sp 2015 08 birkbeck postgraduate research: a … 2015 08 birkbeck postgraduate research: a college...
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SP 2015 08 Birkbeck Postgraduate Research: A College Review Summary This is the report of the recent postgraduate review that was considered by the Strategic Planning Committee. Recommended action The Committee is asked to note this report; no further action is required. Carol Watts July 2015
Future Researchers Matter: Birkbeck and Postgraduate Research A College Review Professor Carol Watts Jan-‐July 2015
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Contents
1. Future Researchers Matter: Birkbeck and Postgraduate Research 1.1 Research Context 1.2 Measuring Excellence, Measuring Value
2. PGR Profile: Current Picture, Current Challenges
2.1 Recruitment/Applications/Offers 2.2 Enrolments and Fee Income 14/15 2.3 Birkbeck’s PGR Student Body 2.4 Full-‐time/Part-‐time Challenges: Current Profile 2.5 International Students 2.6 Success Rates: Submission and Completion 2.7 Submission and Completion: RCUK/HEFCE/HESA 2.8 Breaks in Studies 2.9 Writing Up
3. Funding: Income and Investment in Future Researchers
3.1 Context and Challenges 3.2 Income and Spending 3.3 QR RDP supervision funding 3.4 Funded PhDs 3.5 PGR Central Support/ Financial Circumstances 3.6 Schools: Further Information 3.7 Further Funds: DTC and RCUK Training Funds 3.8 Philanthropy and Alumni Engagement 3.9 Solutions?
a. Recording and Reporting b. Management c. Communication d. Further areas for consideration
4. Leadership, Management and Support 4.1 Academic Leadership 4.2 Management and Support of Research Students: PRO 4.3 Managing Communication: The PGR Web Presence 4.4 PRO Focus: The Future Researcher Journey 4.5 Doctoral Models and Pathways 4.6 Student Representation and Experience 4.7 Facilities: Space
5. Supervision
5.1 Code of Practice 5.2 Supervisory Training and Support
6. Birkbeck Graduate Research School (BGRS)
6.1 Why a central Graduate Research School? 6.2 BGRS management: why establish a steering committee?
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6.3 Proposed communication structure
7. PGR Training and Skills 7.1 Context 7.2 At Base: Using the Vitae Research Development Framework (RDF) 7.3 Delivery of Skills and Training
a. Generic Skills (BGRS)/ Central Provision b. Specialist Researcher Development Skills
(Departments/Programmes) c. Cross-‐School Provision, Networks, Centres and Institutes d. External Training (DTCs or RCUK funded) e. External Skills Networks
7.4 Specialist College Skills (Indicative Strategic Directions) a. Digital Knowledges b. Teaching Excellence c. Business and Other Ecologies d. Public Engagement Skills and Training
7.5 Modes of Delivery
8. Conclusion
9. Summary of Recommendations
10. Appendix A1 Terms of Reference A2 Graduate Research School Pages A3 Example of Training Needs Analysis (TNA) Form (Sussex) A4 Transferable Skills and Monitoring Form (ISMB/Biological Sciences)
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1. Future Researchers Matter: Birkbeck and Postgraduate Research
1.1 Research Context In Birkbeck’s Research Strategy Plan 2014-‐19 the College sets out its research-‐intensive commitment to PGR students, who are described as ‘members of the College’s research community and as having major importance in sustaining the research mission of the College and of universities in general’. Under the title ‘Future Researchers Matter’, the Plan establishes that:
As a signatory to the Concordat to Support the Career Development of Researchers, Birkbeck is committed to advancing the prospects of more junior researchers as a major way in which it sustains and renews its research community. PhD students are regarded as vital contributors to this community and are included in many of its research teams and in the activities of its Centres and Institutes. High quality supervision is the key to the positive development of the careers of these students.
This Review takes further the understanding of PGR students as future researchers who have a central role in sustaining and renewing Birkbeck’s research community and that of the sector as a whole. It makes the case that PGR students are important drivers of that research culture in key respects. Further, PGR students might also be seen as exporters of Birkbeck’s research culture and reputation in academic and professional terms, nationally and internationally. Each one of these elements needs to be understood and actively brought into view, if the College is fully to deliver on the potential of its research environment for junior researchers, and also realize the importance of investment in postgraduate research for the College as a whole. The challenge, and indeed opportunity, for Birkbeck is our distinctive body of over 800 PGR students, funded and self-‐funded, full and part-‐time, who are a key part of a vibrant, ambitious research-‐intensive institution in which over half of all students are currently postgraduates. The quality of Birkbeck’s research environment is measured in part by PGR experience, and the way it is handled ‘within the constraint of available resource’ to generate possibilities substantially beyond the usual profile of an institution of this size. In the next ten years, decisions made in this area will directly affect the College’s ability to maintain that research-‐intensive claim in a sector that is actively upping its game in the context of higher education PGR strategy. At the same time, establishing a robust ground for that claim will enable Birkbeck to build and communicate confidently what is unique and exceptional about our future researcher profile. This Review aims to take forward key dimensions of Principle 13 of the College’s Research Strategy. It recommends that the current Code of Practice for Postgraduate Training and Research for Research Degrees (dating from 2011) should be reviewed in the light of this Strategy and the findings of the Review. A
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renewed PGR mission should establish the main tenets for future researcher development, in the light of the RCUK expectations that track PGR, postdoctoral training and ECR opportunities in a research lifecycle: here to be understood as the PGR student ‘journey’ (see 4.4). This mission should also address the expanded professional development of researchers who may not finally seek a research or academic career, but are nonetheless integral to the distinctive quality of PGR life in the College and part of a global research agenda with its demand for postgraduate level skills. Its delivery should be part of a transformed Graduate Research School mission, described in Part 6 below. This Review explores some of the major structural obstacles to the delivery of these aims at Birkbeck, setting out a programme for their solving where possible, identifying areas for essential consideration in future planning. It is the contention of the Review that the weakness of organizational structural support and resource in a number of central areas means that the College is in some key respects fundamentally unable to measure and build on the outstanding quality of PGR work currently in place. There are challenges of communication, of management structure, and of financial and other systems reporting and coordination. There is a deep need for appropriate resourcing and prioritising. In all too many areas, as this Review has itself found symptomatically, information is frequently not available, and key oversight missing. All staff, whether academic or administrative, struggle with this on a daily basis, and it generates a considerable and often disproportionate cost in energy, hard work and time to make up for this lack. In College terms, PGR has been of relatively low priority because it does not resemble taught processes in a way that makes it intelligible, and because fee income is comparatively low. Attention has been elsewhere. With increasing pressures and competition in the sector it will become increasingly difficult to maintain research quality and PGR growth, if this structural poverty of attention continues. This lack directly impacts on the research mission of the College going forward, and potentially on its overall standing in the sector. The timescale for its addressing and implementation is of immediate importance, since decisions made now and any delays in key areas of action will have an impact on DTC accession, RCUK grant success, REF excellence, and the sustaining of high quality PGR growth. 1.2 Measuring excellence, measuring value How then is a strong case to be made for investment in future researchers, when, as one AD put it, PGR fee income is not why they are important to us? Birkbeck’s claim to research intensivity is central to its mission and the distinctive creative quality, independence and dynamism of its academic life which is valued by students and staff alike at all levels. These are qualities that often go beyond the narrower instrumental assessments of what constitutes excellence, just as the research environment is not reducible to REF. That claim nonetheless has to rest on a number of key indicators. The UK QAA Quality Code (B11) sets out the conditions of the excellence of a research environment, which is the necessary ground for the attraction of high quality PGR students. A strong community of PGR students and related researcher
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development provision, are also conversely indicators of that excellence. This code underpins the claim of any institution to the excellence of its research environment. The section of the QA code on Research Environment notably points institutions towards the Vitae Researcher Development Framework (RDF), which I address later in the Review (7.2). It informs the success of that institution for the REF, for example, where the central narrative must support the claims of subject areas. It is not enough simply to meet the terms of the code, as the College broadly does, as is currently usefully being reviewed in the RSSC in the light of the QA audit in 2017. The current College Code of Practice for Postgraduate Training and Research responds to the QA principles clearly in most basic aspects. However the College also needs to communicate this richly in its materials, organization and central narrative, articulate it consistently, and demonstrate its continual enhancement in practice and in its online materials. This is key to success in all aspects of research, from the REF to membership and participation in Doctoral Training Partnerships, themselves now major engines of national and international research, and other major international training networks that are also conduits of outstanding academic research. PGR students are therefore an integral part of the excellence of the research environment of Birkbeck and its researcher development. As such they contribute to REF success, and to the robustness of a research culture that aims to secure major funding and build new initiatives suited to a twenty-‐first-‐century research agenda. In this sense PGR students are drivers or engines of research possibility in ways that impact beyond their immediate cultures. Their contribution to the active life and new knowledge of Institutes, Centres and Departments is significant, and not measurable according to simple income or quality indicators. As HEFCE surveys have indicated, PGR students increase research capacity, and are vehicles for innovation, often working on higher-‐risk and more speculative projects than a REF-‐oriented culture may permit. Reasons for recruitment are varied, though Russell Group universities tend to emphasise the research ‘pipeline’, and post 1992 institutions, research capacity1:
Attracting good PhD students, both funded and self-‐funded, means that academic staff can develop their own research projects, connect to wider
1 HEFCE, Understanding the recruitment and selection of postgraduate researchers by English Higher Education Institutions (2014)
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networks, deepen fields of research specialisms and generate new ones, extend exchange and influence, forge partnerships, gain promotion. In a climate of financial restraint where academic posts are in short supply, it is often junior researchers – PGRs, postdocs, and ECRs – who are crucial to the continuing renewal and indeed sustaining of academic research life. Investment here pays off valuably for our key performance indicators in ways that we do not measure, and which can consequently often remain under the radar, difficult to articulate alongside the necessary bread-‐and-‐butter emphases on UCAS BAs or PGT income. Just fifteen minutes spent on REF environment returns and with anecdotal evidence also produces a striking picture of Birkbeck’s reach. The ecology of students within the M25 is an identified part of Birkbeck’s resource going forward. Yet PGR students export Birkbeck research culture nationally and around the globe as they enter career paths. The QAA code notes under Indicator 3 that monitoring of the success of PGR may include ‘information on subsequent employment destinations and career paths of research students who have received the qualification’. The College holds limited information here and reports (via Careers and Planning) to the HESA Destination of Leavers Survey as required, 6 months after completion. The longditudinal survey addresses leavers no more than 3.5 years after their departure. The Alumni Office knows little about PGR alumni but is keen to develop a strategy here. It is as if the human and financial investment in researcher development largely ceases to register for the College on submission. This research reach is part of Birkbeck’s PGR success, and is a resource that should be valued and tracked. A quick non-‐exhaustive survey (based on brief Psychology, Computer Science, Economics, Sociology, English, HCA and Philosophy REF returns alone, with some anecdotal additions) suggest that ex-‐Birkbeck PGRs hold national and international faculty positions, sometimes several, at more than 48 universities.2 A five-‐minute survey yields 20 postdoctoral positions.3 While reported major industry, commercial and entrepreneurial posts include senior positions in the NHS, leading roles in museums and galleries, R&D posts in sectors such as advertising, finance, bioinformatics and pharmaceuticals, as well as analysts in financial companies, banks and the IMF, directors of multinationals and government ministers.
2 Bedfordshire, Birkbeck, Birmingham, Bradford, Brunel, Edge Hill, Edinburgh, Essex, Exeter, Kent, Kings, Leicester, Manchester, Middlesex, Leeds, Liverpool John Moores, London Metropolitan, Northampton, Open, Oxford Brookes, QMUL, Reading, RHUL, Southampton, St Andrews, Surrey, UEL, University of the West of England, Westminster, York. Cagliari, Copenhagen, Cyprus, Dongbei China, Hong Kong, Luxembourg, Malta, Mexico City, New South Wales, New York, Okan, Pretoria, Stellenbosch, SUNY, UEA, Warsaw, Western Australia 3 Birkbeck, Berlin, British School Athens, Cambridge, City, Essex, European Centre for Minority Issues in Flensburg, Germany, Goldsmiths, IoE, KCL, Jerusalem, Leeds, Leuven, Max Planck, Oxford, Porto, Rochester USA, Sciences-‐Po, South Africa, UCL.
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More research here would produce a substantial and influential body of researcher alumni and a considerable global post-‐doctoral footprint. College plans for 2023 should consider bringing this senior researcher community together in celebration, but the substantive creation of a PGR Researcher database needs creating sooner. In some departmental areas of best practice, PGR alumni are drawn into dialogue with current students, often in relation to career opportunities and ‘real world’ experience – this should be at our fingertips. Some alumni form the kernel of ongoing national and international research relationships and PGR partnerships. Understanding the mobile nature of twenty-‐first-‐century knowledge production, portfolio careers, the translation of research into possibility, means tracking this footprint in the name of those still to come. But the scale of possibility here is simply not harnessed, nor known. Recommendations
-‐ to update the College Code of Practice on Postgraduate Training and Research for Research Degrees in the light of the future researcher model
-‐ to establish a corresponding future researcher mission document for the Birkbeck Graduate Research School
-‐ to consider available PGR data on ‘information on subsequent employment destinations and career paths of research students who have received the qualification’
-‐ to consider the place of this global postgraduate and post-‐doctoral researcher community and its research and professional profile in the context of 2023 planning and alumni networks
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2. PGR Profile: Current Picture, Current Challenges In 2014-‐15 (measured in April) the total number of PGR students enrolled at Birkbeck was 839 (704 FTEs). 31% were in SSHP, 28% in Arts, 18% in BEI, 15% in Science and 8% in Law. 384 PhDs have been awarded since 2011/12. 2.1 Recruitment/Applications/Offers The PGR cohort varies over each year with the entry and completion of students, and with shifts in the market including financial pressures and funding availability that can impact rapidly. Birkbeck relies like other institutions largely on online advertising of funding, and on word of mouth and staff and department reputation. Close work with PGT students drawing on a strong current platform of masters provision backed by PGT bursaries to create a potential PGR stream, can help build ongoing research relationships, but this is a transition which remains unevenly addressed by the College. Some staff work actively to do this, framing the MA/MSc dissertation as a first step. There are also good examples of new M.Phil and PhD models rethinking this PGT/PGR relation (see 4.4). In the past two years there have been overall increases in student applications, but the current year for 15/16 (circa July) shows a decrease of 10% overall, matched by an increase in offers.
Digging down, the decline is marked in part-‐time applications and offers:
Full-‐time applications are down this year, but the offer rate overall is increasing each year as Birkbeck competes for the full-‐time funded market:
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Within these figures at School level, the current position on applications/offers for the last two years is as follows: Arts: 14/15: FT applications up 38%, offers up 39%. PT applications up 31%, offers up 14%. 15/16: FT applications down 20%, offers down 14%. PT applications down 26%, offers down 19%. BEI: 14/15: FT applications up 22%, offers down 5%. PT applications down 28%, offers down 27%. 15/16: FT applications down 22%, offers up 15%. PT applications down 27%, offers down 50%. Law: 14/15: FT applications up 33%, offers even at 0%. PT applications even at 0%, offers down 50%. 15/16: FT applications up 34%, offers up 57%. PT applications even at 0%, offers even at 0%. Science: 14/15: FT applications down 11%, offers up 29%. PT applications down 55%, offers up 50%. 15/16: FT applications up 7%, offers up 6%. PT applications down 22%, offers down 67%. SSHP: 14/15: FT applications up 10%, offers up 10%. PT applications up 3% offers down 59%. 15/16: FT applications down 5%, offers up 16%. PT applications down 23%, offers up 57%. There is evident volatility in this snapshot. The picture would need to be updated by October, with more detail about the composition by department and programme. Factors to note:
1. A decline in part-‐time applications across the whole, with financial concerns evident. Offers are also declining here in almost all Schools, which may suggest a tougher regime of entry, concern about student quality, and completion rates, and staff having reached their limits of
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supervision. Some outstanding FT students switch to PT on enrolment – figures on this would be useful.
2. FT student applications are down in three of the five Schools, with funding and increased competition with DTCs at issue here. HEFCE recruitment surveys report that most institutions are planning for growth in PGR numbers over the next five years, post 1992 in particular; Russell group institutions less so. Overall the total aspirations would add up to something like 5% growth a year. But these aspirations are primarily constrained by access to funding.
3. Arts in particular is taking a predicted hit from the loss of AHRC BGP2 studentships in 15/16, without alternative RCUK funding streams. A very strong success last year with careful School advertising sustained interest, but the offer is more dependent this year on more narrowly framed funding as staff have actively sought alternative resources. School/College funding is crucial to maintain ahead of BGP3 when Birkbeck will be eligible for studentships should CHASE be successful, but it is more than halved again next year. The risk here to an outstanding postgraduate culture is a permanent loss of market share and a challenge to position in world rankings. A fuller picture will be available in September.
4. Funding is a magnet. College Anniversary scholarships with their thematic cross-‐disciplinary emphases have not been framed to generate bigger pools of applications, though they may have other strategic logics. College funding was poorly advertised and the timing of decisions not helpful. Donor funded scholarships are also often narrowly framed to suit the donation. See funding in Part 3 below.
5. Law showing positive sustained interest ahead of ESRC joining process. 6. Science works closely with UCL, so much of the data is held there.
2.2 Enrolments and Fee Income 14/15 Offers do not necessarily lead to enrolments, with students often considering several institutions at a time. Enrolments can also buck application trends, with careful admissions work. All Schools have experienced top funded candidates finally opting for other offers, and this will intensify as the DTC climate takes hold. Locally targeted partial and full fee waivers and bursaries, and GTA packages, can bring in and retain outstanding students in concrete ways, some of whom opt for the part-‐time route alongside employment in the current financial climate. The process of bringing in the best PGR students now requires proactive staff engagement over the duration and good central and departmental materials/communication in support. Total fee income in 14/15 was £2,886,000, which was 133% of the fee income target. All PGR students 2014-‐15 Enrolments FTE £K Income Average Fee per
FTE ARTS TOTAL 236 196 731 3,733
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Arts 50 44 204 4,605 Cult & Lang 31 25 79 3,198 English & Human
92 77 286 3,714
Film, Med & Cul 23 18 74 4,044 Hist Of Art 41 32 88 2,794 BEI TOTAL 155 127 566 4,443 Comp Sci & Is 33 29 135 4,737 Econ Maths Stat
53 43 200 4,608
Management 42 34 163 4,766 Org Psychology 27 21 68 3,192 Law 64 54 181 3,346 SCIENCE TOTAL
123 110 461 4,176
Biological Sci 42 38 161 4,259 Earth Sciences 22 17 62 3,605 Psych. Sci 59 55 238 4,296 SSHP TOTAL 261 217 947 4,374 Appl Ling & Com
56 50 361 7,177
Geog Env Dev 20 18 88 5,000 Hist Clas Arch 77 63 188 2,989 Philosophy 55 45 171 3,843 Politics 13 11 36 3,214 Psychosocial St 40 30 103 3,433 Grand Total 839 704 2,886 4,098 Broken down by year of study Enrolments FTE £K Income Average Fee per
FTE ARTS 236 196 731 3,733 1 49 41 205 4,976 2 42 37 179 4,891 3 42 35 126 3,621 4 65 57 165 2,915 5 12 8 19 2,262 6 9 6 14 2,222 7 17 12 23 1,933 BEI 155 127 566 4,443 1 36 32 169 5,314
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Enrolments FTE £K Income Average Fee per FTE
2 31 25 112 4,480 3 32 26 121 4,601 4 29 25 113 4,449 5 7 5 12 2,449 6 5 4 10 2,857 7 15 11 29 2,762 LAW 64 54 181 3,346 1 10 9 48 5,106 2 14 12 62 5,345 3 12 11 33 3,143 4 17 15 21 1,409 5 1 1 2 2,857 6 5 4 7 2,000 7 5 4 8 2,286 SCIENCE 123 110 461 4,176 1 32 31 133 4,361 2 33 29 149 5,068 3 37 35 130 3,757 4 10 8 32 3,902 5 1 1 2 2,857 6 6 4 8 1,905 7 4 3 7 2,500 SSHP 261 217 947 4,374 1 67 60 368 6,123 2 66 56 271 4,857 3 46 39 131 3,376 4 43 35 97 2,756 5 17 12 27 2,269 6 11 8 31 4,026 7 11 7 22 3,143 Grand Total 839 704 2,886 4,098 Broken down by fee status Enrolments FTE £K Income Average Fee per
FTE ARTS 236 196 731 3,733 Home 204 164 467 2,846 International 32 32 264 8,328 BEI 155 127 566 4,443 Home 119 95 291 3,073
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International 36 33 275 8,410 LAW 64 54 181 3,346 Home 49 39 101 2,563 International 15 15 80 5,442 SCIENCE 123 110 461 4,176 Home 106 94 309 3,277 International 17 16 152 9,441 SSHP 261 217 947 4,374 Home 214 171 512 2,994 International 47 46 435 9,560 Grand Total 839 704 2,886 4,098 2.3 Birkbeck’s Student Body For the past five years the PGR FT and PT student profile has remained fairly consistent in terms of gender, ethnicity and disability.
