Responsibilities of the department
An overview of each department’s/institute responsibilities towards post-graduate students.
- Each school/institute should have a post-graduate coordinator , who is a senior member of staff responsible for coordinating postgraduate research within the department. Their role should be formalised to support students and supervisors, as well as developing policy and liaising with faculty. The department should ensure that all students are aware of the contact details and responsibilities of their coordinator and any other support staff at induction.
- The department should provide all research students with an appropriately constituted supervisory team, in accordance with the University’s requirements.
- The department should provide supervisors with a simple form to record supervisory progress meetings.
- The department should provide new students with written information on current research areas of staff and research students in the department; available facilities and students’ entitlement to make use of them; departmental personnel (including technical and administrative staff), procedures and services relevant to their study.
- The department should maintain a file for each student, which should contain relevant information on the student’s academic progress, e.g. supervisory meeting notes and formal assessments of progress, as well as information relating to the student’s academic and personal and professional skills development.
- It is a requirement that the department should make arrangements for the provision of alternative supervision if the supervisor is absent for more than the length of time between supervisory meetings, or leaves the University The department should ensure that procedures are in place to monitor the attendance and engagement of all students, to comply with the University’s regulations.
- The department must ensure that students have adequate facilities with which to pursue their research effectively. Alternative arrangements should be made when equipment breaks down or when there is a shortage of specialised equipment, to minimise the delay to the student.
- The department must ensure that students are aware of the relevant Health and Safety regulations.
- The department should ensure that it has transparent written procedures for and t are provided to students at induction and induction takes place in the first year of a student’s registration.
- The department must ensure that students undertaking teaching duties receive appropriate induction and support, and that they are given adequate instruction in the use of teaching equipment. Teaching and other duties to be undertaken by students should be specified in writing in advance, including the rate of pay and the number of hours to be undertaken.
- The department should provide a mechanism for students to give confidential feedback on supervision and ensure that students are aware of how to do this.
- Where complaints are made about the quality of supervision these should be raised with the supervisors concerned and responded to appropriately, in line with the University’s complaints procedure.
- Where numbers of research students are low, departments should investigate ways of providing inter-departmental/faculty social and networking opportunities for students.
