even though there is perhaps this mismatch in terms of

recognition around that and in some cases, in some

institutions, perhaps confusion around time allocations, that's

quite an interesting, kind of slightly paradoxical, really,

you totally expect people to lose that investment if they

didn't get the recognition. So there's obviously something

deeply powerful about that sort of net, you know, supporting

that next generation of researchers. Karen, do you want

to? Do you want to come in there and say a little bit more about

about this from your, I guess, from your perspective?

Karen Clegg: Thank you. Yeah. I mean, there's a couple of things

that Gill has touched on and that I think are worth

reflecting back, is that part of the reason that they enjoy that

relationship so much is, perhaps less benevolent or altruistic as

it sounds, that there is huge correlation between UKRSS and

France and Stellenbosch that show that research capacity is

increased by being a supervisor. They contribute to their own

research, you know. And there's all the joy, genuine joy, that

comes from that of supporting the next generation who are

working in their field and and who, you know, they're bouncing

great creative ideas off. But essentially, you know, if

institutions or doctoral deans are listening, then there is

evidence to suggest that being a supervisor and having PGRs

really contributes to the productivity and the output. And

so if you're having to make a case as to why you would have

doctoral candidates, it's because your research capacity

increases and is of a high quality. So that's that's worth

noting, I think, in terms of recognition, if we just unpack a

little bit what's meant by that, because a few people have have

asked, if you think about internal recognition within your

own institution, then in terms of promotion criteria, then

really it's quite often drilled down to what can be assessed,

which is metrics. So how many successful completions Have you

had? And where were those completions through in a timely

manner? You know, were they on time? And, you know,

potentially, how many did you lose? What were the attrition

rates? So it's a number. It's a quantifiable number that's quite

typically used in in promotion, not always, I have to say. And

there are emerging some some exceptions and institutions who

are willing to challenge that a little bit, and I'll say

something about why I think that is in a moment. But there is

also quite a lot of institutions that offer awards. Typically,

they are student led, and so the nominations would be by the

student, and obviously all the kind of lack of objectivity that

that brings, but and the popularity of a supervisor, so

it's not scientifically objective, but nonetheless,

those awards do recognize great supervisors and great

supervisory practice, and There are a few exceptions. So the

University of Coventry, for example, has a an award for

supervisory team, which which is lovely, because what that does

is think about the group of people that are there supporting

the candidate, not just the main supervisor, and looking at

delivery of excellence and effective processes that support

the candidate, rather than them just being being popular. When

we did some focus groups as part of the research supervision

project, supervisors, on the whole, they weren't that

bothered about getting an award. It was, it was nice, you know,

and it was lovely to be recognized and nominated by a

candidate, but as Gill has alluded to, what what they

really want is, you know, is time. You know, they want a

proper and fair and equitable workload allocation. But there

are a number of supervisors, particularly those are at the

early stages of their career, that really value the external

recognition that can be granted through things like the research

supervision program at UKCGE, the Recognition Program. And

that requires the development of of a portfolio of evidence

against a number of good practice framework elements. And

there are two stages to that. There's an associate route for

those with with less experience, and a full route for those with

with more supervisory experience. And what we found in

in the UKRSS survey data and in our focus groups is that there

are a large number of academics, of people out there who we've

coined the phrase of hidden supervisors, and they are people

who typically.

Contributing to to might what might be an unofficial

supervisory team. And these people might be they might be

postdocs, they might be research associates in in arts and

humanities. They might be technicians, they may be career

specialists or researcher developers. But it's that sense

that actually the doctoral journey and and experience is

supported by by a large number of people. And what the

recognition routes, both internal in the way of of awards

and external in terms of recognition programs, grant, is

some recognition of everybody that's involved. So it casts the

net a little bit wider. And as I say, for those who are at the

early stages of their career, the external recognition

provides a badge and an evidence that can be used to support

career advancement, to demonstrate that they're they're

committed to good supervisory practice. And I think we're at

the brink of of a culture change right now, mainly in the UK,

because of ref, I will thank personally everybody at research

England for including in the in the pilot metrics for people,

culture and environment, this idea that infrastructure,

processes and mechanisms are in place to support the training

and supervision of research students, and that those

processes are working effectively. So institutions,

for the first time now, are having to think about, well,

what are our processes and mechanisms, and are they

effective, and how do we support PGRs, and what kind of training

and professional development are we putting in place for

supervisors? So it's really forced institutions to think

about this and to think about the value and the time and the

recognition that they're giving to supervisors. So it's a real

lever for change. It's welcome as far as personally, as far as

I'm concerned, I'm sure institutions will say, No, it's

creating a ton of work, but actually it's about properly

recognizing this really valuable part of research culture that

that we've been you know, Gill and I have been banging on about

that supervision matters.