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There is particular room for improvement in the diversity of the PGR student body. The gender balance is even for part-‐time PGR study, with more women now taking up FT places. c. Age Range FT students are grouped largely between 21-‐40, with notable concentrations of students (35% and above) aged between 21-‐25 in English, Economics, Biological Sciences (61%), Psychology, and Philosophy; and those between 26-‐30 in Cultures and Languages, History of Art, London Consortium, Computer Science, Law, Earth Sciences (79%), GEDS, and Politics. FT students in their 30s are notably found in Cultures and Languages, Management, Organisational Psychology, Applied Linguistics. Among those over 40, Organisational Psychology has the largest concentration of FT students. PT students are spread over a greater age range as would be expected, with some departments in Arts showing significant spread, along with History. The greatest concentrations (35% plus) are in the 31-‐40 age range, in English,
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Computer Science, Economics, Management, Law, Biological Sciences, Psychology, GEDS, Politics and Psychosocial Studies. FT PGR Student Profile by Age
PT PGR Student Profile by Age
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2.4 Full-‐time/Part-‐time Challenges: Current Profile One of the central challenges for Birkbeck in its development of a future researcher strategy is the unique combination of full-‐time and part-‐time PGR provision central to the College mission. The current distribution by modes of study (July 2015) is as follows:
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There are particular concentrations of FT students in English, Biological Sciences, Psychology, Applied Linguistics, and HCA. PT students are grouped in larger overall numbers in Arts and SSHP, notably in English, History of Art, HCA, Philosophy and Psychosocial Studies, but there are also significant numbers in Law and BEI. There is growing emphasis across all areas of the College on the attraction of strong full-‐time funded students within DTCs or by other funding routes, and the corresponding need for Russell Group quality of support, management and provision. In some areas this is already in place, notably in the Sciences who work closely with UCL. Membership of DTCs requires a level of equivalence with
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the practice of other partner universities; competition requires a distinctive offer and robust communication of quality. The importance of part-‐time PGR students however in the overall picture is shifting, and expectations are tighter, even as applications are reducing. In some areas eg Sciences they may be key to doctoral research projects being realized, though given Science costs may have insufficient funds. Some areas, such as Arts, have an active admissions policy with some targeted partial or full fee waivers that bring in outstanding students via the PT route, when applicants have not secured FT funding. This allows the PGR community to keep a steady state, and the achievement of these students is often equal to their funded FT peers. Flexibility in status is part of the College’s armoury. There are not enough funded studentships available to develop or secure a strong FT cohort in all areas. Part-‐time students can keep postgraduate communities and the wider research environment thriving, and often have professional connections and experience. They may come through Masters and professional routes. At the same time the pressure to take part-‐time numbers – which has historically been a default position at PGR level in some areas – is reducing, if it means that weaker students are likely to take up supervisory time, and trouble completion figures. There is also interest in other routes that might capture mature students wishing to research at advanced level, where the strictures of a doctorate may no longer serve. The PT/FT distinction may give way in the near future to that of funded and self-‐funded postgraduate researchers, located within flexible models of doctoral provision, in an environment that includes postgraduate loans. The HEFCE postgraduate recruitment survey reports that institutions expect the distinctions to become more blurred. At an Inside Government HEFCE postgraduate conference in 2014, universities were told that they were ‘missing a trick’ if they did not consider the part-‐time PGR market, using various platforms for delivery from distance learning and online modules to evening provision. Birkbeck’s distinctive profile and depth of experience here is a potential resource for the College, if combined with a clear strategic articulation of the options for PGR study, underpinning the future researcher journey and its expanded possibilities. This needs addressing if Birkbeck is to remain ahead of the field. Key issues to consider here include:
-‐ increasing pressures in the sector (DTCs, RCUK research-‐intensive agendas) towards a research elite, in which funded students benefit from high quality provision which is not equally accessible to all; an evident two-‐tier system with differentiated resources
-‐ deliverable FT and PT portfolio(s) of PGR experience, skills and training, which might draw together resource to mitigate the above
-‐ completion rates: concerns about progress, in which part-‐time students in particular who have gone beyond deadlines may take up disproportionate amounts of supervisory time in achieving their goal. In fact current figures suggest more FT students may be on writing up for 3 years+.
-‐ priorities of programme provision: the scheduling of day-‐time and evening training and events meaning that not all can access the PGR offer uniformly; flexible modes of delivery for those who are time-‐poor
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-‐ maintenance of a complex PGR narrative, within a strong research-‐intensive profile
-‐ the need for consideration of a range of postgraduate options post MA/MSc, so that professional routes are available where research PhDs are not advisable
-‐ more calibrated understanding of the PGR market for Birkbeck, with market research in PGT and PGR share in London. Tableau on FT and PT postgraduate market share is revealing: eg. English has 40% of PT postgraduate market share in London.
-‐ the particular needs of international students in the context of full-‐time study
-‐ identification of areas of projected growth and strategic targeting of resources and planning to capture FT and PT students in those fields
2.5 International Students Of the 836 PGR students enrolled in 14/15, 42 are international students. These are subject to Tier 4 monitoring. The International Office runs induction and social events for international students, and BGRS has put on social events in the past which are not always strongly attended. The international prospectus is here: http://www.bbk.ac.uk/prospective/downloads/international_prospectus.pdf. On p.43 dedicated to prospective M.Phil/PhDs the College offers ‘Professional development support and academic networking opportunities’ and foregrounds the work of the Birkbeck Graduate Research School. More explicit articulation of provision with the narrative offered to international students would be advantageous. At the meeting with student reps one international student described his experience in attending social events which gathered international students at all levels from BA up – wanting instead exchange among doctoral students which seemed more appropriate. The international PGR experience clearly needs continued enhancement. In addition there are a number of PGR international exchanges and connections. Law have a joint doctorate with PUC-‐RIO which begins recruiting in 2017. Some bring PhDs students for shorter periods of time and which do not require Tier 4 arrangements. A good example of what is possible here is to be found on the HCA pages listing doctoral exchanges with Pisa, Columbia, Sydney, Canada, Verona and Florence: http://www.bbk.ac.uk/history/prospective-‐students/phd-‐mphil/international-‐exchange-‐scheme. BEI collaborate with DUFE GIME in China http://www.bbk.ac.uk/history/prospective-‐students/phd-‐mphil/international-‐exchange-‐scheme. There are exchange arrangements with Pittsburg and BIMI and potentially with Cultures and Languages, and PhD students also come for limited months to Arts via the Brazilian CAPES scholarships after upgrading. There is no overall sense of the numbers here, and thus the wider international PGR footprint. Do these shorter-‐term international students also become alumni? More detailed collation of information about initiatives across the College with PGR international students in specific view would help strengthen the profile
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here. The exchange of best practice would benefit the creation of further PGR possibilities, particularly for areas in which there is not a strong international PGR market. The HEFCE PGR recruitment survey noted KCL’s use of new PGR delivery models with international partners, including blended delivery and preferential fees, and investment in studentships. The harnessing of current PGR international group policy with other strategic logics – such as identifying new areas of PGR potential growth within Birkbeck including cross-‐College trends like medical humanities/sciences – would be valuable here. Aspirations for extent of change sought in the PGR numbers over the next five years by domicile have been surveyed by HEFCE as follows:
No doubt shifts in government policy will have a bearing here. 2.6 Success Rates: Submission and Completion All Schools currently have concerns about completion rates and their impact on research standing. There was agreement during the Review consultation across the board about the difficulty of our commitment to a long tail of PT students, often with breaks in studies for compelling reasons, who may take up disproportionate amounts of supervisory time. Birkbeck is clearly undergoing something of a sea change in internal attitude here, and most areas of the College are now considering admissions and progress more rigorously, implementing academic regulations if students are not meeting standards. New work on Tableau makes the information available in ways that staff can easily access, and this is to be welcomed since it quickly underpins policy and its communication. Submission and award dates are now recorded there.
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Below are graphical representations of submissions in relation to years to submit (April 2015). These are useful indicators of the extent of study over almost a decade. The valency of the 4 and 7 year HEFCE completion targets is evident in some of the peaks and troughs. I would expect these graphs to change quickly as the PGR landscape shifts. Blank = not yet submitted.
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Annual PGR reports to the RSSC are asked to comment on completion rates, and these might be used more effectively to coordinate strategy across the College. The BEI return was particularly detailed this year in weighing completion and withdrawal rates, and summarises the range of issues: The large share of students – PT, but, especially, FT – who do not complete on time but do stay with the programme could be interpreted in a number of ways: as reflecting the inherent variability in times required to finish a PhD; as reflecting another selection failure (taking candidates who will finish, but not on time); as reflecting inadequate structure or support to ensure timely completion; or as indicating a need to extend the allowed time as a research student, for instance by attaching an MRes to the front end of the degree as standard. 2.7 Submission and Completion: RCUK/HEFCE/HESA It is important to note that Birkbeck like many universities uniformly operates a submission based model along the lines expected by RCUK funders. In other words, what is counted is the point of submission within 4 and 7 years, which is treated de facto as completion. The College reports the date of submission and the date of award to funding councils. Birkbeck is effective in bringing funded students to submit in the period. Submission rates have been commended by the AHRC (in 2013 84% against an institutional threshold of 70%) and the ESRC rate of 80% (compare Goldsmiths 67; RHUL 75; QMUL 78; Imperial 80; KCL 84)). I do not have data for MRC, BBSRC and NERC. In the ESRC ruling, the expectations are as follows:
In the AHRC regulations, the ruling is as follows:
For studentships commencing on or after 1 October 2011 the submission date is calculated from the end date of an award, with full-‐time students expected to submit one year after the end of an award, and no later than 4 years after the start of the award. Part-‐time students are expected to submit two years after the end of an award, and no later than 4 years FTE after the start of the award.
The AHRC ask for students to be completed or nearing it in their third year and then use the final 4th year for meeting any 'unforeseen circumstances'. They encourage submission 'if possible' by the end of funding. They collect annual
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data on submission rates, and it is on the basis of these that an institution can be sanctioned. Submission however is not the same as completion, though it effectively serves as that for the statistics. The AHRC guidelines further state:
The AHRC also collects information on completion rates as part of the annual submission rate survey. For these purposes, completion is defined as the award of a doctoral or other degree. This is normally counted as the date of the successful viva examination and is the earliest date on which it is known that the doctoral degree can be recommended. If that information is not readily available, an alternative is the date the Degree Committee or equivalent recommended the award.
Completion is here understood to include viva and award recommendation. This would appear to approach the HEFCE definition of completion:
48. A full-‐time Research Council PhD student who started their course in 1996-‐97 would normally have three years of funding to complete their PhD studies. Assuming no significant delay in their studies, they would be expected to submit their thesis for PhD assessment early in academic year 1999-‐2000. It would be usual for the PhD viva then to take place around two months later, with another month or so for corrections if the viva was successful. The student would be awarded their PhD by a Board of Studies (or equivalent) between January and April 2000. This is usually the completion date recorded on the HESA records. So under these conditions, we would record the PhD student completing their PhD within four years (September/December 1996 through to January/April 2000). 4
This distinction – between RCUK submission expectations in 4/7 years, and completion which would require viva and award in the same period, is causing concern in the sector currently because of the REF inclusion of completion figures. I have heard it reported that the AHRC was approached by DTCs to clarify their position but none has been forthcoming. Consequently some universities are now working along HEFCE lines, expecting completion including viva and award in the designated 4/7 years, in order to ensure REF compliance. Sussex assumes submission in three years and a term. Exeter is 3 years. UCL expectation is 3/6 for submission. In one example, issues of completion have not gone away and increased stress and health problems have been reported among the students. Other universities eg Manchester are currently maintaining the emphasis on submission in 4/7 years in keeping with the RCUK position, and expect completion in five years, which is effectively what we do now. The HESA figures are calculated along algorithms established to measure qualification rates over a 25 year and 7 year period. The methodology is here:
4 HEFCE, ‘PhD Research Degrees: Entry and Completion’ Issues Paper, January 2005/02. Confirmed in HEFCE update 2007/28.
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http://www.hefce.ac.uk/pubs/year/2013/201317/ These Research Degree Qualification Rates (RDQR) predict that 83% at Birkbeck get a PhD in 25 years compared with a 77% sector average. The 7 year projection however puts Birkbeck at 63% and the sector at 69%. We have significantly more mature entrants (defined as age 25+ on entry) – 64.8% with the sector average being 52%. Five universities expected to exceed their benchmarks are: QMUL, King’s, Oxford, Liverpool and Bradford. Birkbeck reports annually with full data for all PhDs, including interruptions, submission dates and dates of award. All who complete, regardless of the length of time they take, are deemed successful. How the RDQR figures inform REF is unclear. HESA has decided to no longer publish the Research Output tables which were part of their performance indicators. See https://www.hesa.ac.uk/pis/res. Previously table R1 included the following:
Table R1 provides four indicators of annual research output. They are not intended to replace the Research Assessment Exercise, which remains the most reliable indicator relating to quality of research. The indicators here look at numbers of PhDs awarded and amount of research grants and contracts obtained, relative to the academic staff costs of a HE provider and relative to the funding council allocation of quality related (QR) research funds to that HE provider. Each indicator is expressed as the proportion of output relative to the rest of the sector per proportion of input relative to the rest of the sector. To take account of the different patterns of input to output in different cost centres, the ratios are obtained for each cost centre, and then combined to give the single indicator.
This has been discontinued this year for reasons set out here: http://www.hefce.ac.uk/media/hefce/content/pubs/2014/CL,212014/CL2014_21a.pdf . These reasons include the use of such UKPIs in external ranking, and ‘poor usage and widespread lack of understanding’. New and current measures of research activity are now being reviewed through expert groups and roundtables. Recommendations
-‐ On completion targets: Birkbeck needs to monitor the position here actively and gather information. There are problems with a completion model where the viva, corrections and award are assumed in the four years, because of potential delays, and time given for corrections; in some areas such as science it is not possible to submit in three and still follow the programme. It may be that there will be sector wide discussions here, and consistency established within DTCs. However Psychosocial Studies at Birkbeck has moved to 3/5 years submission for incoming students. The College website ‘apply here’ lists a number of different figures: eg 3/5 (Philosophy); 3-‐4/5-‐7 English), and confusingly also minimum periods on some pages 2/3 years. Handbook information can be at variance. The presentation here needs to be consistent and understood.
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Sharper delineation of expectations is essential, and improvement of completion rates is necessary.
-‐ The HESA stats and Research Output UKPI discussions need understanding in the context of REF PGR strategy. The situation is clearly transitional. Any changes here need feeding through to those directing research and PGR strategy from Planning.
-‐ PT students enrolled this year will be those figured in the REF completion results. Clarity about expectations here is essential, and monitoring of progress and completion rates to ensure better results within the guidelines. The RSSC is a good forum for this via School annual reporting, which might be used more actively.
2.8 Breaks in Studies Breaks in studies are taken into consideration in the 4/7 year completion data and reported annually.
There is reasonable consistency in PGR use of breaks in studies from year to year, which have to be confirmed by departments. These are often given on
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medical or other extenuating grounds. Financial pressures can also register. The spikes in the graph below correspond to shifts between terms, since BIS works on a termly basis. 2.9 Writing Up Writing up regulations require that writing up should last for a year (2 years for PT), and then full fees be reinstated if submission has not taken place. In practice this has proved difficult to realize on the ground, and the status is often renewed as students are supported as they move towards completion. The reduced fee at writing up often enables students under financial pressure to continue, and staff are consequently often supportive and reluctant to remove this. Reimposition of full fees, particularly on international students, may mean the loss of that student. Writing up also has different connotations in the arts/humanities and the sciences.
It is notable that there are more FT than PT students on writing up after three or more years, the opposite of what is often assumed. Recommendation: It may be that the College would wish to impose a maximum here (as it does with bis), and include writing up status in the annual monitoring review and progression process. Since income is largely not the issue here for the College, but completion is, Birkbeck needs a clear model that will support students in their progress, provide exceptions for extenuating circumstances, and deliver on our targets.
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3. Funding: Income and Investment in Future Researchers 3.1 Context and Challenges Birkbeck currently spends approx. £3.2million on PGR students from a variety of sources, primarily RCUK, School budgets and central College funding. This figure was previously arrived at after an earlier attempt to collate the information. I have been unable to test it further. I think it is likely to be a conservative estimate, if all dimensions of spend are included. At the same time the range of PGR income is not fully tracked and understood centrally. Under the terms of reference, this Review was asked to consider the following: The review will need to identify a College-‐wide funding strategy, involving not only the management of Doctoral Training Consortia and associated funding (including doctoral projects embedded in research grants or funded by philanthropic donations, as well as School and College funded studentships and Graduate Teaching Assistantships) and a clearer strategic overview of the diverse sources of funding offered across the College. There are several main reasons why this strategic overview is immediately challenged:
-‐ no systematic way of gaining information centrally: a problem of systems and coding, consequently information impossible to break down. Two accounting codes for spending K11 and K12 are used for all levels not just PGR. No way of knowing what within the School spend is PGR. Difficulty of telling relation of students to funding/recharging.
-‐ lack of coherent PGR management structures, so that the Research Grant Office (not tasked with PGR and therefore with response to future researcher expansion -‐ including postdocs and ECR -‐ horizon scanning, funding applications, while responsible for some Wellcome and Marie Curie PGR funds) and the operations of the Research Students Unit (overseeing some financial DTC processes including some RCUK PGR training funds) are continually hamstrung, and not coordinated. The divide of the Research Grants Office from PGR will be put under pressure given future researcher transformations of the sector. Academic staff are often unable to get the support they need relating to PGR funding applications since they are not in the remit of either office. The College is therefore not building up central institutional expertise and memory in these expanding areas.
-‐ consequent uncertainty across the College, with information held unevenly in Schools because it can’t be entered centrally, and central support in some areas but absent in others; signing off financially in some areas eg for RCUK research grants but not eg for the same RCUK studentships; or central checking and signing off local DTC funds in some
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areas eg AHRC, ESRC but not others eg. Science who require checking over of studentship figures though they work in key areas with UCL. There is no central oversight. No clear lines of contact or process established overall.
-‐ leadership eg in overseeing the work of DTCs overall for the College -‐ problems of communication and coordination enabling College level
strategy to be coordinated at all levels eg in the advertising of funding. -‐ lack of central resource to implement and deliver quality, including
staffing -‐ general opacity in key areas, particularly in reporting and sharing of
information, and sharing of good strategy and initiatives. No specific platform for the marketing of outstanding practice and success: PGR led funds secured, placements won, outstanding research conducted. Future researcher information lost and with it institutional memory.
-‐ Cross-‐College collaboration forged through funded initiatives eg anniversary studentships remain under the radar and unreported. Consequently difficult to sustain and build on as central strategy.
The combination of all these factors suggest that structures, reporting and communication in key respects are not fit for purpose in supporting processes across in all areas of PGR delivery. There is cost here in staff time and in potential PGR success. In what follows I recommend:
-‐ prioritizing of work on College systems so that PGR information is centrally available and connected to students, with consideration of a new account coding system as one possible model, and corresponding central work on SITS. Currently this area is uneven and makes reporting almost impossible.
-‐ Consideration of the creation of a Postgraduate Research Office as a one-‐stop shop for all matters PGR, including financial oversight of DTC funds, doctoral projects in larger grants, philanthropic and donor PGR funding, postdoctoral funding, horizon scanning and support for staff in developing PGR bids for studentship and other funds. Clear recording of all aspects of PGR funding so there is structural institutional memory and a building of expertise.
