phd supervision guidelines

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• v.17(9); 2021 Sep

Ten simple rules for choosing a PhD supervisor

Department of Biology, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada

Catherine Bannon

J. scott p. mccain, introduction.

The PhD beckons. You thought long and hard about why you want to do it, you understand the sacrifices and commitments it entails, and you have decided that it is the right thing for you. Congratulations! Undertaking a doctoral degree can be an extremely rewarding experience, greatly enhancing your personal, intellectual, and professional development. If you are still on the fence about whether or not you want to pursue a PhD, see [ 1 , 2 ] and others to help you decide.

As a PhD student in the making, you will have many important decisions to consider. Several of them will depend on your chosen discipline and research topic, the institution you want to attend, and even the country where you will undertake your degree. However, one of the earliest and most critical decisions you will need to make transcends most other decisions: choosing your PhD thesis supervisor. Your PhD supervisor will strongly influence the success and quality of your degree as well as your general well-being throughout the program. It is therefore vital to choose the right supervisor for you. A wrong choice or poor fit can be disastrous on both a personal and professional levels—something you obviously want to avoid. Unfortunately, however, most PhD students go through the process of choosing a supervisor only once and thus do not get the opportunity to learn from previous experiences. Additionally, many prospective PhD students do not have access to resources and proper guidance to rely on when making important academic decisions such as those involved in choosing a PhD supervisor.

In this short guide, we—a group of PhD students with varied backgrounds, research disciplines, and academic journeys—share our collective experiences with choosing our own PhD supervisors. We provide tips and advice to help prospective students in various disciplines, including computational biology, in their quest to find a suitable PhD supervisor. Despite procedural differences across countries, institutions, and programs, the following rules and discussions should remain helpful for guiding one’s approach to selecting their future PhD supervisor. These guidelines mostly address how to evaluate a potential PhD supervisor and do not include details on how you might find a supervisor. In brief, you can find a supervisor anywhere: seminars, a class you were taught, internet search of interesting research topics, departmental pages, etc. After reading about a group’s research and convincing yourself it seems interesting, get in touch! Make sure to craft an e-mail carefully, demonstrating you have thought about their research and what you might do in their group. After finding one or several supervisors of interest, we hope that the rules bellow will help you choose the right supervisor for you.

Rule 1: Align research interests

You need to make sure that a prospective supervisor studies, or at the very least, has an interest in what you want to study. A good starting point would be to browse their personal and research group websites (though those are often outdated), their publication profile, and their students’ theses, if possible. Keep in mind that the publication process can be slow, so recent publications may not necessarily reflect current research in that group. Pay special attention to publications where the supervisor is senior author—in life sciences, their name would typically be last. This would help you construct a mental map of where the group interests are going, in addition to where they have been.

Be proactive about pursuing your research interests, but also flexible: Your dream research topic might not currently be conducted in a particular group, but perhaps the supervisor is open to exploring new ideas and research avenues with you. Check that the group or institution of interest has the facilities and resources appropriate for your research, and/or be prepared to establish collaborations to access those resources elsewhere. Make sure you like not only the research topic, but also the “grunt work” it requires, as a topic you find interesting may not be suitable for you in terms of day-to-day work. You can look at the “Methods” sections of published papers to get a sense for what this is like—for example, if you do not like resolving cryptic error messages, programming is probably not for you, and you might want to consider a wet lab–based project. Lastly, any research can be made interesting, and interests change. Perhaps your favorite topic today is difficult to work with now, and you might cut your teeth on a different project.

Rule 2: Seek trusted sources

Discussing your plans with experienced and trustworthy people is a great way to learn more about the reputation of potential supervisors, their research group dynamics, and exciting projects in your field of interest. Your current supervisor, if you have one, could be aware of position openings that are compatible with your interests and time frame and is likely to know talented supervisors with good reputations in their fields. Professors you admire, reliable student advisors, and colleagues might also know your prospective supervisor on various professional or personal levels and could have additional insight about working with them. Listen carefully to what these trusted sources have to say, as they can provide a wealth of insider information (e.g., personality, reputation, interpersonal relationships, and supervisory styles) that might not be readily accessible to you.

Rule 3: Expectations, expectations, expectations

A considerable portion of PhD students feel that their program does not meet original expectations [ 3 ]. To avoid being part of this group, we stress the importance of aligning your expectations with the supervisor’s expectations before joining a research group or PhD program. Also, remember that one person’s dream supervisor can be another’s worst nightmare and vice versa—it is about a good fit for you. Identifying what a “good fit” looks like requires a serious self-appraisal of your goals (see Rule 1 ), working style (see Rule 5 ), and what you expect in a mentor (see Rule 4 ). One way to conduct this self-appraisal is to work in a research lab to get experiences similar to a PhD student (if this is possible).

Money!—Many people have been conditioned to avoid the subject of finances at all costs, but setting financial expectations early is crucial for maintaining your well-being inside and outside the lab. Inside the lab, funding will provide chemicals and equipment required for you to do cool research. It is also important to know if there will be sufficient funding for your potential projects to be completed. Outside the lab, you deserve to get paid a reasonable, livable stipend. What is the minimum required take-home stipend, or does that even exist at the institution you are interested in? Are there hard cutoffs for funding once your time runs out, or does the institution have support for students who take longer than anticipated? If the supervisor supplies the funding, do they end up cutting off students when funds run low, or do they have contingency plans? ( Fig 1 ).

