Doctoral Distance Learning

Owen Gower, Director of the UKCGE, began with a welcome and introduction. ​“We are all about collective leadership for the postgraduate sector, so I’m delighted that we’re bringing all three of our Professional Networks together today,” he said. Kerri Gardiner (Head of the Postgraduate Research Office, University of Cambridge and Co-Chair of the PEP Network) also introduced an ice-breaker session for attendees.

The workshop then formally opened with a scene-setting presentation from Dr Freda Mold (PGR Director in the School of Health Sciences at the University of Surrey). In it, she gave an overview of some her experiences establishing a distance-learning doctorate programme at her university.

“I’ve been a Postgraduate Research Director for many years,” she began. ​“The idea came out of a period of ill-health – I started to think about how we could offer doctorates more flexibly”.

She then covered some of the lessons she had learnt along the way, starting with pitching the initial idea. ​“There was a mixed view about whether we should be doing it,” she said. ​“I applied for a Staff Mobility Grant to visit the University of Edinburgh to explore the feasibility of this programme.” She then detailed how she had spoken to a wide range of people to explore the steps to implementation, including identifying any factors that can facilitate success and mitigate problems for distance learners, staff and the university. Following this visit, she wrote a Concept Paper which allowed her to synthesise her learnings. 

As part of the scoping work, she and Dr Jen Harris also ran a staff survey within the School of Health Sciences. As she explained, they kept the survey short, with 11 questions (out of the 36 staff, 17 responded). Interestingly, none of the staff had supervised a doctoral candidate in a distance-learning context. The survey tried to gauge the confidence – or otherwise – of colleagues to undertake such a programme and what the barriers to success might be. The types of support needed were also discussed, including the importance of community-building events for distance learners, a mentoring scheme for distance learners and ensuring staff and learners have adequate central access to relevant resources to support progression..

“Colleagues thought it was important to pilot the scheme and to set expectations about the programme,” Dr Mold observed. But the work is not without its detractors, with one respondent commenting on how such a mode of attendance could erode education and models of trust. As part of the work, PGR views about the programme were also sought, with areas such as mentoring and community building emerging as important considerations.

Dr Mold then summed up her takeaways from the ​“warts and all” feedback that the survey provided. She explained that they are still referencing the practice of other institutions, but that the overall result was positive: the distance-learning doctoral programme at Surrey was approved in December 2025 and will start in October 2026.

Following this session, Nigel Eady (Director of Research Talent, King’s College London and Co-Chair of the Doctoral Dean and Directors’ Network) thanked Dr Mold for her presentation and opened the second part of the workshop. This comprised presentations on doctoral distance-learning programmes from each of UKCGE’s three Professional Networks. This gave attendees a multi-faceted view of the topic, and discussions ranged from the drivers behind distance learning to benefits and limitations from the perspective of PGR administrators, and some considerations around supervision.