-‐ A clear annual planning timetable for the communication of Birkbeck funding, and its advertising via an augmented central Birkbeck Graduate Research School (Part 6)
Firstly, current information as far as it can be ascertained. Information in some cases has taken days to gather and remains inconclusive. Thanks to Katharine Bock for assistance here, and School Managers.
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3.2 Income and Spending Total PGR fee income in 14/15 was £2,886,000. Studentship Spending
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3.3 QR RDP supervision funding by UoA, following REF settlement. Annual figures depend on number of PhD students submitted. Psychology, Psychiatry and Neuroscience £328, 551 Biological Sciences £211,665 Earth Sciences and Environmental Sciences £91,981 Computer Sciences and Informatics £97,736 Economics and Econometrics £74,392 Business and Management Studies £88,366 Law £94, 540 Politics and International Studies £28,312 Sociology £103, 881 Modern Languages and Linguistics £148,554 English Language and Literature £252, 760
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History £198,649 Philosophy £140, 096 Art and Design £191, 395 TOTAL £2,050,878 3.4 Funded PhDs KB analysis September 2014, on spending in 2012-‐13 from the K11/K12 studentship and stipend budget codes, merged back with student records where possible. Reported to RSSC 4 November 2015. Source Headcount £K Spend Spend/Headcount AHRC 49 125 2,554 BBSRC 14 308 22,014 ESRC 19 59 3,112 MRC 9 94 10,419 COLLEGE 200 1,348 6.740 ALL 291 1,934 6,647 There were 774 PhD students in the College that year. 3.5 PGR Student Central Support/ Financial Circumstances The College hardship fund of £300,000 is for students at all levels who need financial support due to unforeseen circumstances. The scheme is on demand and nothing is ringfenced for PGR. The Research Students Unit have helped 13 PGR students in the past four years at a cost of approx £25,000. Financial pressures are increasingly connected to withdrawal, and availability of funds cited as the reason for why PGR places are not taken up. An informal review of email correspondence in Arts suggested that over 20% of applicants and students withdrew in 14/15 due to lack of finance – we think the actual figures much higher. PGR loans may make the difference here in the future though students will already be carrying debts. There is no record keeping here. 3.6 Schools: Further Information Information about PGR commitments is often wrapped up with PGT and other funds. The largely broad-‐brush information below includes PGR studentships, fee waivers and current GTA or Associate Tutor spending. Arts 2014/15 5 Birkbeck Anniversaries 2 new AHRC studentships from BGP1 funds 24 continuing AHRC students (this excludes those with an end date of 3/9/14 of which there were 7) 3 Collaborative Partnership Awards (AHRC): National Gallery, V&A, Royal Society
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39 students in receipt of full and partial fee waivers 1 fee waiver for Sasakawa Foundation (FMACS) 2015/16 6 Arts Awards Postgraduate Studentships 3 Anniversaries 2 Digital humanities studentships including donor funds, eg JISC 1 Bloomsbury I part-‐time fee plus bursary (Murray, HoA) Total fee waiver sum 2014/15 = £86, 540 Committed for 2015/16 = studentships (£140,763)
ARS (fee waivers) = £102, 074 Associate Tutor programme (available to all PGR students to apply for cross-‐depts) English: £40, 212; FMACS: £12, 810; HoA: £3, 224 Research student support (conferences, extraordinary research expenses, student-‐led events) 14/15 budget 15k, 15/16 budget 17.5k BEI
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Law 2014/15 2 anniversary studentships – at the home/EU rate (including a fee waiver covering the standard Birkbeck PhD fee and an annual stipend at RCUK rates inclusive of London Weighting -‐ approx. £15,726 per year). These are tenable for 3 years. 2 GTA posts -‐ this is a fixed-‐term 3 year post and includes a fee waiver. Salary: Fixed-‐term at Grade 6. £15,590 per annum inclusive of London Allowance (this is 0.4 FTE pro-‐rata to the full-‐time equivalent) and also includes a fee waiver: one at the home/EU rate; and one at the overseas rate The same is planned for 2015/16 (to continue the GTA posts and offer studentships). In addition to this for 14/15 we waived fees for one student at the overseas rate (just for the one year). Provisional budget for fee waivers £4.5k but only for exceptional circumstances. PGR students’ conference/research allocation expenditure is approx. £9k to date, £10k in budget for the next year. Science Biological Sciences
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14/15
15/16
Earth Sciences
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Psychology
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SSHP Fully-‐funded students: In 2014/15 there were approx 35 fully-‐funded students, as follows: 6 new Birkbeck Anniversary Scholarships 3 fully-‐funded SSHP Studentships (1 new) 2 students funded by alumni donor 5 students funded by Research Grant
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8 students funded by Research Council awards 9 externally funded (Charities, Government) 2 GTA (fees and stipend approx £32,000) There were 18 ongoing SSHP fee waivers (most of these are existing part-‐time CRS, departmental and SSHP fee waivers). Commitments for 2015/6: The School has 4 new SSHP awards, 2 BAS 1 new GTA in Psychosocial (fees and stipend) 1 new Research Grant-‐funded 1 new externally funded award (plus ongoing awards as above) Total Fee Waivers: 2014/5 £197400 Committed for 2015/6 = £240000 TAs: Philosophy and HCA employ graduate students as associate tutors to run seminar teaching. Approx sums: Philosophy £35,000, HCA £15,000. SSHP Research Student Support (conferences, fieldwork, training events): Across the School about £13,000 was contributed by departments to this in 14/15. This does not include events funded by successful Generic Skills bids. 3.7 Further Funds: DTC and RCUK PGR Training Funds There is no central recording of the assorted range of funds received by the College for PGR opportunities and training. Students apply each year to the RTSG for AHRC or ESRC training funds administered by the Research Students Unit. Generic skills funds distributed via the Unit/RSSC, based on a HEFCE calculation of £200 per student, amount to £100,000 annually. But wider training allocations aren’t recorded centrally, so the wealth of resource deployed by the College isn’t fully understood or easy to report. These might include sums awarded by DTCs, such as the supplement recently allocated by the MRC (£48,349) for high cost training, placements and postdoctoral transitions. They may include sums secured by academic staff for training programmes, such as the AHRC Arts of Experiment in Arts (£50, 013), or student-‐led events such as Critical Waves (£2925). Students secure placements, which bring in funds eg 6 AHRC placements between 2013-‐15 totalling £30,788.93. Increasingly the ‘lifecycle’ of the future researcher will generate funds that trouble the divide between research office and PGR that the College currently maintains, including postdoctoral and ECR initiatives. The Wellcome ISSF funds are a good example of this. The PGR awards are below:
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While the Research Grants and Contracts Office has key financial oversight of certain PGR initiatives in so far as they relates to major funding bodies eg Marie Curie Early Stage Researchers or Wellcome ISSF, it does not handle future researcher funding which falls to the Registry, or sometimes departments. This is available in a jumble of accounts, not all of which relate to PGR:
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The grand total in such accounts – of which around half are listed above – is £2,986,869. But it is impossible to know what these accounts comprise, nor how they attach to particular students or PGR initiatives. 3.8 Philanthropy and Alumni Engagement The Development team has raised philanthropic income to support PhD students at a range of levels ranging from covering fees only to awards covering fees and a full stipend over recent years. These have been supported by major donors, charitable trusts and companies. There is significant potential to increase our philanthropic funding for PGR and guidance around areas of priority and levels of funds required to do so would be welcome. A clearly articulated College-‐wide PGR strategy which outlines our areas of priority would enable funding for research activity to be one of the key strands of a 2023 fundraising campaign. Our alumni community is becoming increasingly influential across the College and building a specific network of PGR alumni who can contribute in a variety of ways (profiling, mentoring, fundraising) is an option for the years ahead if the College deemed this to be worthwhile. 3.9 Solutions? Recording and Reporting If the College is to have a PGR strategy at all, it needs strong foundations in robust reporting, and centralized access to financial and other data. Investment in getting systems to work is essential. There is evidence that new work on Tableau has transformed the ability to plan and underpin policy. Colleagues consulted in all areas underlined the overdue need for these changes. Recommendations here are twofold: overhaul of SITS, and consideration of new coding systems for financial data. Both are a priority.
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a. Systems support for PGR Students Data recording
-‐ Improved recording of supervisor information in SITS -‐ Recording of viva information in SITS (date/venue) -‐ Displaying supervisor and viva information in MyBirkbeck Profile -‐ Better use of student status to monitor the PGR student journey -‐ Identify what additional information is held in local dept spreadsheets
and determine how it can be recorded centrally in SITS -‐ Development of user-‐friendly interface to capture and display data held in
SITS Funding
-‐ Using SITS Fund Manager to make studentship maintenance payments -‐ Using SITS to record funding source of all funded students
Reporting -‐ Develop a suite of reports based on user requirements
Resource required for implementation A more detailed scoping is needed to determine the development resource required, but an initial estimate would be at least 0.8 from a combination of 3-‐4 staff in Planning and Business Systems/Corporate Information Systems for 12 -‐18 months. This is to review, consult on, design and implement (including training) a centralised system for holding research student data. b. New coding system for accounts A more precise coding system would make the PGR accounts more intelligible and accessible. Consultations with Mike Devereux using a version of the solution below are currently underway. Cost codes are made up of three components, Cost Centre, Activity Code, Analysis code: Cost centre: xxC00 core code for xx dept Activity code: xxX01 core pay and non-‐pay for xx dept Analysis code: K11 student maintenance code Proposed changes to account codes might be summarised as follows: Set up a new cost centre xxP00, where xx is the dept (or School), which would be used to identify (externally?) funded Projects separately from Core or Special funds accounts. Projects could then be further sub-‐divided into Studentships, Consultancy, or other Projects (training, development, collaborations & exchanges) using the Activity Code. With the example of English and Humanities, with EN as the dept:
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ENP00.ENP01 – P denotes a project ENP00.ENY01 – Y denotes a studentship ENP00.ENW01 – W denotes consultancy By identifying Studentships separately in the finance system in a consistent way, reports can then be easily run to identify funded studentships, by school, dept, etc. Another advantage of using dept codes (and not Registry codes) is that dept. administrators would have direct access to the web financial reports. If we also expanded the analysis codes for student maintenance and fees payments, currently K11 and K12, so that we have different analysis codes for PGR / PGT / undergraduate, etc. then we would also be able to separate out the different types of studentships, as well as being able to see where they are based within Birkbeck. We could also mirror the set up that we use for Research Income analysis codes (shown below), which would tell us what type of funder is funding the studentship(s):
Possible issues arising here include: clarity of governance and management of RCUK funds of all kinds, and the location of the operation of these specialist project accounts (with multiple end dates, unlike the usual College accounts). Central oversight, signing off, invoicing and income management of such accounts is essential, otherwise the system while seemingly more legible, may challenge unhelpfully at departmental or school levels. Consultations over the summer may lead to implementation in August. c. Management The creation of a Postgraduate Research Students Office; strong senior academic leadership (see below Part 4).
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d. Communication
1. The budgetary planning cycle should include a point (in May?) where the sums dedicated to PGR (studentships, fee waivers, GTAs, bursaries) are massed up and identified for the following year (both for the College and for Schools).
2. Any committing of Anniversary funding should also be agreed and the criteria established at that point so that they can be applied for and confirmed in the summer term, in advance of the next academic year.
3. It is essential that the College advertise the major committal of funds and any related opportunities in the early autumn, in order to compete for the best funded students. A common timetable should be established as far as possible, mapped for reasons of competition alongside the normal cycle of DTCs. We are already late for this year. Last year we were applying for anniversary scholarships in the autumn and did not find out the results until January. Advertising was uncoordinated, and there was no overall College push. This had an impact on our success.
4. The location of the advertising and its implementation needs to be agreed. Who is responsible here for the development of the PGR message and its communication? There needs to be coordination across College websites, work with external relations and the postgraduate research office.
5. With the creation of an augmented Birkbeck College Graduate School (Part 6) there would be a hub for the communication of funding.
e. Further areas for consideration:
-‐ the strategic use or recycling of finance/fee income for GTAs or internships: most but not all parts of the College advertise limited GTA arrangements which cover stipend and fees in return for teaching. Not all areas have funds to underpin these. This is increasingly a model used across the sector. A high quality and more coherent cross-‐College strategy here (in the light of the debate about PGR employment https://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/news/queen-‐mary-‐university-‐london-‐considers-‐making-‐phd-‐students-‐employees) would be productive. Student concerns about precarity and low pay need thought here. Teaching opportunities are also available via the associate tutor route for both funded and self-‐funded students, which is used in Arts and SSHP and integrated well into training and skills. The total package here – including the HEA recognized certificate – could be strong in the context of future TEF pressures. International programmes such as 5 yr doctoral arrangements in the US include teaching and employment with training over a number of years including summer schools, and articulation of the duration of doctoral work at each stage. These initiatives could be part of an integrated PhD model for Birkbeck. There may be particular difficulties here for Tier 4 students given hardening government policy.
-‐ The effectiveness of full or partial fee waivers in encouraging strong applicants to stick with Birkbeck, targeted with awareness of the DTC timetables, is proven. Support of this kind for current ie on-‐course self-‐funded students who exhibit exceptional performance is also necessary
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and builds Birkbeck’s reputation. The ground here shifts fast during the application period as students make decisions, and flexibility is needed with calibrated knowledge of the particular strategy for the subject area/department/School, and hands on work by admissions staff. There is no easy one-‐to-‐one relation of strategy to results, since the admissions process is subject to many variables. Students often come when there is a clear ‘fit’ with supervisor and environment, and fee waivers can cement attachment and enable students to embark on their research.
-‐ International students – particular pressures here. Anniversary studentships cover home fees only. Best practice here in international collaborations could be shared.
-‐ Parity and differential resourcing of Birkbeck PGR students, and identification of the Researcher Development Portfolio in this light – what is free, and what discretionary?
-‐ What is the extent of funding initiatives linked to development of business and other corporate and social interests eg Good Energy? Do we have/use data about professional sponsorships and donations?
-‐ Are there PGR areas which need building and investing in across the College, eg medical humanities/sciences, so that initiatives like ISSF might be built on, further studentships sought? How might funds be targeted?
-‐ Postdoctoral appointments for six months after completion, to maintain the future researcher route; use of honorary research associate positions.
-‐ Growing collaborative integration with DTCs needs forward planning, including expectations about match funding, administrative costs, cohort development investment, high quality training opportunities
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4. Leadership, Management and Support 4.1 Academic Leadership PGR strategy requires focused senior academic management, particularly in the context of sector transformations in future researcher development. Though part of research strategy, PGR concerns are substantive and need to be articulated distinctively within the College’s wider research portfolio. An active PVM PGR would have the development of a future researcher strategy centrally in view, and speak to it as a priority, working closely alongside the PVM Research and reporting via the RSSC to the Research Committee. The PVM PGR could liaise with PVM work at PGT level. The PVM PGR should:
-‐ oversee the collective DTC position in the College, so that there is awareness of changing emphases and developments, PGR training initiatives across the whole, and requirements for College central support, alongside the current subject-‐specific actions and collaborations; sharing of best practice and standardization where useful.
-‐ lead on particular PGR issues which impact on the College as a whole, such as completion;
-‐ keep abreast of wider PGR shifts in the sector; -‐ chair the business of the RSSC and related QA issues; -‐ chair an augmented Birkbeck Graduate Research School with steering
group and Postgraduate Research Office (PRO) support; -‐ work closely with the PRO; -‐ liaise actively with ADs postgraduates, all of whom have strategic
portfolios. Not all Schools have ADs of this kind, but Schools and the College would benefit from equivalence here, even from those who work via strongly separated departments;
-‐ coordinate strategic initiatives relating to Birkbeck’s PGR portfolio for both funded and self-‐funded students, including generic – ‘researcher development’ – skills and associated budget (with PRO);
-‐ respond to funding initiatives, such as CDA coordination; RCUK calls; including close work with the alumni office;
-‐ develop 2023 PGR strategy; -‐ work to support the distinctive PGR profile of different parts of the
College with departments, Centres and Institutes, and bring all students into a common Birkbeck community
-‐ have access to a budget to support initiatives and attend sector events -‐ respond with the PRO to the Postgraduate Research Experience Survey
4.2 Management and Support of Research Students: PRO Birkbeck powerfully needs an integrated and resourced Postgraduate Research Office, as a one-‐stop shop for students and staff. This should be an office with bookable space and facilities. Without the range of support systems in place which are the norm in research intensive universities, such as Research
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Development Offices, the College must concentrate, clarify and augment its PGR services. Establishing a PRO core to build on would be a first step. The needs here are stark. Currently there are particular areas of PGR practice – particularly that relating to funding, horizon scanning, support and management of training funds development, central oversight and governance of all studentships – which are poorly served and in some cases simply unavailable. Where do staff and students go advice on going for a Wellcome studentship and who checks the application? Who processes applications for placements and where do the funds sit? Who checks the figures finally for Science studentships? Who engages in PGR horizon scanning? Where do staff network funds go that relate to DTC PGR possibilities? What about the development of European funded training networks? Where is the archive of Birkbeck PGR research success in these areas? There is something of a black hole here. The pressure here is likely to increase as DTCs expand their role as shared research environments, as well as doctoral training platforms. The future researcher remit is an agenda now that the College needs to adapt to coherently, not least because it has direct repercussions on its claim to research intensivity. There is confusion in practice and the feeling that some areas here are working hand-‐to-‐mouth. Communication lines are unclear to staff and students in some areas. There is no coherence across all the interactions with an RCUK funder. The College needs clearer structures and central resourcing, including additional staff. It needs structures that can build institutional memory, and expertise (which will not disappear as staff move on). It needs robust governance extended to PGR practice. Birkbeck relies on people to deliver, but it appears structure and resource-‐lite in key areas. Currently Registry provides a necessary central service for PGR support. Student Administration provide support for PGR admissions, and the Research Students Unit provides active support for the following areas:
-‐ Research student queries and enquiries -‐ PhD examination support: examiner appointment, submission of viva,
awarding -‐ Research student funding – management of a number of College
studentships including AHRC, ESRC, Bloomsbury and Anniversary (not Wellcome, MRC, NERC, BBSRC and others)
-‐ Support to the Research Students Sub-‐Committee -‐ Birkbeck Graduate Research School -‐ Research student regulations and policies, QA related issues -‐ Organization of supervisor training via BGRS
There is a depth of support for research students at School and department level, and some areas of service provided locally overlap with central support eg School of Science managing of studentship awards, School advertising of studentships, the arranging of vivas. Communication and consistency here is key, and reporting mechanisms currently don’t always support this well (such as knowing when a viva has taken place and the result, managing referrals and so on, which are not currently available as information on SITS). Processes often
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depend upon proactive administrators in the Schools to overcome the gaps, and are vulnerable to staff turnover. The Research Students Unit is highly committed and has made strides in improving the regulatory practice of PGR provision. The Unit inherited a situation in some disarray, and uses the RSSC well to address QA issues and process. The agreement and appointment of examiners has become more efficient. The annual reporting has improved, and there has been useful work on the reporting of completion rates via Tableau. The small team have become proactive on generic skills, as far as limited resources allow, and have been excellent recently in responding to practical queries. But it is clear that if nothing else changes, this team remains under resourced for the consistency and quality of practice that PGR conditions require. In the light of the discussion of the augmented Birkbeck Graduate Research School below (Part 6), and the projects to improve the management of data, the Research Unit needs a permanent administrative manager to provide the appropriate level of dedicated operation management. This would require scoping and grading but a grade 7-‐8 Research Students Manager role reporting to the Head of Academic Services would be appropriate. Additional web resource for an augmented BGRS would also be essential. They cannot deliver what is required otherwise. But this alone is not adequate to the wider picture. A Postgraduate Research Office, incorporating the Research Students Unit, would also need to address the full future researcher agenda if the College is serious about its research mission. Birkbeck urgently needs PGR research administration staff able to respond beyond the Registry remit: developing studentship and other PGR funding resources including collaborative doctoral awards, bringing together governance of RCUK, philanthropic and donor funds of all kinds, horizon scanning to enable future strategy, advising academic staff, overseeing applications, engaging with DTC initiatives, connecting PGR, postdoctoral and ECR developments, building expertise. A post here is required. Currently the Research Grants and Contracts Office deals with all funds that come under the definition of research income: https://www.hesa.ac.uk/index.php?option=com_studrec&task=show_file&mnl=14031&href=FSR_Table_5a_and_5b.html But all PGR related funds, such as studentships, are understood as Research Training Support grants and not included in the business of the office unless within larger grants. The Research Grants and Contracts Office is continually asked for help on PGR-‐related matters, but is unable to support. Schools have to work on these themselves without guidance, with the Office or Registry willing, sometimes reluctantly given workload, to ‘push the button’. Key areas of oversight are lacking. This position is not widely understood by staff. Birkbeck is therefore unable to build expertise in an area that is likely to expand in coming years, and initiatives are not sustained. An integrated Postgraduate Research Office would allow the College to meet the challenges of the next phase of DTC membership, and produce dividends in both staff time – across the College as a whole -‐ and in PGR future funding.