Professional development opportunities—A key aspect of graduate school training is professional development. In some research groups, it is normal for PhD students to mentor undergraduate students or take a semester to work in industry to get more diverse experiences. Other research groups have clear links with government entities, which is helpful for going into policy or government-based research. These opportunities (and others) are critical for your career and next steps. What are the career development opportunities and expectations of a potential supervisor? Is a potential supervisor happy to send students to workshops to learn new skills? Are they supportive of public outreach activities? If you are looking at joining a newer group, these sorts of questions will have to be part of the larger set of conversations about expectations. Ask: “What sort of professional development opportunities are there at the institution?”

Publications—Some PhD programs have minimum requirements for finishing a thesis (i.e., you must publish a certain number of papers prior to defending), while other programs leave it up to the student and supervisor to decide on this. A simple and important topic to discuss is: How many publications are expected from your PhD and when will you publish them? If you are keen to publish in high-impact journals, does your prospective supervisor share that aim? (Although question why you are so keen to do so, see the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment ( www.sfdora.org ) to learn about the pitfalls of journal impact factor.)

Rule 4: It takes two to tango

Sooner or later, you will get to meet and interview with a prospective PhD supervisor. This should go both ways: Interview them just as much as they are interviewing you. Prepare questions and pay close attention to how they respond. For example, ask them about their “lab culture,” research interests (especially for the future/long term), and what they are looking for in a graduate student. Do you feel like you need to “put on an act” to go along with the supervisor (beyond just the standard interview mode)? Represent yourself, and not the person you think they are looking for. All of us will have some interviews go badly. Remember that discovering a poor fit during the interview has way fewer consequences than the incompatibility that could arise once you have committed to a position.

To come up with good questions for the prospective supervisor, first ask yourself questions. What are you looking for in a mentor? People differ in their optimal levels of supervision, and there is nothing wrong with wanting more or less than your peers. How much career guidance do you expect and does the potential supervisor respect your interests, particularly if your long-term goals do not include academia? What kind of student might not thrive in this research group?

Treat the PhD position like a partnership: What do you seek to get out of it? Keep in mind that a large portion of research is conducted by PhD students [ 4 ], so you are also an asset. Your supervisor will provide guidance, but the PhD is your work. Make sure you and your mentor are on the same page before committing to what is fundamentally a professional contract akin to an apprenticeship (see “ Rule 3 ”).

Rule 5: Workstyle compatibility

Sharing interests with a supervisor does not necessarily guarantee you would work well together, and just because you enjoyed a course by a certain professor does not mean they are the right PhD supervisor for you. Make sure your expectations for work and work–life approaches are compatible. Do you thrive on structure, or do you need freedom to proceed at your own pace? Do they expect you to be in the lab from 6:00 AM to midnight on a regular basis (red flag!)? Are they comfortable with you working from home when you can? Are they around the lab enough for it to work for you? Are they supportive of alternative work hours if you have other obligations (e.g., childcare, other employment, extracurriculars)? How is the group itself organized? Is there a lab manager or are the logistics shared (fairly?) between the group members? Discuss this before you commit!

Two key attributes of a research group are the supervisor’s career stage and number of people in the group. A supervisor in a later career stage may have more established research connections and protocols. An earlier career stage supervisor comes with more opportunities to shape the research direction of the lab, but less access to academic political power and less certainty in what their supervision style will be (even to themselves). Joining new research groups provides a great opportunity to learn how to build a lab if you are considering that career path but may take away time and energy from your thesis project. Similarly, be aware of pros and cons of different lab sizes. While big labs provide more opportunity for collaborations and learning from fellow lab members, their supervisors generally have less time available for each trainee. Smaller labs tend to have better access to the supervisor but may be more isolating [ 5 , 6 ]. Also note that large research groups tend to be better for developing extant research topics further, while small groups can conduct more disruptive research [ 7 ].

Rule 6: Be sure to meet current students

Meeting with current students is one of the most important steps prior to joining a lab. Current students will give you the most direct and complete sense of what working with a certain supervisor is actually like. They can also give you a valuable sense of departmental culture and nonacademic life. You could also ask to meet with other students in the department to get a broader sense of the latter. However, if current students are not happy with their current supervisor, they are unlikely to tell you directly. Try to ask specific questions: “How often do you meet with your supervisor?”, “What are the typical turnaround times for a paper draft?”, “How would you describe the lab culture?”, “How does your supervisor react to mistakes or unexpected results?”, “How does your supervisor react to interruptions to research from, e.g., personal life?”, and yes, even “What would you say is the biggest weakness of your supervisor?”

Rule 7: But also try to meet past students

While not always possible, meeting with past students can be very informative. Past students give you information on career outcomes (i.e., what are they doing now?) and can provide insight into what the lab was like when they were in it. Previous students will provide a unique perspective because they have gone through the entire process, from start to finish—and, in some cases, no longer feel obligated to speak well of their now former supervisor. It can also be helpful to look at previous students’ experiences by reading the acknowledgement section in their theses.