Matthew Sillence: Thank you, Karen. I was fascinating there,

because I think what you're getting at is the second part of

the title of your book, which is was about doctoral supervision.

But there's a second bit, which is that and research culture,

and we've heard a lot in the last few years across the higher

education sector in the UK around this, this thing called

research culture, and you know, universities have been looking

into how they can foster, develop that, looking at ways to

perhaps, sort of benchmarking progress in those areas. There's

now a lot more, as you was pointing out, more more interest

in the the research excellence framework around the

infrastructure, the kind of the wider culture for research, not

just, you know, the outputs that people are thinking about, the

quality of those outputs, but actually how the process is

working. I often, I've worked in researcher development for for

over a decade, and

the great benefits that they've been since the Roberts Review

back in the early 2000s and what that led to in terms of

research, postgraduate research development, so PhD students and

other research degree programs. But what we haven't seen as much

of is the other side of that, or the kind of the other half of

the bridge, which is around how supervisors are supported and

how they're developed. Because there's a there's that sort of

interplay of the two things is that research students very

often, you know, as you're pointing out, they value their

supervisors. They value their input. They feel enriched or

rewarded and supported by a good relationship there. And

likewise, the flip side of that is the Supervisors also feel

they're getting a tremendous amount of reward as well, as

well as the outputs, the research outputs that come out

of that. So there's that kind of interdependency of the two. And

if you just focus on one, you kind of impoverish the whole

system. So you have to kind of build those two in tandem,

otherwise you'll never kind of cross the gap. Really, there's

always going to be that great, big chasm in the middle which

people are falling into, unless you build that bridge from both

sides. So I think that's, yeah, that's really amazing work that

you're doing to kind of draw attention to

So how do you think supervisors can effectively incorporate

feedback from their supervises to improve their supervisory

approach?

Gill Houston: Okay? Well, I think this is a really

interesting one, and before they can incorporate the feedback, of

course, they have to be brave enough to ask for it, and as you

can see from some of my chapters, I was able to mine

some of the research and recognition submissions. We

obviously got permission from those people, but they're all

anonymous, but I'm hoping some of them will have read the book

and seen how much, how important it is to get some feedback from

your doctoral researchers, from your supervisees. However, I

think it there are times and places for that. I think if

you're a new supervisor who's not that confident, it's not

brilliant to immediately ask your supervisees what they think

of your your approach and your style, because without any

mediation, that might be quite severe for you to hear. But I

think there are some quite good examples in the book of how some

of the braver supervisors have either deliberately or

coincidentally sought feedback from their supervisees, and I

think the ones who have have benefited enormously because

they've acted upon it and they have felt so much more

comfortable with subsequent supervisees as a result of

processing. And as Karen was saying earlier, reflecting on

that feedback and what you have to submit for supervisor

recognition is very it has to be analytical and evidence based,

but it's reflective. And I was so impressed by those people

who've been brave enough to put in their their accounts that

this is what they've done, or they had discovered through a

different means that a particular supervisee had had

difficulty with their approach, or they hadn't really helped

them to make the most of their potential, and as a result of

that, they'd completely changed. Now there are different ways

you've asked about incorporating feedback. I think the best way

of incorporating it is, first of all,

Karen Clegg: But I recognize also from supervisors who say

that that, in itself, is problematic. You've got lots of

different opinions that to the candidate. And, you know,

some stem typically have more academics and more staff than

than arts and humanities. So, you know, have we got the

capacity to enable a team approach to supervision in all

subjects that's that's not equitable, so it's very

complicated. But if you were going to offer a few quick tips,

it would it would be around thinking long and hard and

taking time over the recruitment and selection process, putting

the time in at the start in order to develop a trustful

relationship with the candidate to think about the expectations,

who's doing what, who's responsible for what? And many

institutions have roles and responsibilities that are that

are outlined, but having a conversation about those

policies is is useful and to calibrate, as, as Gill has

already said, you know, with with COVID. Advisors and other

members, and perhaps, you know, informal communities of practice

for PGRs and to really get a sense of what are they feeling

and what are the challenges here. Matthew, I don't know if

that fully answers your question, but it's, it's

complex.