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4.3 Managing Communication: The PGR Web Presence Any transformations in the future researcher and BGRS narrative would need to be consistent across Birkbeck’s offer. PGR content is developed and maintained as part of the much larger Birkbeck web context (i.e. it is managed in exactly the same way as other strands of course recruitment activity). Content across the Birkbeck website is maintained on a devolved content maintenance basis due to limited central resources (particularly in relation to content management). Delivery of the recommendations of this Review would require work with the web team and additional resources for development and continuing maintenance of an augmented high quality Graduate Research School site, liaising with the PRO and BGRS. The central site could link to various PGR feeder sites that are emerging eg Careers portal with microblogging, which could develop a PGR channel here: http://www.scoop.it/t/careers-‐employability, http://www.scoop.it/t/enterprise-‐entrepreneruship Different web segments currently comprise:
-‐ Online course listings (www.bbk.ac.uk/study/), including PGR course pages: these are managed by a Digital Publications Officer in ER, but developed through close partnership with schools and other professional service departments. Currently, close to 90 people in schools and departments are permissioned to update our online course listings, including our PGR pages. This system has been in place since we redeveloped all of our course listings in 2012/2013.
-‐ Tertiary pages on the Study at Birkbeck site (www.bbk.ac.uk/prospective): these are maintained by ER but developed through partnership with schools and other professional service departments.
-‐ PGR pages on local school and department sites (e.g. www.bbk.ac.uk/arts): the responsibility for maintaining these pages has been entirely devolved to schools, and local web maintainers are responsible for content maintenance and updating. However, ER provide central support and help, largely through the internal communications tool, Yammer (all school and department web maintainers are invited to be part of our support group), where we share best practice, advice and guidance on maintaining information, as well as access to our web house style guidelines. In addition, school and department web maintainers use this group to post queries and get support.
-‐ PGR funding information: ER maintains a top-‐level scholarship and funding page (http://www.bbk.ac.uk/prospective/research/research-‐funding-‐and-‐scholarships): this page provides an overview of funding possibilities, but signposts detailed information managed by local school and department web editors, and members of the Funding Advice Service (in relation to hardship funding, etc.). ER relies on school and department web maintainers and the FAS to alert us when new funding information is added to local sites, and puts out calls for updates on a regular basis (through our Yammer group).
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-‐ Experts’ database (http://www.bbk.ac.uk/our-‐research/experts-‐database): ER provides a search facility for prospective PhD students to find supervisors. This largely comprises very short descriptions of supervision areas for individual academics, the main aim being to get students onto more detailed staff pages on school and department sites. This database is maintained by ER on behalf of the college, and we aim to update this, as a minimum, on an annual basis, by putting out a call for content through our Yammer group.
4.4 PRO Focus: The Future Researcher Journey One way of testing and gathering Birkbeck’s practice internally, as well as articulating expectations and possibilities for the student, would be a strong sense of the future researcher journey, from admissions through each year to completion, and postdoctoral and ECR opportunities beyond. Birkbeck should have a central handbook setting out that journey – there are good examples in the sector to draw on. Sussex is one example here: https://www.sussex.ac.uk/webteam/gateway/file.php?name=handbook-‐for-‐doctoral-‐researchers-‐2013-‐14-‐web.pdf&site=46 I have described the wider context for such a Handbook within an augmented Birkbeck Graduate School below (Part 6). The PRO should have a clear sense of the research student ‘lifecycle’. The articulation of this journey would allow sharpening of procedure, at the same time as giving departments the chance to look at their processes and milestones, which will remain varied and subject-‐specific. Some parts of the College already set expectations clearly throughout, particularly those in Science who are working closely with doctoral training partners. Computer Science sets out its progression stages with presentations and reports: http://www.dcs.bbk.ac.uk/research/phdbbk_public.php. Student reps report that they are keen for clarity, rather than things appearing ‘ad hoc’. Student experience should be at the heart of this journey, and it needs to address the experience of both full-‐time and part-‐time students, and international PGRs, year on year. Students should be consulted, and the PRES survey considered. Once in place as a framework, it is possible to communicate the range of events, activities and training on offer and adapt that journey to the cultures of different part of the College. For the purposes of this Review there are particular areas for immediate internal consideration, which might work alongside a review of the College Code of Practice for Postgraduate Training and Research for Research Degrees :
-‐ Admissions: Registry are currently reviewing and documenting practice here for QA purposes, reporting to the RSSC. Are forms appropriate for different parts of the College eg where students apply to science projects rather than proposing their own. HR sets out the requirement for Admissions training before taking up a position as Admissions tutor, but provide none.
-‐ Supervisor training practice (see Part 5).
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-‐ Progression: structures here are key to delivering on completion rates. Overall procedure here needs bringing into line. Examples of good practice in the College exist with the implementation of progress reviews alongside annual monitoring and upgrading, and implementation of academic procedure where students are not progressing. Guidelines for recognizing warning signs and poor performance and related procedures are established at some institutions, and these may be of use in reviewing our own expectations here.
-‐ Upgrading: necessarily a range of subject specific practice here but guidelines/knowledge of the range of practice would be useful in exchanging best practice.
-‐ Researcher Portfolio: Opportunities for training and skills should be gathered in a Birkbeck portfolio, scheduling across the range, with clear sense of choice and expectations
-‐ Student support: what is available? -‐ Student facilities: what are available? -‐ Student funding: how is this communicated, what is available? -‐ Tier 4 monitoring currently overseen by International Office
procedures, should have common PGR model here. -‐ Appointment of Examiners: currently processed via the RSSC
committee, and has been improved in efficiency. -‐ Awareness of equality and disability issues here, including reasonable
adjustment. How is that activated? Do staff know? -‐ Vivas: established by supervisors and departments – needs improved
communication with PRO and SITS. Use of Chairs and ongoing questions of viva recording and supervisor attendance need review so all on the same page.
-‐ Award: needs considering with viva in the light of 4/7 completion dates. -‐ Appeals: the appeal process needs review with regard to employing of
examiners as arbiters. -‐ Postdoctoral Opportunities: maintaining of post-‐PhD period, sourcing
of related funds, use of honorary associate positions to work on applications for further funding, now part of RCUK expectations.
-‐ Careers: how does the College address PGR employability, offer networks, maintain alumni contact.
Recommendations:
-‐ appoint PVM PGR -‐ establish a Postgraduate Research Office and scope for two posts in the
first instance, one to lead operations and the other to develop the future research agenda.
-‐ Address web management for consistent delivery of PGR resources. -‐ establish space and facilities for the PRO -‐ create PGR handbook based on future researcher journey -‐ embed student lifecycle as a means of testing practice and articulating
Birkbeck procedures and provision
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4.5 Doctoral Models and Pathways The PGR journey incorporates a number of different models of doctoral study at Birkbeck. More sharing of practice here might offer new solutions to problems of numbers, funding pressures, pathways from the large range of MAs, and professional routeways suitable for some, rather than academic research tracks for all. Birkbeck emphasizes face-‐to-‐face doctoral programmes, but has confirmed a model based on distance learning. The College permits submission of practice-‐based theses in alternative formats. The bigger picture of post MA options at Birkbeck needs mapping in the light of new financial packages that might be advisable. Alongside the traditional pattern of the research doctorate, Birkbeck also offers other flexible options. Indicative examples are:
-‐ the Integrated PhD: 12 months FT/ 20 months PT to complete qualifying taught modules, plus 2 years FT or 3 years PT for research element. Dissertation length shorter than conventional thesis. See Applied Linguistics: http://www.bbk.ac.uk/linguistics/study-‐here/routes-‐to-‐the-‐phd. Adapted for Tier 4 use.
-‐ the use of M.Phil.Stud followed by 2 years full-‐time or 3 years part-‐time in Philosophy
-‐ PhDs with partner universities, which may include joint awards, such as Law’s arrangement with PUC-‐RIO which is a 2+2 arrangement including a qualifying M.Phil (from Oct 17).
All make it possible for a taught/research preparation element in which can also be an exit award, and may be attractive to students concerned about building up debt. Though the College emphasizes face-‐to-‐face doctoral programmes, it has confirmed a distance learning amendment in M.Phil/PhD in Archaeology. Here Skype or other ‘virtual’ face-‐to-‐face meetings will replace regular supervisor meetings on campus (provision for this already exists in the Code of Practice for postgraduate training and research for research degrees, item no. 24) Mandatory visit at end of year of first year (FT) or end of second year (PT) for participation in PhD workshop activities and meetings with supervisors, from October 2015. Attendance in London for the upgrade from MPhil and the Viva is also mandatory. There is concern expressed at RSSC about support for distance learning, both in terms of technology and staff time. Increasingly students are using skype when they have to spend time away or for reasons of flexibility. The HCA Archaeology programme underlines the aim ‘to enhance opportunities for learners, who in keeping with out core mission, might not otherwise have access’. Professional and ‘industry’ routes are also options – these need further work and researching. The two DPsychotherapy programmes are closing down in Psychosocial Studies. Clinician/research dynamics remain part of plans in medical humanities. The range of current PGR sponsorship (based on SITS
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information) is now available on Tableau for reference – there is a notable decline overall. SSHP PGR students outstrip other Schools by some way:
Recommendations:
-‐ to consider the range of flexible options of doctoral study here post MA and share information about practice here.
-‐ To gather information about professional and industry routes and the consider the range of sponsorship. How do we use this information strategically?
4.6 Student Representation and Experience Birkbeck operates a student representative liaison system that may need reviewing in some Schools to make sure it is operating well. The RSSC does not have a student representative as a member but is moving to ensure this. Plans for the BGRS steering group below (Part 6) would require active liaison with student reps. The student reps meeting called by the Research Students Unit for this Review was hugely useful, and students appreciated the chance to meet others from across the Schools of the College, and share experiences. There was constructive discussion. The biennial Postgraduate Research Experience Survey (PRES) run by the HEA provides useful data, and should be a vehicle for active communication with
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Birkbeck PGR students and evaluation of progress. The current analysis of the Birkbeck return against the London benchmark suggests areas for action both within subject areas and across the piece:
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There is a lot of work via the HEA about the best use of surveys, and the incorporation of students into response and delivery of areas they identify. The PRES survey needs to be active in PGR culture in this way. 4.7 Facilities: Space In the PRES survey Birkbeck scores well overall, with 80% satisfied. But the College scores particularly badly compared with benchmarked London institutions on Professional Development and Resources. The latter includes computing and library resources, and study space.
Dedicated PGR space and related facilities are essential to the quality of the research environment. Investment in facilities is noted in REF returns, part of the vitality of a world-‐leading research institution. This is an area that Birkbeck needs to address, and an overall five-‐year strategy here including the PRO and BGRS should be considered. Lack of space means that students are less likely to come in to the College to meet and work. It impacts on postdoctoral opportunities too. Quiet working spaces, especially for students with disabilities who require voice-‐activated software, including PGR library spaces, are rarely available. Development of dedicated research resources in keeping with the future researcher strategy should be part of the College’s thinking. Currently there is uneven basic provision, with some improvements and areas of strength: SSHP has a small dedicated PGR/postdoctoral space for hotdesking with kitchenette in the basement in Russell Square, with computer and printing facilities. Student reps reported that this has facilitated exchange among students across departments.
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Arts has a room with computers and printers and bookable space for reading groups and events, but it is constrained and students consistently raise it as an issue, including the lack of a dedicated kitchenette. BEI has a ‘brand new Graduate Centre’ with a suite of computers, chill-‐out area with sofas, sound insulated meeting area with flat-‐screen display. Law PGRs have a room for their collective use, pincoded, which includes lockers and computers. Psychology reports that apart from office space for all FT PhD students, there are areas for PGR students in three separate buildings, basement of Main Building, 32 Torrington Square, and Henry Wellcome Building. These involve seminar/meeting rooms and kitchenettes. These are not exclusively for PhD students but are shared with other research staff (postdocs, RAs). They are locally bookable (via informal google calendars) and are therefore available as a space resource to support research, as well as fostering a positive informal environment for research activities. In Biological Sciences every FT PhD student will have a desk in an office which is normally a mix of postdocs, scientific support staff and PhD students. It is research space rather than PGR space. Offices tend to be used by one or two research groups but spill over happens. Most part-‐time students get the same, but they may have to desk share. What it means is about 1-‐1.2m of desk ie enough for a computer and a decent screen-‐ many will have 24 inch or even two. Typically a lab based student would have about the 1.5 m of lab bench of their own as well. Postdocs would get no more typically. There is also communal lab space and space for equipment. Total space for research offices is 485 m2 (not including academic offices); to put in context that is the same as the English and Media and cultural studies offices combined (2013 space survey) so it is a sizeable investment. On the other hand the volume per person is at or below the suggested health and safety minimum, but they do not sit at desks all day. In terms of communal space there is a small specialist computer space, a meeting room for up to 20 and a lecture theatre for 60 that they can book and access. Most research groups meet weekly or fortnightly to discuss progress and most supervisors timetable 30 minutes a week with each FT student. There is also a departmental seminar every week and two students or postdocs present each Friday with snacks beforehand. Further work is needed here in assessing PGR facilities overall and space in particular. Recommendations:
-‐ review PGR student representation across the College to ensure consistency and parity
-‐ ensure there is student representation on the RSSC and BGRS steering group
-‐ consider in what ways should the College respond to the PRES survey and ensure active communication going forward
-‐ review PGR facilities over the College and include in estates planning
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5. Supervision
The relation to a supervisor or supervisors is central to the experience of postgraduate research. As the College Research Strategy sets out: ‘High quality supervision is the key to the positive development of the careers of these students’. Birkbeck has a strong reputation here of supervisory engagement with PhDs in keeping with its combination of teaching ethos and research intensivity, and student reps underlined the quality of this in our meeting. Information about supervisors is held on departmental pages, and also on the Experts database maintained by External Relations, which directs to School and departmental sites. 5.1 Code of Practice Practice across the College varies, though there are fundamentals in common established according to the current Code of Practice:
-‐ All students have a first and second supervisor, though the presence of the second supervisor is used differently according to the practice of the subject area. In some departments, especially those with larger numbers, the second supervisor is a backstop when the first supervisor cannot function, and can be asked to read material; in others there is a more active relationship drawing in staff who may not otherwise have supervisory experience. The PRES survey highlighted the need in some areas to explain the role of second supervisor (the PRES questions are framed around a slightly different model which assumes).
-‐ Joint or co-‐ supervisions are also common, where the topic demands a range of specialist support. Interdisciplinary cross-‐departmental, and more rarely, cross-‐School supervision take this route. DTC practice may also extend this to cross-‐institutional supervision increasingly in the future, in the manner of the Bloomsbury arrangements.
-‐ New staff are not permitted to supervise alone until they have seen through a PhD to completion in a co-‐supervisory arrangement with a more experienced member of staff.
-‐ Supervisory panels are common in Science. 5.2 Supervisory Training and Support The Code of Practice underlines the importance of supervisory training: All academic staff undertaking the supervision of postgraduate research students should have received training in respect of postgraduate supervision as part of their staff development. The
training of supervisors and updating of supervisory skills, for example in the light of new research sources, methods and technologies, should be a normal part of continuing staff development, and should apply not just to new or inexperienced supervisors. Departments should ensure that the appointed supervisors have
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appropriate expertise for the student’s research project and can provide appropriate guidance on research techniques and methodologies. Supervisors who have not themselves successfully completed a PhD thesis will be expected to have equivalent research and publications experience.
The College via the Birkbeck Graduate Research School puts on a limited number of supervisor workshops with John Wakefield from the Missenden Centre. They are not widely attended, though useful. In fact there is very little training available, and almost no time dedicated to it in the probationary training all academic staff have to follow. In the main, supervisors learn by co-‐supervision and mentoring from more experienced staff in almost all areas of the College. It is difficult to be trained to supervise in abstract without a PhD in place, with the corresponding specialist skills required by a discipline learned in situ. More training should be available however with masterclasses or other reflective opportunities throughout the professional life of the supervisor. Provision is thin at Birkbeck, despite the strong organic methods of learning on the job. In addition there are particular complex pressures on the supervisory process, which often mean that experienced supervisors themselves need support. For example, mental health crises and anxiety can be a common part of doctoral life, and transferential and other issues can arise beyond the limits of reasonable pastoral care. Supervisory support and training needs itself to be of high quality. Mentoring of early career staff might be usefully formalized so that expectations and good practice are clear. Student feedback on PRES highlights a range of supervisory issues. Problems of communication such as response to emails, and the impact of supervisor workload and teaching timetable on access to supervisions, are highlighted along with excellence. Supervision is a key area that needs review and a refreshing of aims in the College, particularly in the light of DTC expectations and the sector transformations around the future researcher journey now in train. A Birkbeck supervisor handbook would be helpful, with advice about practice, continuing development and student and staff support. Good practice, such as the use of logbooks and identification of PGR training and pastoral needs, should be clearly articulated. The student journey needs to be internalized in advice and planning. Supervision is a rewarding part of academic life, and key to the progress of both the future researcher and the academic supervisor too. More coordination and structural support through the central Birkbeck Graduate Research School would be productive here. Recommendations
-‐ to consider review and consistency of Supervisor training provision including best practice
-‐ a supervisor handbook
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6. Birkbeck Graduate Research School (BGRS) 6.1 Why a central Graduate Research School? Birkbeck has almost no central presence that gathers together full resources from across the College for postgraduate research and related information for staff. Currently there are minimal online pages for the BGRS, which list generic skills provision, and further useful but ad hoc materials on MyBirkbeck, which are not accessed by staff as a matter of course. The seriousness of this omission can’t be understated, and the quality of presentation is poor. A strongly functioning central Graduate School in actual and online form should underpin all aspects of PGR provision in the College, a central port of call for all PGR students and staff. It should be an important strategic hub for development, bringing together College services with academic priorities, and identifying needs and pressures ahead, not least in postgraduate researcher and supervisory training, employment and opportunities. It should coordinate and share best practice, and underpin the work of Schools. In short, it should lead, with an established mission that has world leading aspirations and a live sense of Birkbeck’s distinctiveness in the sector. An effective central Graduate School is a public showcase. It should be resourced to ensure quality of communication. It plays a crucial part in the external evaluation of the PGR claims an institution makes, such as when joining a doctoral consortium or maintaining its presence within one, or underlining the REF narrative. It will have reduced our standing in the last REF return, and we have some anecdotal evidence for that. Birkbeck’s presence is so weak in this regard, that it needs addressing as a matter of urgency. It impacts on our reputation as a research-‐intensive institution, and occludes the excellent work that is going on across the College that is largely under the radar. The BGRS is referred to across Birkbeck online and departmental pages and materials, so students are often directed to its resources as a first port of call. Comaprisons of current pages at Birkbeck compared with Graduate School pages ar Kent, Kings, York and UCL are immediately instructive, and suggest the gulf at present. Screen shots of Kent, King’s, York and Birkbeck are in the Appendix at A2. http://www.bbk.ac.uk/bgrs/ http://www.bbk.ac.uk/mybirkbeck/get-‐ahead-‐stay-‐ahead/phd-‐support https://www.kent.ac.uk/graduateschool/ http://www.kcl.ac.uk/study/pg/school/index.aspx https://www.york.ac.uk/research/graduate-‐school/ http://www.grad.ucl.ac.uk A Birkbeck Graduate Research School in its facing towards the College should address the following:
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-‐ a clear PGR mission statement and concordat to complement the College position on research, ensuring consistency and the best possible experience for all research students
-‐ coordination of all current PGR resources online, so that students and staff can find relevant forms, documents and information relating to the PGR student journey, and links to other PGR provision
-‐ The articulation of that journey for discussion and adaptation by Schools. -‐ A single doctoral prospectus, with all procedural and other information
about that PGR journey gathered in one document. This is possible to produce despite the diversity of different specialisms across the College. There are good models in the sector.