Rule 8: Consider the entire experience

Your PhD supervisor is only one—albeit large—piece of your PhD puzzle. It is therefore essential to consider your PhD experience as whole when deciding on a supervisor. One important aspect to contemplate is your mental health. Graduate students have disproportionately higher rates of depression and anxiety compared to the general population [ 8 ], so your mental health will be tested greatly throughout your PhD experience. We suggest taking the time to reflect on what factors would enable you to do your best work while maintaining a healthy work–life balance. Does your happiness depend on surfing regularly? Check out coastal areas. Do you despise being cold? Consider being closer to the equator. Do you have a deep-rooted phobia of koalas? Maybe avoid Australia. Consider these potentially even more important questions like: Do you want to be close to your friends and family? Will there be adequate childcare support? Are you comfortable with studying abroad? How does the potential university treat international or underrepresented students? When thinking about your next steps, keep in mind that although obtaining your PhD will come with many challenges, you will be at your most productive when you are well rested, financially stable, nourished, and enjoying your experience.

Rule 9: Trust your gut

You have made it to our most “hand-wavy” rule! As academics, we understand the desire for quantifiable data and some sort of statistic to make logical decisions. If this is more your style, consider every interaction with a prospective supervisor, from the first e-mail onwards, as a piece of data.

However, there is considerable value in trusting gut instincts. One way to trust your gut is to listen to your internal dialogue while making your decision on a PhD supervisor. For example, if your internal dialogue includes such phrases as “it will be different for me,” “I’ll just put my head down and work hard,” or “maybe their students were exaggerating,” you might want to proceed with caution. If you are saying “Wow! How are they so kind and intelligent?” or “I cannot wait to start!”, then you might have found a winner ( Fig 2 ).

Rule 10: Wash, rinse, repeat

The last piece of advice we give you is to do this lengthy process all over again. Comparing your options is a key step during the search for a PhD supervisor. By screening multiple different groups, you ultimately learn more about what red flags to look for, compatible work styles, your personal expectations, and group atmospheres. Repeat this entire process with another supervisor, another university, or even another country. We suggest you reject the notion that you would be “wasting someone’s time.” You deserve to take your time and inform yourself to choose a PhD supervisor wisely. The time and energy invested in a “failed” supervisor search would still be far less than what is consumed by a bad PhD experience ( Fig 3 ).

The more supervisors your interview and the more advice you get from peers, the more apparent these red flags will become.

Conclusions

Pursuing a PhD can be an extremely rewarding endeavor and a time of immense personal growth. The relationship you have with your PhD supervisor can make or break an entire experience, so make this choice carefully. Above, we have outlined some key points to think about while making this decision. Clarifying your own expectations is a particularly important step, as conflicts can arise when there are expectation mismatches. In outlining these topics, we hope to share pieces of advice that sometimes require “insider” knowledge and experience.

After thoroughly evaluating your options, go ahead and tackle the PhD! In our own experiences, carefully choosing a supervisor has led to relationships that morph from mentor to mentee into a collaborative partnership where we can pose new questions and construct novel approaches to answer them. Science is hard enough by itself. If you choose your supervisor well and end up developing a positive relationship with them and their group, you will be better suited for sound and enjoyable science.

Funding Statement

The authors received no specific funding for this work.

Graduate School of Health and Medical Sciences

• Supervision and regular assessments

Successful supervision

Supervision plays a crucial role in the PhD study. It is the supervisors role to contribute to teaching the PhD student how to think academically in the particular field and how to manage research processes.

10 tips for a great start

• Arrange a kick-off meeting to discuss and align expectations . Be aware that needs may change during the PhD programme, so it might be necessary to adjust expectations after one or two years.
• At one of the initial meetings, you and the PhD student could identify what you consider particularly interesting about the project so that both of you know where to focus your energy.
• Take the time to build a relationship based on mutual trust and respect so that the PhD student feels free to discuss issues with you.
• Formalise supervision meetings – agree on fixed times for meetings, and agree on their form and content.
• Evaluate the supervision on a regular basis. What is needed and when? Are all parties satisfied with the process?
• Organise the supervision so that the student has something tangible to work on.
• The four Cs: Feedback should be caring, concrete, constructive, and critical.
• Implement mentoring schemes, which help the new PhD student integrate into the research environment more quickly.
• Use the project description as a project management tool, and use the supervision to adjust the plan.
• Know the rules so that both parties’ formal obligations are fulfilled on time.

The recommendations is taken from the University’s “To Lead the Way”  booklet, which concerns the relationship between supervisors and PhD students. The booklet is based on interviews with PhD students, supervisors, and heads of graduate schools.

Brochure: To lead the way

Clarifying expectations among PhD supervisors

The document  alignment of expectations among PhD supervisors  is a tool that can help PhD supervisors align expectations from the start of the PhD project for the benefit of the PhD student, the project and the supervisors involved.

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The cover image is a ceramic tile stained with bovine blood used to train operators in proper forensic cleaning techniques. For further information see the article ‘“Out, Damned Spot”: The art and science of forensic restoration’. Image courtesy of Jennifer DeBruyn.

Your supervision filter

Opportunities for ‘associate’ supervision, supervision as practice, a model for supervisory leadership, communicating your supervision principles, final thoughts, further reading, author information, a beginner’s guide to supervising a phd researcher.