Matthew Sillence: Thank you. Thank you, Karen. I think that's

really valuable, because we're getting. I think back to this

idea that we may have said this before on on the podcast, which

is that, in the same way, is that you know that that adage,

you know, it takes a village to raise a child, kind of thing

that there is a sort of, it takes a it takes a community, or

research community, to raise a or develop a doctoral candidate

or a postgraduate researcher. You know, it takes a university

approach to that. And you've outlined, I think, a number of

of different roles that that intersect with that relationship

between supervisors and their and their students. I think the

the observations that you've made there around the some of

those challenges coming off the back of the pandemic are really

interesting, because this is the first year now that I've, I've

welcomed students into the university who've had almost

entirely online based education, higher education, which, which

was, you know, it wasn't that long ago that I was going

through it myself, and then I got sort of a weird wake up call

in the seminar recently, and somebody said that to me, and I

went, Oh, gosh, oh gosh. Yeah, you've never, actually, you've

been at our university, but you haven't been at our university

in terms of physically, actually, you know, being around

these communities. And that's, I think that's something that we,

we would definitely do well, to be mindful of going through the

next year, two years as people come through that generation. So

yeah, great observation. Thank you. Thank you for that. Just

sort of moving on a little bit at this point to think about the

sort of chapter four, I think it's in section two of the book,

you introduce continuing or continuous professional

development, CPD for supervisors. And I remember as I

was reading the book, I was kind of digitally underlining all of

those pages because I was thinking, actually, CPD is a

really interesting thing. So I think maybe we need to just be

clear for the listeners what we mean by CPD and what we mean by

kind of, you know, training or induction programs and things

like that. I mean, could you, first of all, just like, sort of

give a bit of a definition of how you were treating that in

the book?

Karen Clegg: Yeah, and forgive me, I probably am going to

overlap with the book and and the research supervision

project, because that is focused primarily on on enabling and

supporting good supervision practice. And I realized good is

a can of worms also, but the way that we've looked at it is is to

think about induction, or onboarding, as it's known in

some places. So for those that are new to supervision or who

haven't had much experience of supervision at at that

institution, it's it's about enabling them to become aware of

and cognizant of the policies and processes of a particular

institution. So, you know, what? What does being a supervisor

feel like at UEA, compared with, you know, with York, for

example, there's bound to be some differences. But also, more

generally, what does it mean to be to be a supervisor and to

talk through some of those areas of, you know, of good practice

about selection, not everybody's involved in that, but you know

about building a positive relationship, about giving good

feedback, about, you know, enabling professional

development of the candidate, conference, opportunities, etc.