-‐ Induction for assistant deans PGR so they are informed about the key issues in the sector and for Birkbeck as a whole from the outset.
-‐ Information and initial and ongoing training for PGR supervisors. -‐ An agreed base of generic skills training, established coherently in the
light of Birkbeck’s own understanding of the Research Development Framework (RDF) emphases which are driving the sector and expected by the RCUK bodies. All other research intensive universities use this explicitly or adapt according to their offer. This training might also include postdoctoral and ECR provision: Researcher Development Training and Skills.
-‐ A means of communicating the rich range of skills training on offer across the College, in the form of a calendar; a support for School and departmental specialist training offers, not substituting for them
-‐ Oversight of training and skills bids from different parts of the College with a related budget, and their central communication
-‐ Liaison with knowledge of the activities and developments in Institutes, Centres and networks, and planned School Graduate Schools.
-‐ Consideration of an annual Birkbeck Postgraduate Conference fostering the Birkbeck PGR community
-‐ Connection with careers service. -‐ A platform for the identification of strategic Birkbeck-‐specific distinctive
PGR skills eg taking forward College emphases towards 2023, in areas such as public engagement; mentoring, commercialization, placements; internships; practice-‐based research with partners; community based projects, and so on. These to be identified as part of the necessary portfolio of PGR skills, and given strategic resources for innovative development.
-‐ Funding information to be centrally collated and advertised. -‐ PGR news and events -‐ Active work with student reps -‐ Liaison with leaders of PGT strategy -‐ Space: this should not be solely virtual but include bookable space with
facilities for PGR/postdocs/ECR. A Birkbeck Graduate Research School is outward facing, and should address the following:
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-‐ communication of a robust world leading PGR environment for QA, REF and RCUK scrutiny, that may also include postdoctoral and ECR research development
-‐ have a high quality and coordinated web presence with priority given to the resourcing of this and its ongoing maintenance; possibly accessed via College research pages
-‐ Evidence online of memberships of various doctoral consortia and awareness and communication of collaborative developments with those DTCs – so the range of disciplinary research intensivity is apparent
-‐ communication of a distinctive Birkbeck profile, suggesting skills and opportunities which will be found nowhere else
-‐ collation of all funding information in any one year and advertising it on the web pages to an agreed planning timetable.
-‐ Continuing connection of Birkbeck skills provision with the Bloomsbury Postgraduate Skills Network and increased awareness/delineation of our profile there
6.2 BGRS management: why establish a steering committee? The question of why a BGRS steering group is required in addition to the current Research Students Sub-‐Committee (RSSC) is answered by the recent history of the establishing of the current model of the BGRS. BGRS was approved in the summer of 2010, just ahead of the shift that brought UoL examination processes in-‐house in August that year requiring the Registry to bring its systems into line. It dovetailed with the Strategic Review establishing the new College-‐wide School structure and new administrative systems. BGRS replaced the previous College Research School, which had been overseen by a College Research School Steering Committee that met ‘sporadically’. In the new arrangement, the BGRS was launched in tandem with the Research Students Sub-‐Committee (RSSC) .The BGRS was to be administered from the Research Student Unit within Registry Services to save on human resources, and directed by an Academic Director seconded in the first instance on a 0.4 FTE arrangement from one the of the Academic Schools. That Director would chair the RSSC once a term (see below for RSSC functions), which would take on the detailed scrutiny of research student related matters, and report to the College Research Committee. The BGRS would have an ‘existing physical resource base, including a dedicated School room for research students and its own dedicated web space’. The room did not materialize, though web space was established. The final report of the then Working Group defined the role of Academic Director as follows:
The role of the Academic Director should concentrate on academic policy and direction in relation to research students, overseeing the development of training and academic programmes, the identification of the support needs of departments and schools, and ensuring appropriate academic input into the work of the School. Responsibility for the delivery
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of programmes and the day-‐today management of the School should reside with Registry services.
The duties of the BGRS were to include:
-‐ Enhancing the research students’ experience by creating an environment that values research students and their supervisors eg. having a common social space, courses for supervisors and students on transferable skills, annual events for research students
-‐ Promoting good practice in supervision across the College -‐ Providing training for both supervisors and students in collaboration with
Schools -‐ Maintaining links with the Bloomsbury Colleges PG skills network -‐ Facilitating international links and working with the International office
to meet the specific needs of international research students The final report notes that ‘Birkbeck’s challenge since establishing the School has been to establish an effective School with minimal resources’. It is clear that with the BPSN for additional external provision (a network with no management costs, coordinated from UCL), and School specialist provision, BGRS set out a useful if limited set of criteria for its own functioning on a shoestring . For BGRS to work and respond to shifts in the sector, it would need academic leadership that could make full strategic use of the Research Students Sub-‐Committee, which was tasked with ‘receiving reports on BGRs activity and considering detailed proposals for future operations such as generic skills training programmes, training for supervisors and other operations designed to meet the requirements of the mission of the Birkbeck Graduate Research School’. But the RSSC is not framed to deliver strategically and thus support the work of a PVM, save for mention of ‘working groups’ that it might establish in developing funding bids. The role of academic director as originally conceived is too narrow for the weight of the PGR strategic portfolio required. In this transitional period to the present a large part of the work of the RSSC has necessarily been focused on QA and governance questions post UoL, setting up the annual reporting mechanisms and other regulatory matters relating to PGR which fill the agenda, and serving the Research Committee to which it reports (see RSSC below). It has in other words been about the functioning of PGR management, rather than strategic or related developments, and with HEFCE QA concerns, key focus on completions, DTC new arrangements and reports and other related questions this will continue. RSSC discussion of generic skills provision has generally been reactive and ad hoc, with the Research Students Unit taking the lead with PVM and indeed working hard at fulfilling the brief as far as they have been able. The RSSC however is not a generative forum for the working of the BGRS, and its membership is not designed to maximize the established aim to develop PGR strategy for the college: ‘this will include building capacity; creating opportunities, maximizing potential and encouraging and facilitating interdisciplinary collaborations’. It functions usefully as a College committee, but might be freed to focus properly on governance/procedures as the HEFCE QA approaches in 2017, if fed with academic-‐led collaborative
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strategy from BGRS, overseen by a PVM actively working on all aspects of PGR development within the College and with a reframed Postgraduate Research Office. Key actions:
-‐ to make available immediate substantial resource to establish the BGRS online as a major window on Birkbeck (given timing of DTC scrutiny this is paramount) and identify how it is to be maintained and resourced going forward. Further personnel for the Postgraduate Research Office and web team prioritisation are necessary, getting informed advice and web design resource with an eye to benchmarked institutions in the first instance.
-‐ Establish a BGRS steering group to comprise eg. PVM PGR, ADs PGR, staff from the Postgraduate Research Office, reps from key cross College Institutes and Centres, Public Engagement Officer, Library, DTC reps, Careers/Business Ecology, Alumni Office, student reps. That steering group to report to the RSSC (Research Students Sub-‐Committee) and the PVM PGR also to be present on the College Research Committee. To meet three times a year.
-‐ BGRS to address all internal and outward facing priorities listed above and establish timetable for delivery
-‐ Coordination of the School with a properly resourced Postgraduate Research Office (PRO) who would lead on delivery and management with web support, working with PVM according to an agreed academic strategy.
6.3 Proposed Communication Structure (BGRS)
1. Birkbeck Graduate School (BGRS) steering group, which reports to
2. Research Students Sub-‐
Committee (RSSC), which reports to
3. College Research Committee
4. which feeds back strategic PGR
development and environmental concerns via PVM PGR as appropriate
to
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7. PGR Training and Skills One of the key drivers of BGRS should be the oversight, coordination and development of a distinctive Birkbeck profile for outstanding PGR training and skills. 7.1 Context PGR training is increasingly articulated in the sector according to established RCUK models of researcher development, which include a PGR journey extending to postdoctoral and ECR opportunities. The ideal specialist supervisor is just one element in a complex investment made by students. Prospective students seeking funding weigh the provision, facilities and PGR environment of different universities in making their choice. Doctoral consortia are continually working to improve their collaborative skills offer, and explicitly look for consortia brand identity among their funded students, even as those students may sit within a larger self-‐funded community who do not have access to such a range of possibilities. The pressures in the sector are currently focused on generating a research elite, with funded students able to access high quality training opportunities such as placements and international research visits, funds for scientific and other research, public engagement opportunities with partners and post-‐doctoral positions, which are not equally available to all. A recent study points out differences between doctoral training in STEM subjects and that in the arts, humanities and social sciences: ‘with the “single-‐envelope” model in the latter encompassing a range of subjects, and with thematic grouping dominant in STEM’. The report continues: evidence is beginning to emerge to show that the more structured approach to PhD study is improving productivity and enabling candidates to ‘cover the ground’ more easily and also that students in universities with DTCs and CDTs are ‘voting with their feet’ to access improved levels of training and professional development.5 It seems likely that this pressure will intensify as the demands of (wider, massed up) DTC membership increase, and government funds are reduced. The larger institutions are already positioning themselves powerfully according to this global research agenda. This is a particular challenge to Birkbeck, given the inclusive nature of the PGR student body, and it needs imaginative and adept handling in keeping with our strengths. How does the College see its combining of full-‐time and part-‐time PGR provision for students funded by different means, in a research-‐intensive context? There is a range of opinion across the Schools, but all share awareness of this funding pressure and the increased importance of completion within a reasonable outlay of staff time (with its implications for
5 Report to HEFCE by Gillian Clarke and Ingrid Lunt, ‘International comparisons in postgraduate education: quality, access and employment outcomes’ (September 2014), p.22.
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part-‐time self-‐funded supervision), the need for targeted training resources, and a view that the College needs to do much more to support the articulation of our overall PGR offer to strategic effect. 7.2 At base: Using the Vitae Research Development Framework (RDF) Establishing a clear central base narrative would free Birkbeck to coordinate and promote what is distinctive and indeed outstanding about what we do. It could make membership of the Birkbeck PGR community more active, even for those students whose focus is on DTC arrangements that face elsewhere. All PGR students should be brought into the Birkbeck PGR community, but not necessarily in the same ways. The establishing of a Researcher Development Portfolio as a key immediate aim, including a clear outline of the student journey year on year, access to training/skills expectations and range of opportunities (external, central, School, departmental) could be locally adapted to the specialist needs of different programmes and different PGR experience, but its framework would ensure a common Birkbeck identity alongside the key specialist attachment to department, programme or consortium. Such a Portfolio might seem unnecessary to certain parts of the College, such as among Science subjects where the skill expectations within departmental disciplines are already clearly established and monitored. But Science students also have something to gain from the exchange of being part of a wider Birkbeck community, as the student reps told us. The question of what should be included in such a Portfolio, and what might be value-‐added because of Birkbeck’s own distinctive research strengths, would be worth consulting on and actively developing. These moves, like the RDF framework itself, can feel like an imposition on the PGR cultures which currently exist, but used effectively would support and strengthen their success in attracting good students and their internal/public facing profile. At base this narrative needs to be evidently informed by RCUK norms, however they are framed by us locally. All other research-‐intensive universities have used the Vitae Research Development Framework favoured by RCUK and enshrined in the Concordat to Support the Career Development of Researchers and the QAA Quality Code for Higher Education: Research Degrees for some time. They advertise this fact in their central pages. Larger institutions such as UCL and KCL map this very closely, since they have a depth of provision and explicitly locate research training within ambitious development departments, tailored to their wider research agenda. This is training often also available to research staff, postdocs and ECR. The application of the RDF to an integrated annual ‘Researcher Development Programme’ at KCL should be consulted as an example here: http://www.kcl.ac.uk/study/pg/school/RDP/training-‐and-‐development/Researcher-‐Development-‐Programme-‐2014-‐15.pdf . The programme at King’s is run by a well-‐staffed and trained ‘Researcher Development Unit’ run from within the Graduate School. Other institutions adapt the RDF to the provision on offer, but show reflection and planning around it. Some will use online planners and online training and personal development websites from the outset to encourage students to reflect
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on their research needs, or will ask students to fill in Training Needs Analysis forms with their supervisors annually (see Sussex example, Appendix A3). In some cases this process is compulsory, elsewhere it is part of the guidance mutually managed by supervisors and students. It underpins progression and successful completion. Birkbeck will need to address this. The main immediate task is to map our core PGR provision with reflection on the RDF emphases, and that would be something ideally suited to the BGRS steering group with representatives as set out above. The aims in the first instance would be threefold:
-‐ coordination: to know what we currently offer, making the full range of doctoral training opportunities visible and communicated, and to consolidate the offer within a Researcher Development Portfolio adapted to local specialist and disciplinary iteration as appropriate
-‐ coherence: to bring reflection about training into the planned duration of a student journey and identify core training and skills that can be offered centrally at each stage complementing specialist skills training. The aim here for the future might be a thoroughgoing Researcher Development Programme including postdoctoral students and ECR. This would require substantial resources and staffing.
-‐ distinction: to put together strategic plans for the augmentation of
Birkbeck’s PGR profile in the light of the RDF, with targeted innovation funds where required, to support a strong Birkbeck presence in doctoral consortia and to contribute to the College’s research profile towards 2020 (REF) and the anniversary in 2023.
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The RDF model (QAA Quality Code for Higher Education: Research Degrees) The RDF is widely used to establish an account of training and skills. In the KCL Training and Development pages, you can see a direct online adaptation of the wheel, with students able to access all the courses in each domain just by clicking on the relevant area:
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A short survey of a range of university practice compiled for this Review below by the Research Students Unit suggests that the RDF is adapted to a range of provision, and is not always used prescriptively. Some institutions combine it with a 3-‐6 monthly or annual monitoring process, or with the use of reflective online logbooks. An initial assessment is often expected in year one (see York), in close consultation with a supervisor. Students are incentivized to take up opportunities by various means: the use of a points system (UCL), targeted funding to ‘spend’ in the department /externally (Essex), ‘up to ten days a year’ (KCL) or are commonly expected in doctoral consortia to complete a number of training /skills hours each year. Current Birkbeck DTC membership already works on this basis in some areas (70 hours per year of transferable skills in biological sciences, with part-‐time pro rata; 10 additional hours currently expected by CHASE), and it is likely that such monitoring will become the norm for full-‐time funded students. It would make sense to bring overall provision into line with these expectations, but what constitutes those hours elsewhere can be very flexible and include everything from work in progress conferences to social events, ‘networking’. Attendance is increased if students have a level of institutional expectation they need to fulfil. But a clear line about the range and
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purpose of provision in relation to their own research needs at different stages is something Birkbeck student reps requested in our meeting.
Some Birkbeck departments already actively work with students on identifying their research training needs in a formal way, such as the milestones and transferable skills monitoring in biological sciences (see Appendix A4) or the stages in Computer Science. Other departments appear more ad hoc after year one, focusing on the supervisor relationship as the main source of guidance, but are active in making opportunities available, and excellent in developing student-‐led possibilities. Just 5.5% of Birkbeck students on the PRES survey return had agreed a personal training or development plan. Birkbeck also scored badly on ‘professional development’ (though several of the respondents pointed out they already had professional working lives and were not seeking development of this kind). It makes sense to make practice here more coherent,
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though there will be disciplinary differences. An overall sense of what we do as a College would aid planning, economies of scale, wider interdisciplinary exchange, and more active engagement with PGR students as they become alumni. It would make consortia compliance easier. Closer work with PGR students would underline the different training needs that students have, such as those seeking professional or career development rather than a researcher route. In other words a more formal thinking through of RDF-‐led material each year might underpin the distinctions within our student body helpfully, and support expectations around completion. Recommendations:
-‐ to consider the establishing of a Researcher Development Portfolio as a key part of a base narrative for Birkbeck skills provision, which can be adjusted and augmented according to specific disciplinary emphases
-‐ to coordinate this with articulation of the PGR student journey -‐ to use the RDF framework to assess and communicate the range of
Birkbeck training and skills provision -‐ to consider the identification of and reflection on PGR student training
needs on an annual basis, to be included within the annual monitoring structure
-‐ to consider whether there should be expectations about the number of hours or other measure committed to training/skills annually, and to be aware of DTC expectations across the range
-‐ to consider the best format for the identification of training needs and its range of uses – whether in using a TDF form with supervisor, or online research log tool which might be piloted. My sense is that some areas of the College would want a more responsive student-‐supervisor led model, while others, such as departments in Science, would benefit from implementation of the latter, and could pilot the use of an online log if resources were found for this. DTC pressure will make these moves inevitable. So what is the most appropriate and enabling path for Birkbeck ?
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7.3 Delivery of Skills and Training For training needs to be identified and managed, there needs to be clarity about the full range of what is on offer and its modes of delivery. Birkbeck has habitually predicated its PGR development on the specialist research training offered at department, programme and School level. There is quality and innovation here across the College, with many examples of good practice and close engagement with staff that students recognize and value. Any central generic offer needs to work in tandem with this provision, not least because students themselves tend to stay close to the specialist ‘home’ environment, and in time-‐poor conditions, will go for what seems the most relevant and necessary to their areas of study. But in fact the College as a whole offers a range of opportunities, set out here broadly in their current form as far as it can be established.
a. Generic Skills (BGRS)/ Central Provision Central generic skills training is currently offered through the Research Students Unit, who work actively with a minimal budget of just £8000 for BGRS core activities. Provision is normally focused on a limited number of PGR workshops that may be repeated over the year, on supervisor training, workshops for staff on examining, and a social event. Take-‐up has been patchy, but some recent initiatives such as a postdoctoral funding event have been well attended. The Research Students Unit will draw on Birkbeck staff where there is particular expertise, bring in consultants, and liaise with the Careers service (which is not well resourced for PGR).