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Kay Guccione , Rhoda Stefanatos; A beginner’s guide to supervising a PhD researcher. Biochem (Lond) 31 October 2023; 45 (5): 11–15. doi: https://doi.org/10.1042/bio_2023_140

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This beginner’s guide to supervision has been created for anyone who supports postgraduate researchers (PGRs) with any aspect of their research or the completion of their degree. The supervision of PGRs is a complex and time-consuming job, with a high degree of responsibility. Good supervision is a key component of PGR success and is vital to the health of our research as a nation as well as the health of our individual researchers. In the recent research literature, supervision has been shown to impact on PhD completion time, retention of students, their success, their perceptions of the value of the PhD, their mental health and well-being and their career choice. In acknowledgement, the UKRI statement of Expectations for Postgraduate Training states that “Research Organisations are expected to provide excellent standards of supervision, management and mentoring … ” and the UK’s Quality Assurance Agency states that therefore “Supervisors should be provided with sufficient time, support and opportunities to develop and maintain their supervisory practice”. Noting that “supervisors represent the most important external influence in the learning and development that occurs in students’ training” the International Union of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology’s Committee on Education details interpersonal responsibilities of the supervisor that cover the need to work as partners, see the student as a whole person, be aware of power imbalance and develop strategies for the resolution of relationship difficulties, as well as giving academic and career support.

Despite the life-shaping level of impact a supervisor has, learning to supervise well is not always a top priority for researchers in the often-intense early stages of building their career, and a great many supervisors find themselves having to learn to supervise in a hurry, as they take on their first formal responsibilities. With this in mind, please resist the temptation to save this article for ‘when problems arise’ – a proactive approach will help to avoid issues down the line. Those of you who are moving towards a future supervisor role may be tempted to bookmark this article for ‘when you are officially supervising’ – and so the point we would like to start by making is that if you are interacting with PGRs in the course of your work, you are already engaging with elements of supervisory practice. Supervision is not something you will switch on once you take a formal supervisor role, but a part of your practice that can and will develop. There is a great deal you can be learning, and indeed contributing to the PGR experience, long before your first ‘official’ (or first ‘challenging’) PhD student comes along. While we draw your attention here to several important areas of practice, this is not a guide that aims to simply hand you all the information you need to get started. Rather, it is intended to offer you some ideas to ignite your thinking about yourself and the experiences that have shaped you, about how you understand the role you play in ensuring successful doctoral completion and about your power and position, all of which influence how you react to and respond to others. An ill-considered approach may, after all, have lasting negative impact on your student.

The interpersonal nature of the job means that there is no single right way to supervise, and so creating your own personal blend of approaches is going to be important. What you choose to include in that blend will depend greatly on your own context, and your prior educational and workplace experiences. Consider your own educational journey to date, your family background and social context, your status and position, your personal values, what has challenged you, who has supported you and the privileges and power that you hold ( see here for a handy graphic to help you analyse these ). The cumulative effects of these factors and experiences have given you a filter through which you interpret your role and your purpose, as a supervisor.

Indulge us in a quick experiment. From your current perspective, how would you finish this sentence: The most important thing a supervisor can do is…. Now consider how you might have finished that sentence at the start of your PhD and the many thousands of ways it could have changed through the journey. Every PGR you encounter could finish this sentence differently, and it is good to be aware of that. Your own experience of being supervised will also tint and tone your supervision filter. There is a strong instinct to emulate what we have experienced as being ‘good supervision’, and to strongly reject what we perceive to be ‘bad supervision’. It’s easy to see how this approach can have limited effectiveness, for example if you and your supervisee’s perceptions of what constitutes ‘good supervision’ are very different. A clash in expectations can cause issues that persist through the PhD and influence your entire relationship

Thinking critically and systematically about how your personal experience influences your approach is important. Supplementing that, by engaging with a wide range of opportunities, resources and conversations is important in giving you the flexibility to be able to supervise across a wide range of people, situations and expectations.

So where to begin? As an ‘unofficial’ or, as we prefer to refer to it, an ‘associate’ supervisor, building up your experience and skills can be challenging. What activities to engage with, and what opportunities to support PGRs might be available to you? The answer will of course depend on your university, your department and the support and opportunities you have from specialist supervisor developers. We know not all universities (yet) offer the opportunity for research staff to be formally added to supervisory teams and so here we make suggestions that you can seek out or even create in your workplace, without formal supervisor status.

Day-to-day PGR support . The simplest form of associate supervision is found in the support, guidance, advice and training you offer to the PGRs that you share a workspace with. Welcoming new students, helping them adjust to the environment, rhythms and demands of the PhD and supporting them with research problem solving are all hugely valuable supervision work.

Creating collaborative spaces . Leading journal clubs, practice presentation sessions or writing groups, retreats or other peer-led support groups will give you opportunities to build specific knowledge of how PGRs learn to read critically, synthesize their reading and discuss their findings in line with the academic style and conventions of your discipline. As this is often a steep learning curve in the PhD, knowing how to support students in this will stand you in great stead.

Mentoring . Engaging with formal or informal opportunities to be a mentor will help you to sharpen your skills in how to deliver a powerful and meaningful conversation. Good-quality mentoring discussions can give PGRs an opportunity to make sense of their experiences, reset their expectations and remotivate themselves to get to the PhD finish-line. All incredibly useful elements of supervision.

