Doctoral Deans & Directors’ Network Discussion Session

On January 17th 2025, the DDD Network held an online event in which it welcomed Jonathan Neves, Head of Business Intelligence & Surveys at Advance HE, who gave a presentation about the PRES (the Postgraduate Research Experience Survey).
Firstly, the Co-Chair of the Network, Professor Jane Wellens, welcomed participants and introduced Jonathan Neves. She then ran a quick online poll to gauge the level of knowledge about and engagement with the survey. The results were as follows:
Is your institution participating in PRES 2025? (Single choice)
Yes 61%
No 27%
Unsure 11%
Did your institution participate in PRES 2024? (Single choice)
Yes 39%
No 59%
Unsure 2%
3. Are you (individual rather than institution) new to PRES? (Multiple choice)
Yes 11%
No 89%
Jonathan then opened his presentation by talking about where PRES sits within the Higher Education sector and how it runs. He explained that it is annual, voluntary, and focussed primarily on UK institutions, although there is growing participation globally, particularly from universities in Australia.
The results are confidential, and each institution owns their own results. Unlike the National Student Survey (NSS), results can be shared both internally and externally.
Jonathan also spoke about how Advance HE is open to ideas about evolving the survey questions according to the needs of the participants. In October each year, it holds a consultation meeting with participants to discuss changes to PRES, details of which are usually distributed to survey officers. He also explained that Advance HE is offering participants access to Explorance’s ML — an AI-powered platform which can perform open comment analysis — along with Power BI (all participant institutions will be offered two Power BI Pro Licenses free of charge to access the reports).
Jonathan then wrapped up by talking through some key insights from the 2024 Sector report, which included the following:
- Cost of living challenges have had more of an impact on PGRs than Undergraduates or PGTs.
- Cost of living concerns had a disproportionate impact on PGRs from black Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds, along with PGRs from overseas.
- There is a clear link between cost-of-living challenges and confidence to complete on time.
- Overall satisfaction remains relatively high at 81%, with large numbers of PGRs having a positive experience.
The event concluded with a question-and-answer session.