1. generic skills (BGRS)/
central provision
2. specialist skills (dept)
3. cross-‐School/networks/Centres
4. external training (DTCs) or
RCUK funded
5. external skills networks
(BPSN)
6. specialist College skills (Birkbeck) strategic
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‘Generic skills’ is a term that might be usefully be replaced, since it suggests a generality which may not be motivating, nor particularly informative about the relevance of the course/workshop to a particular stage of the PGR journey. Researcher Development Skills (RD Skills) might be an improvement. Workshops planned for 15/16 include: 2x John Wakeford student workshop (Saturday) 1x John Wakeford supervisor workshop 1x PhD examiner workshop (run by Registry/academic staff) 2x Alternative Guide to Postgraduate Funding workshop 2x Postdoctoral funding workshop: 1 for Science, 1 for Arts & Hum 1x Social network & research 2x 'Conference' workshop: poster presentations, how to write and present a paper 1x Intellectual Property & Copyright workshop 2x 'Surviving the viva' workshop 1x Digital thesis & publishing your thesis workshop (re: copyright anxieties) 1x Ethics 1x Library skills 1x Careers/CVs In addition the Research Students Unit commissions well received PGR videos in partnership with Angel Productions which can be incorporated into training. These are currently available on MyBirkbeck and widely taken up by universities. Royalties are returned to the BGRS fund. This is a good example of what is possible. http://www.bbk.ac.uk/mybirkbeck/get-‐ahead-‐stay-‐ahead/phd-‐support https://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/news/how-‐to-‐deal-‐with-‐phd-‐stress-‐new-‐film-‐offers-‐some-‐tips/2019111.article BGRS has funded one-‐off workshops on demand eg. research communication in 2014, and other opportunities as they arise eg making 5 student bursaries available for training in film and research by the Derek Jarman lab in 2015. A generic skills (which might be now termed ‘Researcher Development’) budget of £100,000, established to meet HEFCE expectations of £200 per PGR student dedicated for training, is bid for by departments for cross departmental, cross College and other PGR initiatives annually. This (often referred to by staff as ‘ex-‐Roberts money’) is managed currently by the Research Students Unit with the PVM postgraduates, and includes some Vitae/RDF categorization, to bring it into line with the BPSN expectations.. Examples of generic skills funded initiatives from 14/15 are listed below: Department/proposer Course Title Amount Applied Linguistics Bloomsbury Round Table
on Communication Cognition and Culture
11985.50
Computer Science Python programming 600 Philosophy Approaches to
Philosophy 825
70
Philosophy Biannual Research Student Saturday Workshop
800
Biological Sciences/ISMB Scientific Speed Dating 6900 Computer Science Using LaTeX for Scientific
Writing 600
English and Humanities/19
Intern on Birkbeck Forum for C19th studies
5196
Rosie Campbell for SSHP/BEI/Law
Social Science Research Skills
6328
HCA/SSHP Student-‐led conference/specialist writing workshop/German language tuition
5417
BIMI Internships and Placements
1800
BISR Developing your Research Career workshops
1800
BISR/BIH Internships on Birkbeck Institute Graduate Conference
4320
English and Humanities/19
2 interns on electronic journal 19
10392
Arts Practice-‐based research network CORKSCREW workshops
1650
Arts Teaching the Arts in British Higher Education reflective pedagogy course
1600
Arts Monograph publishing lecture and workshop/publishing articles in peer-‐reviewed journals/research communication workshops
2790
GEDS Skills for the 21st century Researcher
2000
Computer Science Using R – Versatile Statistics
360
Computer Science Use email better 300 Computer Science Writing up your
Research 450
Computer Science Image Processing Workshop
600
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Computer Science A Hands-‐On Approach to Communicating your Discipline
600
Computer Science Effective Presentation Skills Using Microsoft Powerpoint
600
Computer Science Using mobile devices and apps as part of your research
600
Computer Science Writing your thesis using Microsoft word
600
SSHP Engaging the public online: outreach and communication of science. Public engagement
1350
SSHP Theorising Social Research
2750
English and Humanities Researching the Text: Renaissance Summer School
350
Total requested £73563.50 Bidding is an annual process and it is not cross-‐referenced with central provision though there is communication between the Unit and ADs PGR at the RSSC. This fund does encourage new initiatives to emerge from developing cross-‐departmental and cross-‐College synergies (and is better located centrally in my view than devolved to Schools for that reason), but with a stronger central offer incorporating a wider agreed set of skills training and better planning, less staff time would be spent putting in each year and its relevance would be clear. It would be appropriate for a BGRS steering group to oversee this process and delivery of core provision to continue to be coordinated by the Postgraduate Office. Library PGR Provision The Library regards provision and support to postgraduate researchers as an important part of its mission. Library and information literacy skills training is already provided via the BGRS. Obviously the Library also provides the information resources for our postgraduate research community. The subscription paid for the use of Senate House Library allows postgraduate researchers access to their collections and the SCONUL Access Scheme, of which we are members, allows postgraduate researchers, and other students, to use and often to borrow from the collections of other university libraries.
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Over the next few years the Library aims to improve the support provided to this section of the academic community. It is looking into ways to communicate with postgraduate research students as soon as they are enrolled onto their programmes in order that help and support in the area of information skills and provision can be provided at that stage. The aim is to start a relationship in which the postgraduate researcher has a known contact within the Library for any information enquiries they might have in the future. The Library is hoping to get more representation on School and Department research committees so that it can learn more about the information needs of all researchers at Birkbeck, including postgraduate researchers and use this knowledge to provide services that are more researcher focused. The College has just appointed a Research Data Support Manager, who will work with Birkbeck academics, including postgraduate researchers, to provide to them a support service for the management of research data. This person will be part of Library Services and will work closely with other Library staff to raise awareness and provide guidance on the management of research data. For postgraduate researchers it will be important to learn how to manage research data at an early stage in their academic careers, as the research funders put increasing emphasis on this area of research. The Library will provide workshops to academics and postgraduate researchers in this area and it will be important to include training in the Research School training programme. There are currently 119 e-‐theses on ORBIT. This page on the Library website provides FAQs on the depositing of e-‐theses: http://www.bbk.ac.uk/lib/elib/orbit-‐1 and this information is also available on the MyBirkbeck site at: http://www.bbk.ac.uk/mybirkbeck/services/administration/assessment/phd_dissertations/orbit-‐information There is also a Twitter feed for ORBIT: https://twitter.com/@BirkbeckORBIT Depositing e-‐theses on ORBIT involves both the Library and the Research Student Unit in Registry and communication between the two areas might be improved. The member of Library staff who manages ORBIT provides training to postgraduate researchers as part of the Research School training programme. Careers/Employability Provision There is currently no specific careers provision for PGR students because of limited resource. They can access generic workshops, one-‐to-‐one appointments, access to a career coach and access to the online careers portal as all current students can do. This is another area where Birkbeck needs to coordinate and find enabling resource, and it should be key to the core portfolio offer addressing expanded PGR needs. It is basic to provision at most competitor universities. Careers planning should be integrated into strategic PGR planning (see 7.4c), and the online careers portal should establish a PGR channel sooner to communicate opportunities and link to the BGRS site. It could combine with PGR in some areas. The careers programme would like to offer:
-‐ PG specific workshops/sessions
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-‐ 2 day bespoke PGR intensive career development programme: unique ability/goal setting/alternative careers to academia/career mapping/utilizing social media/ searching strategies/finding hidden opportunities/interview coaching/action plans. Indicative costs would be: 2x£500 for facilitator fee; advertising (2000) logistics 1500; follow up and feedback 1500; developing related PhD website £500 (£6500). Costs would reduce if the BGRS was actively working.
-‐ Career mapping for PG/PGR students -‐ Mock and interview support -‐ CV support – currently there is one generic skills session in liaison here -‐ In depth one-‐to-‐one appointments
b. Specialist Researcher Development Skills (Departments/Programmes) Birkbeck is strong in its local postgraduate cultures, and there are outstanding examples of best practice across the whole. Departmental and programme research methods are the main point of skills delivery for a PGR student, but there is variation in their framing. The arts and humanities subjects tend to focus on a first year of training, with strong emphasis on student-‐led skills and workshops and collaborative events throughout the student journey, which draw on the work of Institutes, Centres and Societies within and beyond the College. These tend to produce dynamic environments, but can appear more ad hoc to the student. In BEI and the sciences the environment is more structured, with moodle assessments and milestones established at each stage at the most articulated end. There are student work-‐in-‐progress conferences across the board, some which integrate staff research, and funds are provided for conferences, research and student-‐led events which are actively used by students. There is not a strong sense of the College generic skills offer and its value, though it is advertised, and little staff knowledge of the Bloombury Postgraduate Skills Network in most areas other than Science, where certain programmes are integrated with UCL. While students are directly contacted by the Research Skills office about this wider offer, staff may be oblivious to the possibilities here and so guidance may not be forthcoming. The information here is taken from annual reports and feedback from meetings, but further work is required to understand the full ecology of skills at a specialist level, and extend our sense of best practice – just indicative here – across the College. This matters because Birkbeck can’t communicate to a wider sector, and meet PGR challenges ahead, if its activities remain under the radar even to itself. It also potentially reduces the considerable expenditure in staff time and energy if the offer is more coherently put together and communicated, and the wheel is not having to be reinvented each year. Arts Arts is characterized by regular crossings between disciplines and a dynamic PGR environment. It scored highest in the PRES return. It is aiming to establish an Arts Graduate School to articulate its skills and training offer, to reduce proliferation and establish a strong PGR profile online. The School is considering providing a single handbook, and making specific information about the range of
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departmental provision available on key platforms. All departments run research skills in the first year in the evenings along with talks and seminars, and all have annual work-‐in-‐progress conferences. After the first year students work closely with supervisors and take up training opportunities as the needs arise. Consequently Year 2 onwards can seem a falling away from contact as students reps note, and a narrative of the student journey would be helpful here. Students are regularly contacted by email and a research blog run by the PGR administrator. Students post news about reading groups and run an electronic journal from the online platform Dandelion. There is dynamic use of Centres and Institutes to constellate research activity, and a strong collaborative ethos in Arts, with a good record of students and staff securing additional training related funds including international placements. These sums are finite, and overall the RSTG training funding is dwindling as the AHRC students complete and DTC funding becomes the focus for the AHRC. All students have access to teaching opportunities though this is more difficult to deliver for students in Cultures& Languages, and the Teaching the Arts in British Higher Education course is required, funded by generic skills. The School has established a network for the sharing of practice-‐based work, Corkscrew, also funded by generic skills. Postdoctoral opportunities have been secured via ISSF for students in medical humanities. Workshops on publishing monographs, articles in peer reviewed journals and research communication are also open to SSHP. The REF response noted ‘impressive PhD completion rates and support for PhD students’ in Modern Languages and Linguistics. In English ‘an impressive range of measures is in place to support research students, and provide postdoctoral opportunities’. Best practice includes the depth of student led activity, such as initiatives with partners eg the AHRC Critical Waves project; innovative projects such as the Artless Group: Arts of Experiment international exhibitions creation; use of interns on electronic journals such as 19 and CreativeWorks funded postdoctoral projects such as The Geek Pound http://www.geekpound.com/about; development of the Peltz gallery as a lab for PGR and staff research; film essay project with BIMI/Derek Jarman Lab; Vasari digital skills; work in progress regular seminar in HoA with staff feedback on writing; medical humanities PhD placements; a growing practice-‐based research network. BEI In Business and Management new PhD students are required to attend the following: four taught modules including two modules on quantitative and qualitative methods respectively; a weekly PhD seminar at which students and outside speakers present their work and at which new students are inducted into the norms of doctoral research, including issues such as literature searching, databases and research ethics and ethical approval; and the annual PhD student conference, where they are joined by many of our academic staff. In the first and second year the annual report takes the form of a research prospectus which is assessed and examined viva voce by a panel.
EMS filters PGRs through series of technically demanding qualifications. PhD
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students take MSc and PhD level modules as appropriate. EMS provides the economics pathway in the Bloomsbury DTC (jointly with UCL) and also takes part in The London Graduate School of Mathematical Finance with partners from Brunel, Imperial, King’s, LSE and UCL which runs an annual PhD day at the LSE.
Computer Science also sets out clear progression through series of stages, with a selection of taught modules appropriate to the research project. It requires each student to have an up-‐to-‐date webpage on the departmental site. The REF response noted ‘the unit’s support for PhD training, and the number of PhD students graduating, was judged to be consistent with research of internationally excellent quality’.
Best practice includes strong sense of progression with outcomes tied to stages; a number of training initiatives with partners include mentoring (with an Alumni, Credit Suisse or PwC), Enterprise events to support student entrepreneurs in starting and developing a business, and employability events eg networking, voice coaching, but these are not mainly focused on PGR. The aim is to create a ‘funnel effect’ of training progression, but that has not yet been established.
Law Law has a strong sense of postgraduate community. New students have induction and research training seminars within the school. Students are encouraged to coordinate their own reading groups with the assistance of DPR. There are around 5 such reading groups running at any one time. Fortnightly meetings are convened by senior graduate students where students present their research to each other, and in tandem with this there is a rolling programme of presentations from staff and visiting academics, organised by the DPR and PGR reps. This is working well. The School offers Graduate Teaching Assistantships which give PGR students professional skills in addition to funding. There is interest in developing numbers of Criminology PhDs, reflecting the presence of the Institute. It seems likely that the School will be able to join the ESRC from 2017, and Law is a growing area in CHASE, so further framing of PGR provision in the light of RDF and integration with central BGRS work may be necessary here. The striking public engagement dimensions of critical legal scholarship at Birkbeck could be a major resource for PGR training development. The REF response stated that ‘a noteworthy feature of the submission is the strong support provided to PhD students’.
Best practice includes the strength of student-‐led engagement; the annual two-‐day postgraduate conference with staff; the annual writer in residence programme, in which PGRs are involved in the selection, and hosting, of an academic from another institution, who then presents their work over a two week period. During this time, there is also the opportunity for PGRs to present their work to the writer in residence, for comment. This has also proven to be a popular forum for students to develop their work.
Science Science focuses strongly on its departmental PGR cultures and their shared environment with UCL, and is less focused on School identity at PGR level for a
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common postgraduate research strategy. The Department of Biological Sciences, as part of the UCL-‐Birkbeck Institute of Structural and Molecular Biology (ISMB) provides a number of seminars, including a weekly seminar series bringing international speakers; a world-‐class biennial ISMB symposium; a weekly Friday evening student/postdoc series of talks called “Friday wraps”; and a biennial two-‐day retreat in Cambridge. The Department provides a compulsory Graduate Studies programme in essential professional skills in the first term of the first year, including presentation skills and CV writing; time management and record keeping; and applying for grants and jobs. This provides students with key skills to manage their career progression. In addition, in the second term , departmental alumni working in diverse employment sectors -‐ such as science administration, science journalism and industry -‐ are invited back to give talks based on their experiences, to expose students to the breadth of career possibilities and support them in making timely and informed career choices. The REF return ‘noted a strong and integrated research student culture’. In Psychological Sciences, a structured PhD training programme is provided for all doctoral students in line with HEFCE supervision guidelines. This programme includes training in neuroscientific, quantitative, and qualitative methods used in our research, as well as generic skills training (including impact-‐related topics such as interacting with the media, collaborating with non-‐academic beneficiaries, and conducting translational research), specialist seminars, and funds for complementary skills training (e.g., MatLab, EEG/ERP, neural network modelling, brain imaging). The department provides the funding for research student travel to international and national conferences, for participants in PhD student research, and for specialist research training costs. There is a strong postdoctoral profile. CBCD was selected in 2010 as a Marie Curie Training Centre of Excellence by the European Commission for a second time (it achieved this status for the first time in 2004). A unique feature of this training programme is the extensive participation of private sector partners from the technology, manufacturing and services industry (e.g., Proctor & Gamble, Acuity and EGI). These collaborations bridge the gap between basic developmental neuroscience research and private sector applications. For example, all PhD students in this programme receive in-‐house training at Proctor & Gamble’s global research centre in Germany on how to translate basic science into marketable products.
The Department of Earth & Planetary Sciences is part of the Institute for Earth and Planetary Sciences and co-‐located with UCL, and part of the NERC DTP. Students access provision through these routes. They may also take modules from the MRes course. All students present their work annually, with second years participating in the UCL Graduate School poster display competition. Part-‐time students also present their work at an appropriate time. The REF return noted ‘Postgraduate support is very good’.
Students across science make active use of the BPSN and opportunities offered by doctoral training centres during the day, as health and safety regulations mean that evenings are not possible. The REF return in biological sciences notes that throughout their PhD, UCL and Birkbeck students can take a vast range of courses put on by the Graduate School (courses.grad.ucl.ac.uk/list-‐training.pht).
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These cover 4 broad areas: Knowledge and intellectual abilities (137 courses relevant to this UoA); Personal effectiveness (90 courses); Research organisation & governance (53 courses); and Communication influence & impact (109 courses). From 2008-‐2013, PhD students in this UoA took up over 3000 places on these courses. Of these courses, 45 are relevant to progression to a career (academic or otherwise) after the PhD, and since 2008, 385 PhD students in UoA5 took part in these courses. PhD students also have access to the UCL Careers Advice Service: 539 PhD students attended courses led by Careers Service counsellors and 87 students were booked onto industrial employer led events.
As they apply to projects via consortia, full data rests with UCL in some key aspects. Reasons to engage centrally with Birkbeck provision are limited. In discussion with Science colleagues there was a view that it would be helpful to duplicate the structure of the UCL doctoral school, with the range of training on offer during the day. Part-‐time students face a challenge however in that resources and opportunities for training are often not available via the self-‐funded route, and costs are high. Earth Sciences underlined in their Annual Review the importance of an effective online Research Student Log tool for the oversight of student progression and skills development, such as that used by UCL, to avoid the large variation in practice. Science tends not to look to College provision, and suggested training funds might be better devolved to departments. However the student representative suggested that college provision and opportunities to connect with a wider PGR community would be of interest, and a developed central platform of skills – including public speaking, public engagement, and so on – would be welcomed. It may be that Science week would be a potential public engagement forum where PGR students could present their work to a wider Birkbeck community and showcase Science PGR research at the same time.
Best practice includes highly organized and high quality programmes of research training with clear progression; active use of departmental alumni in various sectors to promote career discussion; innovative use of scientific speed dating (with generic skills funds).
SSHP SSHP has strong departmental PGR cultures. It has been working actively to synchronise practice overall with a number of innovative PGR initiatives. Departments provide taught courses and/or postgraduate research seminars, in addition to ‘in-‐house’ academic conferences / round tables and the more obvious day-‐to-‐day interaction with research-‐active academic staff. SSHP research students have access to the research training modules funded by generic skills training money, in addition to classes offered via the Masters in Social Research; they are also encouraged to attend seminars and workshops provided by the BISR, BIGS, BIH and BIMI, as well as externally via the IHR and the Institute of Philosophy. These research institutes and clusters offer vital cross-‐departmental and cross-‐School forums for PGR interaction. Events are advertised on departmental websites and continually updated. Students also have their own online website and noticeboard in HCA. In the past few years School-‐level research methods and skills training has been developed in conjunction with
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Management (Research Design, Introduction to Statistics, Qualitative Methods), including masterclasses in social research. All departments run postgraduate conferences and funding is available for conferences, student-‐led initiatives and research activities. Training activities are also available through DTCs (ESRC, CHASE, ERC) and via Wellcome and the Marie-‐Curie funded postdoctoral network (PIMIC). Some skills provision is shared with Arts. Students report that designated space in Russell Square has had a positive effect in bringing the School PGR community together. The REF response ‘noted how strong placement had been among the graduate students’ in Philosophy.
Best practice includes provision of the SSHP critical theory doctoral seminar (Psychosocial Studies); workshops such as Engaging the Public Online; research methods training as part of The Annual Bloomsbury Roundtable on Communication, Cognition and Culture; inclusion of international students in research events (ALC); Saturday workshops (Philosophy and Qualitative methods); weekly work in progress seminar with staff (Philosophy). There are strong international collaborations here bringing visiting students to the School.
c. Cross-‐School Provision, Networks, Centres and Institutes The energy of Birkbeck’s PGR environment comes in part through the dynamic interaction of departmental cultures with outstanding supra-‐departmental Centres, Institutes and networks. These contribute to the PGR experience in numerous ways, with PhDs participating in initiating and running events and conferences alongside academic staff, as well as networking with larger cross-‐disciplinary communities, accessing internships and building public engagement with partners. If PGR students are to be seen as researchers in development, then these research clusters can be transformative, and more might be made of this within a Birkbeck PGR Portfolio. The development of BISR and BIH with its summer school, master classes, and conferences are good examples of a way forward. BISR makes explicit its targeted ‘support and enhancement’ of PGR training in SSHP, Law and Arts. BISR pages include internships, a Graduate seminar in Social Research, Graduate Conference and lunchtime events on ‘Developing Your Research Career’. Relevant podcasts receive some 2500 hits each month. http://www.bbk.ac.uk/bisr/postgraduate. Specific provision is offered by the Centre for Transformative Practice in Teaching and Learning. Teacher training for GTAs and Associate Tutors is addressed at 7.4b below. While the Centre’s remit is up to taught PG, in practice a range of activities are of interest to PGR students:
-‐ Academic language and grammar for postgraduates (weekly 2-‐hour classes that run through terms 1 and are repeated in term 2)
-‐ Drop-‐in academic English help (3-‐5pm Saturdays in terms 1, 2 and 3 and 4.30-‐6 Tuesdays in term 1 and 4.30-‐6.00 Thursdays in terms 2 & 3)
-‐ Regular workshops/lectures on writing at PG level (includes writing for literature reviews, dissertations and writing more generally)
-‐ One to one tutorials on writing problems – occasionally these are taken up by PGR students but priority is taught PG since that is the Centre’s mandate and they don’t have Learning Development Tutors in the Schools
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-‐ In 2015/2016 the Centre will be introducing an intensive 16 hours course (non-‐credit bearing) for taught PG students on Academic English for Dissertations to run in late June. The Centre could consider doing this for PGR students but would need College backing for this.