So it's, it's opening up the doctoral cycle and helping a new

supervisor to understand the different stages of that cycle,

from, you know, from year one to year three and a half, depending

if they're if they're full time or you know, or longer, and to

understand the different types of support that they might be

expected to give from the candidate throughout that that

doctoral cycle. So some of it is about the context, the local

context, and some of it is about the wider context of what is a

PhD. And as I said, there are many different types of of

doctoral program. Now it might be performance, it might be

practice, it might be PhD by by publication, prior publication,

throughout the thesis. So the assessment is, is can be very

different, depending on the type of program that you're on. For

many it will be a 80 to 100,000 word, you know, thesis, typical

kind of output. But for others, it will be a product. It will be

a computer coding or a play or a fashion show, or, you know,

contribution to to a curated exhibition. So you know, you've

got to know what, what it is that you're a supervisor of in

that sense, and how it's going to be assessed, and what your

role in. Helping them through that creation and and assessment

processes. So there's all of that within onboarding and and

then there's the the continuing professional development, which,

from my perspective, is is more skill based. So it is about

learning skills such as active listening and mentoring and

coaching and asking open questions, so that you do

develop that open and trustable relationship, and that you can

have meaningful and also challenging conversations with

with a candidate, without them feeling that you're you know

that you're picking on them and and I think this is perhaps part

of that wider context of a research culture and the

pandemic that we need to pick up on is that, are they robust and

resilient enough, and and do they have the social capital and

experience of understanding that a robust conversation where

they're being challenged isn't personal, and that it is, it is

about, it's part of the process of of becoming a researcher, but

many times, perhaps we take that for granted and that we don't

unpack that actually that kind of cultural element. So in terms

of CPD, the project that we're working on, we're looking at

different ways of ways in which that might be offered. And we've

conducted some focus groups with supervisors from the five core

institutions that's that's York, Nottingham King's College,

London, Sheffield Hallam and Coventry University. And

overwhelmingly, what we found with those 108 respondents is

that supervisors with less experience were more likely to

take part in things like like workshops on particular

activities and interventions that help them to understand

that the role and the doctoral journey as I've as I've

described, those with more experienced expressed a real

strong preference For discussion based professional development.

So sharing, sharing of practice, reflecting on practice, things

like facilitated reflection, peer mentoring, where we're

piloting at the moment, and that's that's working really

well, where you bring together supervisors from different

subjects, and they will pick a particular aspect of supervision

practice, for example, building effective relationships and

compare and contrast. Well, what is it that you do? And we're

finding that the more and less experienced supervisors are

learning a huge amount from that and really enjoy it. What we

were most surprised about was the readiness of supervisors to

take part in 90-minute focus groups, and then at the end of

it, when we we'd sort of talked about professional development,

they said, well, couldn't, couldn't this has been great.

Could this be professional development? You know, could we

all just come together and and, you know, you pose us lots of

questions about our practice, and we reflect back on what we

do. And essentially, that's what they want to do, whether you

call it a community of practice, or whether you call it shared

practice, or whatever you name you want to put on it. That's

actually what most supervisors value. But of course, that

requires some time. You know they it's not, as Gill said

earlier, it's not that they should be fitting this in above

and beyond the 100% that's already given the workload

allocation, this has to be seen as important and part of that

process. And I think what we've lost, of the many, many changes

that have happened in higher education is that is that

opportunity to sit back and think and reflect and talk to

people, and ultimately, that's what people want, and and things

like the external recognition schemes that that UKCGE and SEDA

and other places can offer is, is that opportunity to talk with

other people and reflect and gather evidence and think about,

well, what is it that I do here, what? What is it that works and

that I might want to refine and gain feedback and ask for

feedback on? So in many ways, the recognition is a mechanism

for for enabling these kinds of conversations. And we're, we're

finding that that's that's working really well,

Gill Houston: One thing that always strikes me, and it

actually supports some of the things that Karen said.

Supervisors usually say experience, particularly

experienced, or becoming experienced, supervisors say

that one of the sources of advice they value most highly is

consulting colleagues, and that's particularly when they've

got a specific problem with somebody or some a request from

a candidate that they haven't come across before in their own

experience. So they go and ask a colleague in their own

discipline or a cognate discipline for some ideas. And I

think that's really valuable. And if supervisors were to get

more of those opportunities that Karen was describing. Come

together and share practice, not just in their own discipline,

but across disciplines. I think that'd be really helpful. Think

the other thing I wanted to point out is that generally, CPD

is not mandatory for supervisors. I think that's

correct for a number of reasons. We haven't got time to go into

here, except initial training. And I think Karen's already

emphasized the importance of induction for new supervisors.

And it's interesting to note that in 2021 survey, 66% of

respondents said that mandatory induction was in place for new

supervisors, and that's now gone up to 70. And I think that's

quite a pleasing increase, actually, yes. So I think

everything is moving on, and what Karen has been describing

as some of the emerging results from RSVP, I think is really

encouraging. We just need to get institutions to promote these

opportunities and give supervisors time to get together

and share practice.

Matthew Sillence: Thank you. Thanks, both of you. Over the

last few years, it's certainly been one of the most enjoyable

aspects of my my role is, is being involved in those

conversations with supervisors from different subject areas and

and sometimes across the whole institution. So, you know, well,

outside my home, faculty and I think the sort of peer support

that you were talking about there, Karen, I think that's

really nice to hear that that's having such positive results. At

the moment. I'm a big advocate of kind of peer assisted

learning projects and peer support. So I think that's

that's really fantastic to to hear. I'm just going to, I

guess, finish off with the last, a last question for you both,

and also, you know, opportunity to just highlight anything that

we've, you know, maybe missed or we haven't picked up. So this is

this book is important. There's, as I mentioned earlier, there's

lots of publications that have been emerging around

postgraduate researchers, we've now seen more publications

around doctoral supervision. Are there any outcomes or

recommendations for action in your publication that you would

really like to highlight for listeners? So so there are, I

know there is in the final chapter, there's a series of

recommendations, but those might be things that you want to draw

from the book, or they might be things actually that you've

thought of since its publication, that you would

really want to highlight.