Leading workshops . There may be opportunities to lead workshops as part of PGR induction week, research methods courses, research ethics or integrity workshops, skills development programmes or careers sessions. All will allow you to consider what PGRs need to know to succeed, and how you can best help them to do that learning.

Consider which of the aforementioned opportunities you are already doing, those that are available to you and those that are right for you – it’s not an ‘all or nothing’ approach so consider what is timely and sustainable for you. Decide what you might need to know, read, discuss or understand in order to perform those roles to the best of your ability. Below, we make some starter suggestions for ways to complement the experiential learning listed earlier, through engaging with a range of supervisor development activities and materials. Don’t forget that the Concordat to Support the Career Development of Researchers states that you are entitled to 10 days every year, to engage with professional learning and development, and this could be a perfect way to spend some of that time:

Read your institutional ‘PGR Code of Practice’, which sets out what PGRs can expect, what support they will receive and what they must agree to contribute and abide by. Perhaps your university also has a ‘statement of expectations for supervision’ type document too?

Understand the breadth of learning that supervisors should ensure takes place within a PhD by glancing at the UK’s national framework for PhD skills development, the Researcher Development Framework .

Read about the 10 areas of practice described by the UK Council for Graduate Education’s Good Supervisory Practice Framework and the accompanying Research Supervisor’s Bibliography.

Attend workshops and courses on supervision and join supervisor communities and conversations at your institution.

Read and subscribe to the Supervising PhDs Blog which publishes short, evidence-based articles, as quick 5-minute reads.

Observe experienced supervisors in practice. This can be done formally (by agreement, as a guest sitting in on a supervision meeting) or informally by observing interactions in your group, at conferences and in other shared spaces. Listen closely to what impact supervisors have on their PGRs and consider both supervisor and PGR perspectives.

Shadow formal processes. Associate supervisors can most commonly struggle with the opportunities to see the procedural checkpoints associated with PhD supervision. Arranging to support, deputize or shadow the supervisory team at PGR interviews, annual progress reviews and viva proceedings (where possible) can give you real insight into how to manage these tricky processes.

But before getting too immersed or overwhelmed in what is a vast wealth of supportive and enlightening material on PGR supervision, we would like to invite you to reflect on what opportunities to develop as a supervisor you are already engaged in and to offer you a framework for developing your supervisory practice.

Supervision is a practice . It is something you do, not merely something you are, and it is something you can learn and develop over time, not something that is innate. It’s helpful to recognize that you are continually learning from the experiences you have attained, and the further experiences, documents, advisory articles and training courses you will encounter. Supervision is commonly thought of as a research practice, in which we as the more experienced researcher advise the PGR, sharing the benefits of our knowledge of the subject area, of the research process and of the conventions and norms of our discipline. This process of socialization into the local and global research communities is important in creating a strong scientific identity.

Supervision should also be thought of as an educational practice because the PGR is learning from us, and in order to support them to gain their doctoral qualification, we deploy different ways of helping them learn. The learning in a PhD extends beyond the project or subject scope and includes knowledge of how to accrue skills and experiences that prepare them for a range of different future career options. A supervisor doesn’t have to be a careers advisor, but their support and open-mindedness to career exploration are greatly valued by those they supervise – especially since the vast majority of PhD graduates will find their long-term career success in roles beyond academic research and teaching.

Further, we would like to focus on the idea that good supervision must also be thought of as a leadership practice, as it is one through which we leverage our status and knowledge of the culture in which we work to show our PGRs how to operate successfully within the research environment and how to secure resources and opportunities. A good leader also holds the ability to relate to those they lead and to motivate and sustain them as they take on new responsibilities and challenges – highly relevant within a research degree context.

As you might already be imagining, these different ways of thinking about supervision and the different tasks they involve can overlap and intersect with each other.

Now you have had a chance to think about who you are and what you value as a supervisor, we present a leadership framework for thinking about what you do in practice as a supervisor. It is outdated to think of supervision as purely an academic pursuit, focused entirely on the task – the research project – yet many of the policy documents we encounter will naturally focus their attention on the formal processes and checkpoints of the doctorate. Emerging in the last decade, we have seen a welcome escalation of research literature and guidance related to the holistic and interpersonal aspects of supervision, working with the preferences, contexts, motivators, career aspirations and support needs of the individual supervisee.

What we want to emphasize ( Figure 1 ), with the aid of John Adair’s model of Action Centred Leadership (1973) is the often-neglected team aspect of supervision. We have selected Adair’s model to help to illustrate supervision in practice as, first, it highlights actions that we can take to lead effectively, rather than taking a more theoretical ‘leadership-style’ approach. Second, this model asks us to reflect on the balance we create between the different areas of practice, the task, the individual and the team, which can be a helpful framework for how to partition your time as a developing supervisor. It can also be a clue as to where you might seek training and development, for instance, if you spot areas on the model that you feel less confident with or less inclined towards.

Action Centred Supervisory Leadership.

Here are some ways in which you might consider your role in cultivating the team aspect of supervision, as a way of reducing uncertainty and stress for everyone involved and creating a cohesive and supportive culture for PGRs, and for yourself. Think about your ‘team’ in the broadest sense, not just those you supervise or manage, but across the entire research ecosystem around you:

The supervisory team . Most doctorates are now supervised by more than one supervisor. How can your team work together as a cohesive support crew for PGRs, rather than operating as a group of people with competing priorities and interests? How do you work in tandem with those with oversight of PGR matters, such as PGR Convenors and Deans.