-‐ Birkbeck Learning Skills moodle module https://moodle.bbk.ac.uk/course/view.php?id=7881 Students across the College are either automatically enrolled (Cert through PGT) or can self-‐enrol (PGR). From this autumn there will be a whole new set of interactive online resources that will target PGT students but will be applicable to PGR students as well (eg. ‘Writing an abstract’ ‘Writing your first conference paper’)
The Centre advertises these to PGR students through the Birkbeck Research School and the International Office, and includes them in the various forms of College publicity. PGR students who are ‘employed’ in some way by the College (as GTAs or Associate Lecturers/Tutors) will also receive the Centre’s newsletter and emails about activities which include the Learning and Teaching Seminars, the Critical Pedagogies Group (reading meetings and annual lecture) and the Centre’s annual conference. One question arising from the activities of such Centres would be whether Centres and Institutes might have registered PhDs in addition to departmental programmes, to promote cross School supervision and generate new transdisciplinary research communities. This would not be possible under current practice, and begs questions of support and administrative process currently underpinned by departmental and School structures. But the example of BiGS (Birkbeck Gender and Sexuality) is useful here. http://www.bbk.ac.uk/bisr/bigs PhD students working in Gender and Sexuality – a vibrant strand of cross-‐College research – can now be both attached to a departmental programme and tagged as Gender and Sexuality PhDs, and easily drawn together as a cohort as such. The potential here is considerable for the gathering together of cognate PG researchers, and supervision and training can then be communicated much more flexibly. The strength of gender and sexuality research is thus brought into view by a simple mechanism of registration and systems adaptation, though it may have to be entered manually. It may be that medical humanities and other PGR fields spanning the College could be similarly constituted. A map of the ecology of Centres and Institutes at Birkbeck would be a digital project worth investing in. d. External training (DTCs or RCUK funded) Birkbeck is a member of a number of doctoral training partnerships, all of which are engaged in the production of high quality skills training (BBSRC, CHASE, ESRC, MRC, NERC, Wellcome). There is currently no mechanism in the College for the exchange of information here across the range, though locally those delivering on DTC arrangements will know what is on offer and are engaged in
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delivering collaborative provision. AHRC and ESRC funds for student training currently come into the RTSG funds, though the latter is in transition and the former is under the old regime and gradually phasing out. Students apply annually for funds to conduct research trips. AHRC International Placements currently come through the Registry, but in that awkward nonspace between Research Grants and the Research Students Unit. There is no consistent record here. The School of Science/UCL hold information about other DTC arrangements and disbursements. This is information that should be part of the deliberations of a reframed BGRS, and it is also an area we may wish to work on strategically so that we underline a distinctive set of Birkbeck opportunities. We can’t at present showcase this kind of PGR experience easily, nor do we ask students to write it up for news. The pressures from DTC membership will increase as the RCUK organisations justify their funds and universities compete within a global research agenda. Birkbeck could do much more with these PGR stories. Implementation means that institutions need to come into line with methods of delivery and communication, and expectations of research training quality and range. This overwhelmingly affects full-‐time funded students, who are encouraged to identify with the ethos of a particular consortium, and able to access travel, placements and research opportunities of the highest quality. Self-‐funded students can benefit from participating in an research environment with these DTC drivers, including events and training opportunities that are part of cohort development planning: referred to as the ‘halo effect’. But the sector is producing an elite that by definition means that others have less access, and this can have particularly acute effects, such as in Science where costs are high. This is both a challenge and an opportunity for Birkbeck, in that outstanding self-‐funded students are an important part of our mix. A Birkbeck Researcher Development Portfolio is one way of addressing the maintaining of a quality of provision for all. At the same time we need to be producing research training and skills that meet the DTC agenda for funded students. Work on key areas such as placements by the College is crucial, and it would benefit all. There is an external perception that Birkbeck, with its professional and working networks, is ahead in this field. Birkbeck has a good record of winning funds for doctoral and postdoctoral training, thought these are nowhere gathered together as part of our profile. Some of the innovative projects are exceptional, such as the student-‐led Critical Waves project in Arts (AHRC) which has established connections between research forms and radio, widely attended with a series broadcast on Resonance FM, for a cost of just £3000. The Arts of Experiment project (AHRC) sent students to China and Japan in the creation of potential exhibitions, and established a platform for project leverage, ArtLess. Marie Curie funded networks in History are training postdoctoral historians for the 21st century; Psychology are part of a network which has twice won recognition as a Marie Curie Training Centre of Excellence. ISSF Wellcome funding is currently producing a new generation of scholars in the medical humanities. There will be more examples we should celebrate. So much of this extraordinary success remains unused by the College, and the challenge is continually to sustain such a record, building on success to
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go for further ambitious funds rather than allowing it to peter away. The cost in staff energy/time is considerable here, if the model is of continual reinvention and forgetting, rather than building from innovation through structured and continuing support. e. External Skills Networks Bloomsbury Postgraduate Skills Network (BPSN) The BPSN is an excellent arrangement supplementing Birkbeck’s range of provision, bringing together partners in the offering of almost 1300 places on PGR training courses and events. The network was set up in 2004 by UCL with the purpose of sharing best practice in generic skills training between institutions in the Bloomsbury area. The BPSN is a network of leading Higher Education institutions, created by UCL in order to share best practice in skills training for graduate research students in the Bloomsbury area. The purpose of the shared skills training programme is to allow students additional opportunities, through attending training courses and workshops at other member institutions. The Network is run on a no-‐cost basis and has no financial implications for any of the institutions involved (beyond offering small numbers of places on their training courses to other members: typically 5% of the places available on the courses that they are already offering in-‐house). UCL manages and runs the administration for running the network. Prospective members are asked to list the reasons for wishing to join the BPSN and provide information with regards to the additional skills training opportunities that they would bring to the BPSN programme. More of an informal agreement is held with the member institutions; all institutions are asked to provide data on their provision and continued commitment to the network at an annual meeting. The RDF is a defining model. Currently BPSN training courses are not made available to partners within related consortia who are not members. Students are contacted through the research students unit if places are still free, and some courses operate a waiting list. Supervisors are automatically emailed if a student takes up a place on a BPSN course. Students can also access a range of WEBINARS.It is worth noting that UCL holds key areas of its training back for its own students, as one might expect. In Science these are available through Birkbeck/UCL DTC arrangements. Birkbeck may wish to think about delineating the offer here in keeping with a more integrated training and skills profile. Data on courses offered through BPSN Sept 14 to March 15.
Institution No. of Courses
No. of Places
Birkbeck 8 68 Institute of Modern Languages Research 3 12 King's College London 9 72 London School of Economics 3 20 London School of Hygiene and Tropical 20 205
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Medicine Royal Veterinary College 2 15 School of Advanced Study 22 94 School of Oriental and African Studies 7 86 University College London 85 692
Total 159 1264 Other networks There is widespread use of networks via the Schools of Advanced Study to access and share in PGR training activities and events, including the active use of the Institute of Historical Research, and Institute of Philosophy (SSHP). The Research Skills Intercollegiate Network (ReSkIN) brings together art historians from UoL colleges including UCL, Slade, Bartlett, Courtauld, SOAS, Goldsmiths and Birkbeck, both staff and PGR. The London Graduate School of Mathematical Finance includes Birkbeck, Brunel, Imperial, King’s, LSE and UCL. There are of course numerous subject specific societies and networks which actively address PGR students in their development of the next generation of researchers. Again, there’s not a clear map of the alliances and detail here, but these associations are part of our research environment and profile. In some areas of the PRES, Birkbeck was 20% above the benchmark in its furthering of ‘opportunities to become involved in the wider research community’.
7.4 Specialist College Skills (Strategic Directions) A more articulated offer would give Birkbeck and the BGRS the opportunity to work strategically – and in collaboration with other projects – on key PGR training strengths which would give the College a distinctive and outstanding profile. These are initiatives which are:
-‐ in place but currently untapped -‐ new developments which have a Birkbeck stamp -‐ opportunities we may wish to include in 2023 planning, and which may
be relevant to all levels not only PGR The examples below are indicative only. a. Digital Knowledges: Digital Humanities and Digital Sciences It is evident across current provision that there is considerable commitment to PGR training in digital knowledge and technologies of research communication/ dissemination. This strand ranges from generic skills funded courses on programming, image processing, writing and presenting research, to media communication and its relation to research, careers talks with alumni, and digital innovation via the Vasari in Arts or the Knowledge Lab in Computer Science. Most recently the arrival of the Open Library of the Humanities with its related Centre for Technology and Publishing means Birkbeck can take a lead on open access debates internationally, including advising government on policy here. The Library is also engaged here. A first Academic Publishing in the Digital Age
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was offered to Birkbeck students to inaugurate our entry into CHASE in July 2015: http://www.chase.ac.uk/events/2015/7/1/academic-‐publishing-‐in-‐the-‐digital-‐age. It would make sense to consolidate a group of digital and media courses as part of the core Birkbeck offer, so that these are part of a basic portfolio. But there is considerable strategic potential here that would underpin research agendas across the College and give us distinction in a crowded sector. Accompanying this should be reflection on the various platforms for delivery online, and the building of resource in this area. What are the digital and blended opportunities for communication and learning at PGR level? How does the culture of e-‐theses translate into increased citations and dissemination of research knowledge? b. Teaching Excellence Part of the Birkbeck Researcher Development Portfolio should include the opportunity to teach, demonstrate and communicate research. With discussions about a TEF, and sector moves towards employing doctoral students (along US lines, including GTA work from the outset), with accompanying concerns about the production of a postgraduate precariat, this is key ground. The Centre for Transformative Practice in Learning and Teaching has a role to play here, not least in its examination of critical pedagogy (see current provision in addition to that below at 7.3c). It may be that innovative academic development and leadership in this area for PGR could be combined with planning for an HEA individual fellowship application. Birkbeck should be leading the field, given our strong teaching ethos and mission. 34.2% of students on the PRES survey had taught or demonstrated at Birkbeck, with 47% having received training. At a rough calculation, 370k is committed to GTA/Associate Tutor funds by Schools in 15/16 (without Law figures). With grad cert training costs on top and Law, 500k is a likely minimum estimate. The current HEA-‐recognized Graduate Certificate and Fundamentals of Teaching workshops underpin GTA work in the College: Graduate Certificate in Teaching and Supporting Learning in H.E. This course is compulsory for all current research students who are also working as Associate Tutors/Teaching Assistants and are contracted to teach for more than 30 hours in 2015/16. The two modules of this course run across the spring and summer terms with one full-‐day class (on Tuesdays) every three weeks. Successful completion leads to Associate Fellowship of the Higher Education Academy. Fundamentals of Teaching workshops These workshops are compulsory for all current research students who are also working as Associate Tutors/Teaching Assistants and are contracted to teach for between 6-‐29 hours in 2015/16. The two half-‐day workshops (Monday and Tuesday afternoons) will run in the autumn and spring terms. The notional spend on the Grad Cert in 14/15 (based on 26 Home/EU students and 3 overseas) was £64,150. With estimated running costs for both, the total for the year overall would be c.£90,000.
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GTA Training 14-‐15: Participation by School Grad Cert Fundamentals of
Teaching Arts 4 9 BEI 10 0 Law 10 0 Science 0 0 SSHP 5 8 There are a number of elements to note here. The School of Science have decided that the courses were not appropriate for students in the School, who are held to demonstrate but do not teach. There have nonetheless been students from Science who have signed up in the past. It may be there are important routes into science teaching and communication here, but there may be a specific context for this decision. Psychology has a GTA programme run during the Assessment period, as does Earth Sciences. The numbers in Law and BEI suggest the PGRs who teach more than 30 hours each year, and strong GTA focus in the Schools. Arts offers GTA opportunities to all students and keeps the number of hours lower, so that a range of PGRs benefit, and the teaching does not impact on the progress of the thesis. Numbers are similarly smaller in SSHP. Both Arts and SSHP PGRs use the workshops for those teaching fewer hours. Arts also runs a teaching pedagogy course: Teaching the Arts in British Higher Education each Spring, that normally has 30-‐40 students attending, funded by generic skills. It is worth noting again that there is no career path tracking of PGR students other than the HESA leavers survey, and so the value of this accreditation in career terms – still in early days of the running of the Grad Cert -‐ is not currently measured. It is a strong asset for PGRs moving in to academic job market or into tertiary level teaching. Considerable numbers of Birkbeck PhDs have also taken up places at the Brilliant Club, teaching university-‐style seminars to the best students at non-‐selective secondary schools in low participation communities. Between 2013-‐15: 12 placements were offered in English, 5 in HCA, 1 in Philosophy, 2 FMACS, 3 in the London Consortium, 2 in Psychology, 1 in Law, 1 in ALC, and 1 in Politics. The Brilliant Club are working with Birkbeck’s Widening Participation department and interested in establishing a more formal recruitment process and further researcher development links. One former Birkbeck English PhD, now a lecturer at Birmingham, is recruiting for the Brilliant Club in the Midlands. http://www.thebrilliantclub.org c. Business and Other Ecologies Current strategic work on the Birkbeck Enterprise, Employment, and Employability Ecosystem (B4E) initiative has included PGR students, though they are not its focus. The key areas: mentoring, careers and employment support (see also 7.3a above); enterprise and entrepreneurial support; and commercialization should be productively thought through with PGRs in view. They are all areas which concern PGR students, and should be integrated into a
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Birkbeck Researcher Development Portfolio. This is crucial for students looking for options, whose research careers might take a number of routes. It would also be essential for students for whom the PhD is work or professionally related, or those who are seeking a change of career. Currently there is pressure from DTCs to provide high quality mentoring, placements, internships and partnerships, and Birkbeck will need to be generating opportunities of this kind. The business model of ecology is a useful way of opening up career possibilities to students whose research might be transformed into opportunity across the range of disciplines, and there are other options – such as via CreativeWorks, or slowly building work with the Arts Council, that currently involve thinking along entrepreneurial or partnership lines. But more coordination, advice and use of Birkbeck’s professional, business and creative networks for PGR students (and indeed the drawing in of ex-‐PGR alumni) would yield dividends here. Birkbeck should be leading the field. d. Public Engagement Skills and Training It is Birkbeck’s current plan to embed public engagement at all levels in the College. Some opportunities for PGRs have come through Wellcome, ISSF and other RCUK funders either directly or as projects led by academics (such as AHRC cultural engagement or doctoral training projects in Arts; use of CreativeWorks opportunities in Arts; SSHP’s development of workshops on the public communication of science via generic skills funds.) There are major public engagement initiatives, such as the work in Law or Psychology via the BabyLab, which might usefully be showcased in innovative ways. The larger professional and community ‘ecology’ of Birkbeck should also be an asset here. Training for public engagement has been shown to be most effective when arranged around a centralised hub (see reports from the Beacons for Public Engagement www.publicengagement.ac.uk). Apart from saving resources, as training can be run across Schools and Departments, this model is highly visible to students and allows them to be effectively sign-‐posted to the most appropriate training without repeating steps or ending up on courses that are not relevant. It is also possible to integrate courses and training with opportunities for practice, collaborations with external partners, careers and employability training and supporting more senior researchers’ public engagement work. Centralised training can be informed by and overseen by the public engagement strategy, ensuring excellence and sharing of good practice across the Schools. Not all students will take the research route, and many will leave at various stages to find work elsewhere. Therefore, having work experience and experience in a variety of activities, linked to but outside of their degree/research, will be invaluable for the working lives of these students. For those that stay in research at Birkbeck, the principle of the ‘public researcher’ holds, providing our communities, stakeholders and non-‐traditional learners’ access and input into our research and knowledge. Providing effective public engagement training at each level of the student/researcher career will only help to support this principle and the work of our researchers.
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The skills, knowledge and behaviours that can be taught or enhanced through public engagement training and practice at each level of the student/researcher career are summarised below:
• Undergraduates o Key skills for careers and employability
§ Presentation Skills § Communication Skills § Interpersonal Skills § Confidence and leadership
o Training can be linked to work experience and volunteering opportunities through public engagement and links with local organisations
• Postgraduates o Consolidate subject knowledge o Argument/ narrative construction o Improves presentation and communication skills and confidence o Leadership, project management and time management o Team work and partnerships o Establishing networks and potential future collaborations
• Research Staff
o Improved communication skills o Public Engagement work has the potential to feed directly into the
research, informing research strategy, project planning and development
o Potential to feed into impact statements o Evaluation techniques which promote continuous self-‐assessment
and improvement of research activities o Raise profiles of researchers, build networks, partnerships and
collaborations o Provides a space for influence and leadership o Can be used to enhance income and funding generation o Public engagement skills are easily transferable to effective
teaching practice o Training on adapting to audiences can include working with the
media
Public Engagement Lens on the Researcher Development Framework: https://www.vitae.ac.uk/vitae-‐publications/rdf-‐related/public-‐engagement-‐lens-‐on-‐the-‐vitae-‐researcher-‐development-‐framework-‐rdf-‐apr-‐2013.pdf/view
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If Birkbeck is to embed public engagement further small bursaries could secure innovative training possibilities for PGR students, building on researcher development skills provision. Again, this produces a platform which would underline Birkbeck’s distinctive profile, and underpin the future researcher lifecycle. 7.5 Modes of Delivery In considering the delivery of researcher development training and skills, there needs also to be consideration of changing modes of delivery, from e-‐learning and mobile apps to forms of social networking. The profile here, and connection of IT with research and knowledge development, is at the forefront of strategy in the sector. These may be of particular interest to students where time pressures are at issue. A body of resource materials, including the good video series, will also augment provision. The use of webinars is increasing in the sector, and some attention to online materials including resources that will draw in the Library and other services need to be integrated in planning going forward. Consultation with students about how we can best communicate with them is essential, so that attendance is maximized. Innovation funds should be invested in strategy here, with piloting of new practice. This is a project that needs specialist leadership. Recommendations:
-‐ to consider the range of Birkbeck PGR training and skills provision in the light of the RDF emphases and incorporate into the Researcher Development Portfolio as appropriate, so that all PGR students at Birkbeck have a stake
-‐ to identify the core training and skills that should be included within the Researcher Development Portfolio on an annual basis from a range of providers and make appropriate resource available, to be managed by the Postgraduate Research Office and overseen by BGRS steering group, reporting to RSSC.
