What the project is?
Increasingly institutions are expected by research funders to collaborate in the training of doctoral students. The Research Councils have already moved down this path with their doctoral training provision and most of these entail joint provision across institutions. Reductions in resource available to the Research Councils are likely to accelerate this trend.
The real challenge for institutions is to create the right strategic framework for collaboration in doctoral training and within that to develop quality pedagogic approaches that take advantage of these growing alliances. The HEA Strategic Excellence Initiative project would enable an examination of what works well (and what doesn't) when engaging in inter-institutional collaborations in doctoral training provision. This will be valuable across the sector for many institutions that are grappling with this problem. We plan to identify key elements that ensure the experience of doctoral students is excellent.
What the project hopes to achieve?
Using the analysis from the project an effective organisational and business structure will be designed for the institution which facilitates effective external collaboration. The success of this will be determined through assessment of the quality of the student journey from application to graduation. This will be an ongoing process.