Role clarity . This applies to defining the supervisory team roles, to student–supervisor roles and to student–student roles, where there are shared activities. Who takes responsibility for making progress in the PhD? Who takes action? Who makes decisions? What responsibilities are shared?

Values and behaviour . Does your team know what you value, and what you won’t stand for? What are the team rules on sustainable working hours, taking holidays and self-care. How do you expect your team to solve problems, admit mistakes and recognize their blind spots and learning needs? What kinds of interpersonal behaviour are and are not acceptable? What strategies do you have for resolving disagreements?

Cultivate collaboration . Expect people to work together and actively reduce comparison and competitiveness. Think beyond a ‘research collaboration’ and find regular spaces for peer-learning, team-working and group discussion. Think lab meetings, journal clubs, practice presentations and writing groups. Add online chat channels for rapid response peer support. How can these physical and online spaces take on a confidence-building supportive tone, rather than spotlighting one person?

Fairness, openness and equity between PGRs . Within your team how are you ensuring that opportunities come to everyone equally? What does an inclusive working practice look like to you? When decisions must be made, how are you communicating them?

Make introductions . Commonly, supervisors are the broker between PGRs and key people in your discipline and global research community. But think local too. Introduce your PGRs to the full support network including administrators, developers, funding specialists, librarians and finance teams. Help PGRs to navigate the organization and proactively find support.

Like your wider practice, how you bring these ideas together will be developed and informed by your own experience so far. The key success factor in all of the earlier points is that you are able to role model good practices yourself, not just require them of others. Your PGRs will be strongly influenced, not by what you say, but by what they see you do in reality.

Having now thought about your own supervision filter and how this interacts with your approach to the Action Centred Leadership model, you may be beginning to crystallize certain expectations, of yourself as a supervisor (now and in the future) and of the PGRs you will supervise. The idea of actively and explicitly ‘setting expectations’ with PGRs has in recent years become a mainstay of many supervisor development programmes and advice books. There are several common expectation-setting activity worksheets such as the one created by Anne Lee and the one created by Hugh Cairns (it would be interesting here to note whether you perceive that these linked resources are based more on the task, individual or team). These tools are designed to be used in the first weeks of the PhD to get off to a good start. However, we suggest that expectation setting can usefully begin before the PGR arrives, indeed before they are accepted on to the PhD programme. It is common for academics to list topics or projects they will supervise on their institutional web pages, so why not add how you will supervise and communicate the principles that govern your approach. When you interview potential PhD candidates, why not look beyond their academic achievements, and talk to them about what they are looking for in a supervisor?

We would like to thank you for reading this post and for committing your valuable time and energy to considering our points and to taking an intentional approach to supervision, an important academic responsibility and a vital underpinning of a good research culture. Don’t forget that while the PGRs you support as a supervisor at any stage will be very appreciative, not everyone will be aware of the level of effort and expertise you are contributing to your groups and departments. Documenting your contribution and your commitment to upholding good supervisory practice can be done on your CV, in job and promotion applications, in your annual performance and development reviews and even through formal professional recognition channels like the UKCGE Recognised (Associate) Supervisor Award. Having knowledge and awareness of the contribution you are making to upholding the standards set out by research funders and regulatory bodies will benefit you in funding applications and can also help you feed in to university conversations about the development opportunities staff need and the formal recognition and opportunities for supervision that we would like to see afforded to all levels of supervisors, who, after all, make a life-changing contribution to the career success and well-being of those they supervise.■

Adair, J. (1973) Action-centred leadership . McGraw-Hill, London.

Denicolo, P., Duke, D., and Reeves, J. (2019) Supervising to inspire doctoral researchers . Sage, London

Guerin, C. and Green, I. (2013). ‘“They’re the bosses”: feedback in team supervision’. J. Furt. High. Educ . 39 , 320–335. doi: 10.1080/0309877x.2013.831039

Robertson, M.J. (2017). Trust: The power that binds in team supervision of doctoral students. High. Educ. Res. Devel . 36 , 1463–1475. doi: 10.1080/07294360.2017.1325853

Wisker, G. (2012) The good supervisor: supervising postgraduate and undergraduate research for doctoral theses and dissertations . 2nd ed. Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke.

Web Resources

Supervising PhDs

UKCGE Good Supervisory Practice Framework .

Kay Guccione is Head of Research Culture & Researcher Development at the University of Glasgow, UK. She is a National Teaching Fellow, with research and practice specialisms in doctoral supervision, mentoring and community building for researchers. She is editor of the Supervising PhDs blog https://supervisingphds.wordpress.com/ . Email: [email protected] .

Rhoda Stefanatos is a Researcher Development Specialist at the University of Glasgow, UK. She leads the development of a wide range of opportunities, experiences and resources for research staff. She uses her rich experience as a researcher to inform her approach to empowering researchers to communicate, create and collaborate.

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Doctoral College

Phd supervision, phd or doctoral supervision.