-‐ to maintain the central Researcher Development Budget set at HEFCE expectations, to which staff can bid each year, in order to facilitate innovations and cross-‐dept and cross-‐School initiatives
-‐ to rename Generic Skills ‘Researcher Development’ Skills (RD Skills) -‐ to make available online a central calendar of departmental/School
training and skills timetables with contacts, so that students can access a wider range where appropriate
-‐ to be clear to PGR students about our expectations, such as which training is a requirement and which discretionary, and whether certain forms of training come with additional costs
-‐ to consider the registration and attachment of PhDs in fields of research that involve cross-‐College communities and networks
-‐ to coordinate with Institutes and Centres in their development of key specialist PGR training and related events, with representation on the BGRS steering group
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-‐ to consider the sharing of DTC information and oversight of common training and skills emphases, that might be centrally supported by strategic developments eg placements, mentoring, postdoctoral training
-‐ to include reporting of details about the take-‐up and development of PGR skills and training in the RSSC standing item on DTCs
-‐ to ask students engaged in innovative DTC and other RCUK training to report on this for BGRS news
-‐ to continue to define the Birkbeck offer to the BPSN and inform supervisors and staff as well as PGR students about its operation as part of the assessment of training needs
-‐ to consider strategic initiatives which would underline researcher training distinctive to Birkbeck, including digital research practice, teaching, public engagement and forms of professional and entrepreneurial practice
-‐ to consider the complementary online modes and platforms of delivery of training and skills resources and consistency of the wider PGR pages
-‐ to consider wider library representation on research committees -‐ to connect the BGRS provision with the careers portal and add a PGR
channel
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8. Conclusion Birkbeck is outstanding and highly active in many areas of specialist PGR provision, and has notable resources in its often gifted and dedicated staff and exceptional doctoral students. The College’s reputation here is something students themselves are aware of and value. PGR delivery has however been under-‐resourced and lacks priority in ways that are also all too apparent and material in their impact. Specific areas of College practice require direct targeting with resource and immediate action, so that Birkbeck can build and realize its research-‐intensive aims, and compete in a sector that is in key institutional aspects several leagues ahead. In significant respects we need to understand the framing of long established patterns of central communication and high quality investment in PGR practice elsewhere, so that the Birkbeck PGR narrative communicates within those terms. We need to do this because of DTC and REF pressures, but also because we fall short of our own potential, with generated resources of all kinds remaining untapped and occluded. What is simply required here is a clarity of mission, underlined by coordination, coherence and distinction, and a confident central backing and investment from the outset to realize our strategy going forward. We have outstanding examples of innovative PGR training and success, which define the work of certain subject areas and departments internationally along with the best in the sector, but these remain largely under the radar of the College as a whole and thus unarticulated to ourselves and to wider public awareness. There is a continual rediscovery of the wheel. Cross-‐College PGR opportunities and initiatives – often enthusiastically conceived, and part of the interdisciplinary energy of the institution – remain a challenge without this framing, communication and central support. Birkbeck could punch a very long way above its size, if it could do structural justice to the quality of PGR ambition on the ground. The College as a whole would benefit. It is clear that further investigative work is needed to provide a more complete mapping and precise excavation of PGR provision across the College. A major amelioration of structures of PGR organization, management, reporting and communication is necessary to make that work possible, and delivery of the College’s strategic aims achievable. Future strategy needs to be founded on robust and accessible information. We need a more granular picture of the strengths, qualities and aims of PGR practice currently in place. The uphill work here in pulling information together comes at considerable cost to all on a daily basis. Some of the key recommendations outlined below are no less than essential. Decisions about them are also under time pressure given the challenges over the next five years. The distinctive profile of the PGR student cohort of the College and the wider research community they join – as future researchers, drivers and exporters of a unique research environment – are assets to work with. The sharpening of procedural practice and management, reporting, and the underpinning of PGR success including completion, would allow the College to articulate that mission internally and externally. Carefully focused investment at this point is essential. Creating a Postgraduate Research Office as a one-‐stop-‐shop for students and
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staff, would begin to bring together PGR operational management and services, and research training and funding support, including future researcher expertise and oversight currently lost to College initiatives and planning. Making the BGRS into a robust central engine of PGR activity and information, in actual and online terms, would support and streamline the variety of practice across the College so that it can develop further and underline the College’s research-‐intensive presence more powerfully. Consistency across the Birkbeck website and the connection of the PGR future researcher journey to the wider research message is essential. Identifying areas of PGR practice for innovative investment and planning, would yield dividends for the College as a whole. PGR strategic planning needs to begin making changes immediately, and build that future researcher ambition year on year towards 2023. Carol Watts July 2015 I would like to thank Katherine Bock and the Research Students Unit for their assistance in compiling this Review, and Mara Arts in particular for collating material from meetings.
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9. Summary of Recommendations
Immediate Action
-‐ appoint a PVM PGR -‐ establish an integrated Postgraduate Research Office (PRO). Scope for two
posts in the first instance, one to lead operations delivery and management and the other to develop the future researcher agenda
-‐ make available immediate resource to establish the BGRS online as a major window on Birkbeck (given timing of DTC scrutiny this is paramount) and identify how it is to be maintained and resourced going forward. Staffing via PRO and web team prioritization, getting informed advice and web design with an eye to benchmarked institutions.
-‐ Total PGR web pages across the College as a whole should be reviewed, brought up to the same level as the new BGRS, and made consistent
-‐ establish a BGRS steering group; consider best use of student representation to integrate PGR input
-‐ initiate completion rate action: Birkbeck needs to monitor the position here actively and gather information from sector on submission and completion; sharpen delineation of expectations including online information; confer on progress and monitoring best practice via RSSC
-‐ essential prioritizing of work on College systems so that PGR funding information is centrally available and connected to students, with consideration of a new account coding system, and corresponding central work on SITS. Systems support : initial estimate would be at least 0.8 from a combination of 3-‐4 staff in Planning and Business Systems/Corporate Information Systems for 12 -‐18 months. This is to review, consult on, design and implement (including training) a centralised system for holding research student data. 2. Coding system (may be possible over summer), consultation in progress.
-‐ establish a clear annual planning timetable for the communication of Birkbeck funding, and its advertising via an augmented central Birkbeck Graduate Research School once established.
-‐ Move on the studentship position for this year so that massed up Birkbeck funding advertising goes out as early as possible in the autumn. Coordinate with School advertising and web information. Location of advertising and its implementation need to be agreed.
-‐ Set out timetable for action and implementation and ensure it is meshed with REF and DTC planning
QA: Regulations, Processes, Management and Support (15/16 ahead of QA visit in 2017)
-‐ to update the College Code of Practice on Postgraduate Training and Research for Research Degrees in the light of the future researcher model
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-‐ to establish a corresponding future researcher mission document for the Birkbeck Graduate Research School and ensure this and related narratives are reflected on web pages across the College as appropriate
-‐ embed student lifecycle as a means of testing practice and articulating Birkbeck procedures and provision
-‐ create Birkbeck PGR handbook with articulation of the future researcher journey
-‐ use the annual reporting at the RSSC to share information about completion rates and progress monitoring
-‐ consider PGR data on ‘information on subsequent employment destinations and career paths of research students who have received the qualification’
-‐ discuss wider issues around submission/completion targets -‐ The HESA stats and Research Output UKPI discussions need
understanding in the context of REF PGR strategy. -‐ Writing up -‐ review current position, perhaps establish maximum and
exceptions for extenuating circumstances -‐ consider review and consistency of Supervisor training provision
including best practice -‐ create a supervisor handbook -‐ include reporting of details about the take-‐up and development of PGR
skills and training in the RSSC standing item on DTCs -‐ review admissions process including application forms -‐ produce knowledge of range of practice on upgrading -‐ Tier 4 monitoring for PGR students needs reviewing -‐ Appeals process needs reviewing with regard to examiners’ role as
arbiters -‐ Review student representation across the College and include student rep
on RSSC. -‐ establish a College mechanism for response to PRES so that its findings
inform planning and active engagement is communicated -‐ to consider Library representation on research committees
Student PGR Provision and Training/ BGRS (2015-‐17)
-‐ establish deliverable FT and PT portfolio(s) of PGR experience, skills and training, which might draw together resource to mitigate a two-‐tier system generated by DTC funding. The Researcher Development Portfolio can be adapted to local specialist and disciplinary iteration as appropriate
-‐ use the RDF framework to assess and communicate the range of Birkbeck training and skills provision
-‐ identify the core training and skills that should be included within the Researcher Development Portfolio on an annual basis from a range of providers and make appropriate resource available, to be managed by the Postgraduate Research Office and overseen by BGRS steering group, reporting to RSSC
-‐ Rename generic skills Researcher Development Skills (RD Skills)
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-‐ make available online at BGRS a central calendar of departmental/School training and skills timetables with contacts, so that students can access a wider range where appropriate
-‐ connect the BGRS provision with the careers portal and add a PGR channel
-‐ coordinate with Institutes and Centres in their development of key specialist PGR training and related events, with representation on the BGRS steering group
-‐ coordinate the Researcher Development Portfolio with the student journey, so that departments and programmes can consider the pacing of training and skills as appropriate across the duration of study
-‐ ask students engaged in innovative DTC and other RCUK training to report on this for BGRS news
-‐ continue to define the Birkbeck offer to the BPSN and inform supervisors and staff as well as PGR students about its operation as part of the assessment of training needs
-‐ consider the assessment of training needs by student and supervisor and the best mode of delivery of training needs analysis eg. a TDF form with supervisor, or online research log tool, with reference to other models in the sector; and discuss its relation to annual monitoring processes
-‐ draw all PGR students into the Birkbeck community via the BGRS: Birkbeck postgraduate conference; use of Science Week, Arts Week etc to showcase PGR research
-‐ consider whether there should be expectations about the number of hours or other measure committed to training/skills annually, and to be aware of DTC expectations across the range
-‐ consider the priorities of programme provision: the scheduling of day-‐time and evening training and events meaning that not all can access the PGR offer uniformly; flexible modes of delivery for those who are time-‐poor
-‐ consider the particular needs of international students in the context of full-‐time study with more explicit articulation of provision within the narrative offered to international students would be advantageous.
-‐ consider the development of Postdoctoral appointments for six months after completion, to maintain the future researcher route; use of honorary research associate positions while developing applications.
-‐ create PGR handbook based on future researcher journey -‐ Careers: how does the College address PGR employability, offer networks,
maintain alumni contact; what should be the core provision here? Funding (2015-‐17) -‐ Consider rational governance framework for PGR funding/finance
oversight -‐ Discuss oversight/governance of DTC and other RCUK research training
funds and studentships, including philanthropic funds -‐ Growing collaborative integration with DTCs needs anticipation and
forward planning, including expectations about match funding, administrative costs, cohort development investment, high quality
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training opportunities; single timetable needs establishing for all DTC renewals and processes
-‐ Any committing of Anniversary funding should also be agreed and the criteria established at that point so that they can be applied for and confirmed in the summer term, in advance of the next academic year.
-‐ It is essential that the College advertise the major committal of funds and any related opportunities in the early autumn, in order to compete for the best funded students.
-‐ To consider: the recycling of PGR fee income for studentships/GTA packages/internships and the wider question of PGR ‘employment’
-‐ To consider: the general parity of provision across the College for students on different modes of study; and where relevant, what provision is discretionary and what is free
-‐ Continue targeted use of full or partial fee waivers to bring in and retain outstanding students
-‐ Maintain the central Researcher Development (Generic Skills) Budget set at HEFCE expectations, to which staff can bid each year, in order to facilitate innovations and cross-‐dept and cross-‐School initiatives; overseen by BGRS steering group reporting to RSSC
-‐ Increase the core skills funding currently used to provide generic skills via the BGRS (currently just £8000) so that the Research Development Portfolio is anchored
-‐ Provide a budget for the PVM PGR -‐ Consider the use of innovation or other funds to set up public
engagement, internships, placements and mentoring to support a strong Birkbeck presence in doctoral consortia and distinctive PGR profile for the College
-‐ Consider the position re: postdoctoral funding strategy -‐ establish clearly articulated College-‐wide PGR strategy for alumni
engagement which outlines our areas of priority – this would enable funding for research activity to be one of the key strands of a 2023 fundraising campaign.
-‐ To consider: the focusing of the alumni office on PGR strategic aims as part of the learning ladder and wider philanthropic strategy
Strategic: Further Investigation (2015-‐23)
-‐ to consider the place of this global postgraduate and post-‐doctoral researcher community and its research and professional profile in the context of 2023 planning and alumni networks
-‐ building a specific network of PGR alumni who can contribute in a variety of ways (profiling, mentoring, fundraising) is an option for the years ahead
-‐ to consider the need for consideration of a range of flexible postgraduate options post MA/MSc, including professional routes where PhDs are not advisable
-‐ more calibrated understanding of the PGR market for Birkbeck, with market research in PGT and PGR share in London.
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-‐ To gather information about professional and industry initiatives including sponsorship to inform further strategy
-‐ More detailed collation of information about initiatives across the College with PGR international students in specific view would help strengthen the profile here.
-‐ identification of areas of projected growth and strategic targeting of resources and planning to capture FT and PT students in those fields
-‐ Are there PGR areas which need building and investing in across the College, eg medical humanities/sciences, so that initiatives like ISSF might be built on, further studentships sought? How might funds be targeted?
-‐ Further work is needed here in assessing PGR facilities overall and space in particular, with planning via estates.
-‐ establish space and facilities for the PRO -‐ consider the registration and attachment of PhDs in fields of research that
involve cross-‐College communities and networks -‐ consider strategic initiatives which would underline researcher training
distinctive to Birkbeck, including digital research practice, teaching, public engagement and forms of professional and entrepreneurial practice; how might resources be provided?
-‐ consider the complementary online modes and platforms of delivery of training and skills resources and maintenance of the consistency of the wider PGR pages
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10. Appendix
A1. Terms of Reference Over the past two years, there has been wide-‐ranging debate within the College over our PhD provision. The current review is designed to crystallise this debate into an agreed college strategy for postgraduate research students, and to initiate the development of academic management and administrative structures to implement that strategy. The review will be led by Professor Carol Watts, who has been closely involved in research student policy at an institutional level and is Assistant Dean for Graduate Students in the School of Arts. Administrative support will be provided from the College Secretariat, with Katharine Bock leading, working with Mara Arts as administrative secretary. Professor Stephen Frosh, the Pro-‐Vice-‐Master for Research, and Professor Matthew Innes, the Vice-‐Master, will be closely involved in supporting Professor Watts, on account of their responsibility for developing the college’s research strategy, and for co-‐ordinating resource allocation, respectively. The Dean/School Manager of the School of Science will similarly be closely involved in formulating the review, to ensure that the review addresses the distinct needs and strong track record in lab-‐based research. The review will involve wide consultation across all Schools and other individuals may be co-‐opted onto the review team in addition to those already named above. These will include PGR ADs and Assistant School Managers. Particular consideration will be given as to how to ensure that the research student voice is heard in the context of the review and embedded in future processes. The review will assess the strengths and weaknesses of current practice across the whole range of PhD provision, including training, research student support, admission and administration, and funding. As well as identifying good practice that might be replicated it will be charged with identifying appropriate departmental, School and central responsibilities, and reviewing structures for academic management and oversight of PhD provision across the college. This broad remit flows from an understanding that responsibility for PhD students at Birkbeck currently primarily sits in academic departments with their disciplinary specialisms, with some School and College-‐level infrastructure. The aim is to draw on existing departmental and disciplinary strengths, whilst ensuring that the College’s graduate research activities can continue to thrive in an ever-‐more-‐complex environment, with research council training and scholarship funds disbursed through multi-‐disciplinary and multi-‐institutional consortia, and that the college needing to make the most effective and visible use possible of the £3M it currently spends on PhD scholarships and training to strengthen its position. The review recommendations will contribute to strategic research planning. In particular, the review will make recommendations on the following:
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1) Training, support and mentoring for postgraduate research students. Departments are currently the primary ‘home’ for most research students, providing a wide range of training, support and mentoring, both formal and informal, as well as in many cases discretionary funding to attend external events, conferences or programmes, to a varying level and via varying mechanisms. However, students in many areas are also able to access multi-‐disciplinary multi-‐institutional doctoral consortia funded by Research Councils to provide and market bespoke doctoral training programmes, and the Birkbeck Graduate Research School also provides generic skills training centrally, as well as disbursing a small % of PhD fee income back to Schools to fund further activities via a bidding process. The overall range of opportunities provided to research students across the college is almost invisible on the college website and prospectus, and there is no central collation or information point, nor is there a mechanism for the effectiveness of our current offer to be monitored or for research students themselves to feedback or be consulted in its planning. The review will need to identify the appropriate array of providers of training and support within and beyond Birkbeck, and propose mechanisms to collate and publicise information, co-‐ordinate and monitor activities, and plan and review the overall offering year on year. This will involve clarifying our expectations of departments, Schools and Birkbeck Research Centres and Institutes as well as of central provision including web provision; developing a consistent approach towards funding for conferences and external training; and ensuring that research students receive a clear and coherent statement of what opportunities are open to them, which are requirements and which discretionary, and which free and which at an additional cost.
2) The role of the Birkbeck Graduate Research School (BGRS). What is its current perceived function, how well does it communicate and fulfil it, what should it be offering/developing in the new PGR landscape. How does the BGRS liaise with doctoral training across the College, what training does it facilitate. How might the School or central College provision of this kind speak to developments in the proposed Research Office.
3) Funding. Birkbeck currently spends over £3M from a variety of sources (but primarily Research Councils, Birkbeck School budgets and central College funding), but – as with training – the range of funding available is not centrally collated and advertised, meaning that its impact – both direct on recruitment and indirect on staff morale and research environment – is not maximised. The review will need to identify a college-‐wide funding strategy, involving not only the management of Doctoral Training Consortia and associated funding, but also enabling the central collation and advertisement of other forms of funding (including doctoral projects embedded in research grants or funded by philanthropic donations, as well as School and College funded studentships and Graduate Teaching Assistantships) and a clearer strategic overview of the diverse sources of funding offered across the college.
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4) Mode of study. As noted in a previous paper to the college Strategic Planning Committee [SPC NNNN] whilst we classify postgraduate research students as full or part time and set fees and completion deadlines accordingly, the patterns of study involved in undertaking a research degree differ significantly from those of a taught programme, with important differences between students undertaking a defined project, typically in a lab environment or as a part of a wider research team/programme in the social sciences and humanities, and the more self-‐directed style of study which is typical of many disciplines in which we have significant concentrations of research students. The review will develop a fuller understanding of our current research student population, its patterns of study (mode of study and incidence of Break in Studies/Writing Up status) and differences by discipline, and by mode of funding (self-‐funded vs scholarship). It will further consider how Birkbeck may wish to distinguish its PhD programme in the light of developments elsewhere (in particular the limiting of PhD places to international students or funded programmes, and the corresponding decline in part-‐time self-‐funded PhDs, at some major players), and the possibilities of prioritising distinctions between defined projects and guided research, and/or between funded and self-‐funding modes of study, rather than the sometimes artificial full-‐time vs part-‐time, as a means of articulating our distinctive mission.
5) Widening portfolio: in the light of 4) we may consider the current diversifying of the PGR portfolio, including professional qualifications, practice-‐based research, MFAs. What is the role of the M.Phil, distance learning PhDs and PhDs by publication. How is the PGR environment informed by the diverse platform of Birkbeck MA/MScs.
6) Student administration. Once again, whilst acknowledging that departments will continue to be the primary academic ‘home’ for research students, the review will wish to clarify the role of School and College Research Student Committees and Birkbeck Graduate Research School in monitoring progression and completion. How does the College measure and monitor submission rates in the light of HEFCE norms. There are also issues around cross-‐School and interdisciplinary supervision that urgently need exploring.
7) Supervision: how does the College support supervisory practice and training.
8) Management structures. Following from its other recommendations, the review will need to consider what management structures for PGR students should be developed. In the recent past, the primary responsibility for research students has sat with the Head of the Graduate Research School, whose role has at times been close to that of a deputy for the PVM for Research, or the basis for a separate PVM portfolio: the review should scope the academic leadership requirements, and also consider the administrative and committee structure needed to support that management function.
9) Financial models and incentives. The review may also wish to consider the extent to which the income streams and costs generated by postgraduate research students differ from those on taught programme,
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what implications this has for our internal financial and resource allocation models, and whether incentives (for example recycling a part of the income from externally funded studentships to create additional studentships) could be developed.
10) Future strategic planning issues: what are the pressures on PGR development in the current research environment (employability via placements and internships, public engagement, impact, postdoctoral opportunities; DTCs and international research networks and PGR training); where do Schools want to be in 5-‐10 years and how does the College incentivise and support desired initiatives.
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A2: Graduate Research School Pages Kent
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KCL
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York
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Birkbeck
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A3: Example of TNA form (Sussex)
Doctoral Researcher Training Needs Analysis (2014-2015)
Name……………………………………..……….. School…………………… This form will help you to structure and record the formal training needs analysis that you conduct with your supervisor(s) at the start of the academic year and to formulate a strategy to meet these needs. In doing this you will need to consider:
• what will help you in working towards the successful completion of your thesis project
• the advanced training needed to give the required broader base to your knowledge and skills as a researcher beyond the requirements of your immediate project
• other professional, personal and career development skills (as included in the Researcher Development Framework).
Please complete the form electronically and return it to [email protected] 1. Main objectives for the year ahead:
Date
2. What knowledge and skills do you need to develop in order to meet these objectives? Please use the Researcher Development Framework to help you identify your needs.
Domain A: Knowledge & intellectual abilities Includes PhD project and other research methods training
Domain ref (A1,etc)
Domain B: Personal effectiveness
Domain ref (B1,etc)
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Domain C: Research governance and organisation
Domain ref (C1,etc)
Domain D: Engagement, influence and impact
Domain ref (D1,etc)
3. What activities are planned to meet these training needs (i.e. what training will you undertake in order to develop these skills)? Here are some places that may help your planning:
• Sussex Doctoral School Researcher Development Programme • Departmental and School based seminars and events (including those outside
your own school) • CHASE run training and events www.chase.ac.uk
Training planned
Domain ref
4. Unmet needs If you have research training needs which you are unable to meet from the sources available above please contact [email protected] 5. Training Plan agreed
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Supervisor…………………………………………………………….. Date…………………….. Researcher……………………………………………………………. Date…………………….. Please return to [email protected]
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A4 Transferable Skills and Monitoring Form (ISMB/Biological Sciences)