UKCGE Launches Professional Development Toolkit for Research Supervisors
UKCGE Launches Professional Development Toolkit for Research Supervisors
Today, we’re launching the Research Supervision Recognition Programme— A professional development toolkit designed to support supervisors as they navigate their complex and challenging role.
It offers a framework within which the community can develop good practice in supporting supervision, and it provides a route to recognition for the many thousands of supervisors skilfully and diligently working at higher education institutions.
Shining a Light. Recognising Good Practice.
Supervisors play a critical role in influencing doctoral candidates’ chances of completing on time, in determining the quality of their final outputs and, most crucially of all, in shaping their experiences as research students. The importance of good research supervision is, therefore, hard to overstate. But it often goes unrecognised.
To highlight the importance of research supervision, the UK Council for Graduate Education, in partnership and following extensive consultation with the postgraduate community, has developed the Research Supervision Recognition Programme.
The programme shines a light on an often underappreciated form of academic practice. It offers a framework within which institutions can develop good practice in supporting supervision. It provides a route to recognition for the many thousands of supervisors skilfully and diligently working at higher education institutions across the UK.
The Good Supervisory Practice Framework
The Research Supervision Recognition Programme is underpinned by the Good Supervisory Practice Framework that sets out – for the first time at a national level – the wide-ranging, highly complex and demanding set of roles that modern research supervisors must undertake to perform the role effectively.
The framework is designed to set expectations for all research supervisors, to support supervisor training and development programmes, and to inform institutional policies so that the demanding nature of modern research supervision is properly recognised.
The framework, authored by Professor Stan Taylor of Durham University, is informed by the substantial body of academic research into doctoral education and has been validated during a pilot study involving research supervisors across the UK.
Structured Self-Reflection on Supervisory Practice
A principle of the programme is that reflecting on one’s own practice as a research supervisor is essential to doctoral pedagogy, just as it is at all other levels of educational practice.
The Research Supervision Recognition Programme includes the resources required to reflect on all aspects of research supervision. This can be undertaken on a piecemeal basis, perhaps in response to particular challenges or difficult experiences, or it can be undertaken as a comprehensive review.
For those who undertake a structured and comprehensive reflection on their practice as research supervisors, there is the option, should they wish, to apply for recognition of their practice by submitting their reflective account for review by their peers.
The process for gaining recognition requires applicants to provide evidence that their personal practice aligns to the Good Supervisory Practice Framework. Every applicant receives comprehensive, constructive feedback on their accounts from UKCGE reviewers. Those who are successful will become UKCGE Recognised Research Supervisors.
For more information, visit the Research Supervision Recognition Programme website.