Karen Clegg: I was thinking around REF and PCE, and if

institutions were wanting to think about the kind of evidence

that they could use, or how do they improve their profile in

this area, there's a couple of perhaps quick wins. The one is

about increasing the visibility of provision of CPD for

supervision. Quite a lot of respondents in UKRSS didn't know

what provision there was or where it was, so, you know

that's that's a quick win. But actually, it's more than that.

It's increasing the visibility, both for prospective and current

students and funders, so that if, if you're a prospective

student and you're thinking about doing a PhD, then I think

it would be very reassuring to know that your institution takes

this very seriously, and that there is perhaps expected

mandatory training for your supervisor and other

opportunities for them to get together and reflect on their

practice. We, our Scandinavian partners that we've been working

with typically engage in peer observation of supervision. It

isn't it isn't something that's so common in the UK, but it is

part of the associate recognition and without

question, supervisors that go and observe somebody else's

supervision say they learn a huge amount, even from sitting

in on an hour. And people have said to me, Well, what about the

students? You know that's an invasion of their time and

privacy. Again, I don't know. Don't know a single student that

that didn't really like the fact that their supervisor was

engaging in enhancing their supervisory practice. So there's

a real win there, and funders really like to see evidence of

that. So increase the visibility and and as we've talked, enable

conversations about supervision. It's, it's relatively cheap and

easy to do is bring people together for conversations

around, around key topics and let them drive it. It's, it

really is quite, quite simple. There are many other things, but

I'm going to let Gill have the the last word, perhaps, on

anything else that that we think is important.

Gill Houston: Okay, well, I agree with all of yours to start

with, we've already mentioned the greater emphasis on

expectation setting for both supervisees and supervisors, I

think also greater recognition of the shift in identity that

occurs for anybody undertaking a doctorate. It doesn't matter

what their background has been before it's it's a change, a

huge change, and it changes you. I don't think there's enough

recognition about that the importance of a partnership

approach between the supervisor and the candidate, particularly

as the candidate progresses. And for institutions, too many

institutions think that research students, as they would call

them, are expensive. They don't see them as the life blood that

we mentioned already. They see them as something maybe nice to

have, but they don't want to spend too much on them,

completely the wrong approach, then, I think linked to that

recognition of the multi-faceted role of supervisors. And

finally, because I've got to say something about assessment, the

criticality of investment in thesis development and

finalization for successful candidate outcomes is so

important. Thank you very much, Matthew, that's been most

enjoyable.

Karen Clegg: Yes, thank you, Matthew.

Matthew Sillence: Thank you both. And as I said earlier on,

I really enjoyed the book. Do pass on my thanks to Owen, as

well as as your co-author, for fantastic work that you know

you've done together, and also the continuing project, the RSVP

project that you're involved in, Karen and the work of the UKCGE,

because that organization, I think, has provided a wonderful

sort of meeting point for so many he professionals over the

years, and for students, actually, because we have had,

if I'm not very much mistaken, I believe there have been PhD

students and research degree students in in sessions before

as well. And I think as as the scholarship of postgraduate

research and doctoral education is kind of developing over the

years, I think it's, it's these sorts of initiatives, these the

sorts of surveys that you've been, you've been exploring in

the book, are incredibly important, really, to capture

those, those snapshots. And as you were saying earlier, Gill,

that the kind of that taking the temperature, I guess, of the of

the of the environment, the work environment, the professional

environment that students and staff members are involved in.

Thank you for your time. I know you're both super busy people,

and we've been, you know, we've been planning this for quite a

few weeks now, and it's been a joy to have you both online to

be involved. And I really hope as well that we can have future

conversations and, you know, follow up on how these projects

are going as well. So thank you. Have a great rest of the week,

and I do wish you all the best with the publication.

Gill Houston: Thank you.

Karen Clegg: Thank you very much, Matthew.