UKCGE Executive gives green light for working groups

The UK Council for Graduate Education is introducing a new Working Group initiative, agreed at its quarterly meeting in London last month. 

UKCGE Executive gives green light for working groups

The purpose of the groups is:

  • to provide timely input into the Council’s work on current themes in postgraduate education; and 
  • to enable the Council to make informed contributions to government, funding and research council initiatives as and when required

The working groups will also enable the Council to provide updates, blogs and news to our membership community via The Postgraduate.

Initially, working groups will be created in four key areas:

- Postgraduate funding and resourcing

- Postgraduate student experience

- Postgraduate programme structures

- Quality and reputation of the UK’s doctoral and master’s degrees

Each group will be chaired by a member of the Council’s Executive Committee with relevant experience and interest in the topic. In the coming months, the working group chairs will invite colleagues with appropriate expertise from member institutions and associated higher education sector organisations to join the groups. We aim to create a balance of expertise, institutional background and sector perspectives in each group.

UKCGE’s Vice-Chair Gill Clarke said:

This is a great opportunity for our members to influence and inform the Council’s work and will enable the higher education sector to access the wide-ranging expertise and effective practice in our member institutions. The Council will value the in-depth interaction with individual members of institutions the working groups will provide. Most importantly, our activities and outputs will benefit from the contributions of people rooted in postgraduate education from across the sector.

UKCGE’s Principal Officer Carolyn Wynne said:

The working groups are going to boost the support we can provide for our members in responding to current issues in the postgraduate sector and deliver relevant information and resources through our series of workshops, conferences and publications. It is an opportunity for colleagues to become more involved in the work of the Council and for us to work more closely with our members.