Institutional structures

This paper investigates whether there are centrally-set numerical limits on numbers of doctoral candidates per supervisor

The UK Council for Graduate Education issued this guidance to assist institutions who, in the light of Covid–‐19, were rapidly adapting to making online vivas available to larger numbers of candidates who by necessity could not attend a face to face assessment with examiners. 

Higher doctorate awards are offered by many UK HEIs and yet have received very little attention with respect to comparing procedure, standards and practice, or indeed what purpose they serve and the benefits that flow from them (for the awarding HEI and the academics concerned)

This report is based on a survey conducted in March 2010 aimed at establishing an overview of current trends in practice among UK institutions with respect to addressing issues of confidentiality as they pertain to PhD theses in the UK

The two earlier reports in this series (UKCGE 1995, UKCGE 2004) charted the growth in the proportion of HEIs with a graduate school, with the majority of pre-1992 institutions subscribing to this model. The principal conclusion of this report is that this model also applies to the majority of the post-1992 HEIs.

This paper seeks to identify the current context within which doctoral level education is being undertaken in the UK and review the kinds of developments that are taking place that affect the quality of that education.

This report was prepared by Professor Stuart Powell (former Honorary Secretary UKCGE) from the University of Hertfordshire and Nicola Crouch, Administrator of UKCGE following a survey of the Council’s member institutions. Its main purpose was to map the range of awards that are described as being at higher doctoral level and their incidence across member institutions.

This 2007 report contains analysis and discussion of the responses to a questionnaire distributed on the issue of access given to doctoral examiners’ reports.

The report gives some background to the issue of confidentiality of theses, outlines the nature and scope of the survey and then reports and discusses its findings before setting out some conclusions.

This 2004 study presents the position of graduate schools in at UK universities at that time, and repeats a survey originally undertaken by the UK Council for Graduate Education in December 1994.