All our PG Researchers are responsible for the planning, development, progression, and completion of their degree. But key to that success is the advice and guidance you receive from colleagues across Warwick and most importantly your supervisory team. Supervisory support will look different according to discipline and research; whether you are in a big lab or in archives; on a ethnographic fieldwork study or in a big stage production; but we have standards and regulations that are there to support you, whatever your research.

To get the best from your time with your supervisor/s and make sure that you are keeping your research on track, we have gathered resources to support you.

Remember if you want to clarify anything about your supervision or your PG research life; speak first to your supervisor or your Department's Director of Graduate Studies . If you're still unsure you are always welcome to contact us in the Doctoral College .

Policies & Guidelines

Responsibilities of PG Researchers

Responsibilities of Supervisors

Responsibilities of Departments

Responsibilities of the University

Regulations

Submission guidance and regulations

Resources for Supervisors

Researcher Development Autumn Programme 2023

UKCGE Supervision Survey 2021

Helping students in distress ( Researcher Development Guide)

PGR Mental Health - supervisor training

Supervision & Working arrangements

Rapid assessment of PhD Thesis

Researcher Development Programme Handbook

Researcher Development Workshop Full Descriptions 22-23

PhD Wellbeing Resource page

See : Warwick Supervisors Teams Site for more Resources

Supporting Policies

Annual leave policy

Changes to Registration (includes Temporary Withdrawal for personal, health or financial reasons)

For Funded PGRs:

Parental Leave

Hear my name project - Setting up an audio name badges for your team and colleagues to help get everyone's name correct.

Resources for PGRs

Review Meeting

The first 100 Days

Questions to support project planning

Expectations of Research Supervision

Vitae Resources ( register with your Warwick email)

Supervision & key relationships

Schedule for Success Wall planner

Doing a Doctorate

Starting a Doctorate

The Doctorate - Middle Phase

Completing your Doctorate

Part time researchers

Return to Researcher Development Online root page

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Working with your supervisor.

Setting yourself up for a great start with your supervisor is essential for your grad school success.

Best practices

Here are some guidelines and tips to help you maintain a positive working relationship with your supervisor:

Communicate: Meet with your supervisor and/or Graduate Program Director to align your goals and objectives. Share any obstacles or challenges you may be facing outside of academia that may affect your availability or performance.

Understand the expectations: Agree upon and commit to the Student and Supervisor Framework to set expectations. You can adjust the framework at any time during your program as your situation evolves. 

Be flexible: Your supervisor is human just like you. They may have other teaching, research and personal obligations and may not be able to respond to your questions immediately.

Stay informed: Touch base with your supervisor regularly to update them on your progress and to get feedback. Schedule regular phone, email, or in-person meetings.

Be respectful: During your program, you and your supervisor may disagree. Minor disagreements can be resolved by maintaining open and respectful communication. If you find yourself in conflict with your supervisor and are unable to resolve the situation on your own, connect with your Graduate Program Director.

Student and supervisor framework

If you and your supervisor agree, you should complete the Student and Supervisor Framework to help manage your working relationship and expectations.

Having a clear understanding of expectations from the beginning is critical for a successful relationship. Since relationships and expectations can evolve with time, this form can be revisited as needed.

Supervision Guidelines

For detailed information on supervision, consult the Supervision Guidelines to better understand the roles and responsibilities of research students and supervisors.

Annual Progress Report

The Annual Progress Report allows you and your supervisor to formally monitor your progress.

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You are your students' primary interface with their PhD world, so make it work well.

Helping students

• See your students frequently, say once a fortnight. Have a regular session once a month.
• Agree a pattern of formal meetings, what will be required at the meetings and who is expected to initiate the meeting.
• Read the  Code of Practice .
• Submit termly supervision reports via the CamSIS Postgraduate Feedback and Reporting System, PFRS (see https://www.camsis.cam.ac.uk/academics )
• Make sure they check the literature. Push them to use the library and other resources for browsing and searching. Point them to specialist items yourself. Don't let them think the Web is all that matters.
• Foster group participation and activity, including student talks.
• Encourage your student to talk with other people outside their group, whether staff or students, as well as their Graduate Advisor.
• Make sure they have a fair deal on kit. The Lab has resources for this.
• Help them get to useful workshops and conferences, especially by having a paper accepted. If they want you as joint author, don't be coy. Also summer schools. The lab has resources to back up college grants.
• Keep them to the timetable on  CPGS/first and  second year reports, and their third year progress statement or, even better, a draft thesis.
• Ensure they attend relevant graduate training schools and participate in  Researcher Development activities offered in-house, by the School of Technology and by the University.
• Point your students towards the Submitting and Examination  advice and guidance when they are finally ready to submit their thesis.

Other things:

• Name the student's Academic Adviser .
• Point your students at the  Graduate Course Handbook pages and other Department pages for them.
• Cause your students to attend Researcher Skills Programme training and other events the department arranges for them.
• Arrange for two independent Assessors to scrutinize the CPGS/first year and second year reports.
• Check your students know about safety and go to safety sessions.
• Make sure they, and you, know the collaboration/IPR conditions on their funding, and the department's guidelines.
• With industrially funded students, check everyone knows any requirements on research freedom and work progress.
• Make sure your students (and you) know the University's and funding bodies ground rules on residence, non-research work, notifying illness and internships (if you don't, the students can lose money), etc.
• Ensure your students apply for conference and travel funding, and complete the checklist, BEFORE they book their flights.
• Check out your students have sensible commitments on demonstrating and undergraduate supervision.
• Keep college graduate tutors informed on problems, particularly to do with money. On formal matters, students are entitled to act on their tutor's advice and will be rescued if their tutor gets it wrong. That's not guaranteed if it was the supervisor's advice that was bad.
• Speak with the Secretary of the Degree Committee early if you see a looming issue with one of your students.
• In your research students' final writing-up year and before you have appointed Examiners, talk to them about the level of access to their theses on the Apollo Repository .
• Read whatever the Student Registry officially tells your students they can expect from you and whatever the Student Registry tells you you should be doing.

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Academic Manual

Chapter 5: Research Degrees Framework

Chapter 5 is UCL’s regulatory framework for the assessment and examination of Postgraduate Research students at UCL.

Chapter 5 2023-24 contents:

Academic regulations 2023-24, reasonable adjustments, registration, information for supervisors, information for examiners, download chapter 5.

Guidance for inclusive teaching and learning

SoRA Template PGR and PhD

Student Registration Status

Definition of Registration Statuses for Research Students

Supervisor Guidance

Thesis Committees

Appropriate forms of supervision, guidance on change of supervisors, monitoring the supervision of research students, supervising visiting research students, addressing poor performance in research students, eligible staff categories for supervising research students, guidance on appointment of supervisory teams.

Examiner Nominations

Guidance on Research Degree Examiner Nominations

Research degree supervisor approval application form.

Research Degree Examiner Nomination Form

Nomination form for viva chair (non-ioe).

Thesis Submission

Thesis Submission Form for Supervisors

This is for the supervisor to use to report where they have not reviewed the viva copy of the thesis.

Suspension of Regulations Request Form

This form should be completed by the candidate’s Supervisor, Departmental Administrator, or Departmental Graduate Tutor. You will need to use your UCL login details to access this form.

Please use it to request a suspension of regulations for the following: 

• Permission to submit thesis in a non-standard format
• Hold the viva overseas or outside London
• Permission for delayed submission as a non-registered student
• Extension to minor corrections 
• Extension to resubmission deadline
• Second CRS extension
• Other requests as advised by the Research Degrees Team

Forms for Professional Doctorate Supervisors

For candidates on DClinPsy, DEdPsy (Brain Sciences), and DOrth programmes:

Faculty Professional Doctorates Supervisor Status Approval Form

Research thesis and practicum external examiner nomination form.

Guidance on Viva Examinations

Guidance on Viva Examinations for Research Degrees

Advice for examiners on the Oral Examination process.

Posthumous Awards

Research Degree Posthumous Award Guidance

Guidance on the award of a Posthumous PhD degree.

Report Forms for Research Degree Examiners

Preliminary report form.

This is an independent preliminary report, which should be written by each examiner after reading the thesis but before conferring with the co-examiner about it. 

Joint Report Forms

PhD Joint Report Form

Joint report form for PhD candidates only. 

DCCS Joint Report Form

Joint report form for DCCS candidates only.

DDent Joint Report Form

Joint report form for DDent candidates only.

DEdPsy IOE Joint Report Form

Joint report form for DEdPsy candidates under Institute of Education regulations only.

DPA Joint Report Form

Joint report form for DPA candidates only.

DPsych Joint Report

Joint report form for DPsych candidates only.

EdD IoE Joint Report Form

Joint report form for EdD candidates under Institute of Education regulations only.

EngD Joint Report Form

Joint report form for EngD candidates only. 

MD(Res) Joint Report Form

Joint report form for MD(Res) candidates only.

MPhil Joint Report Form

Joint report form for MPhil candidates only. 

Joint Report Forms for IOE students starting before September 2015

IoE MPhil Joint Report Form

Joint report form for IoE MPhil candidates who started their programmes before September 2015.

IoE PhD Joint Report Form

Joint report form for IoE PhD candidates who started their programmes before September 2015. 

Completion of Minor Amendments Form

Certification of Completion of Minor Amendments

To be completed upon satisfactory completion of minor amendments.  

Report Forms for Professional Doctorate External Examiners For candidates on DClinPsy, DEdPsy (Brain Sciences), DOrth and DPsychotherapy programmes:

Practicum Report Form

This form is for reporting on the examination of practicum experience for professional doctorates.

Research Thesis Report Form

Summary report form for examination of the research thesis of professional doctorate candidates.

Research Thesis Preliminary Report Form

Preliminary report form for examination of the research thesis of professional doctorate candidates.

Expenses and Fees for Research Degree Examiners

Expenses Claim form and Guidance Notes for non-UCL Examiners

Guidance on standard expenses payments for non-UCL examiners and claim form to be submitted with full receipts.

Bank Details Form

Please complete and return this form in advance of the viva. 

Information on the Payment of Fees

Invoice guidance notes for research examiners external to UCL. 

Student Information

Information for Research Degree students is available on the Students’ website:

Research Students Research Assessments

Doctoral School

The Doctoral School website includes further policies, guidance and information, including the UCL Code of Practice for Graduate Research Degrees : UCL Doctoral School

Research Integrity

The UCL Research Integrity website includes policies and guidelines for students and staff, including the UCL Code of Conduct for Research: