What stresses supervisors, and what can we do about it?

This is a guest post by Dr Ali Padyab, Associate Professor of Cybersecurity, and Dr Martin Lundgren, Senior Lecturer in Cybersecurity, both at the University of Skövde, Sweden. This article draws on their recent research paper: Stress in doctoral supervision: A perspective on supervisors. Stress, from a physical perspective, is something that challenges the body …

Why PhD supervision is – or should be – a matter of morals, politics, creativity, nuance and disruption

This is a guest post by Professor Nick Hopwood, University of Technology Sydney and Professor Liezel Frick, Stellenbosch University. Supervisors are important role players within the constellation of people that support and guide students through research degrees. This blog post summarises a paper (Hopwood & Frick 2023) in which we were asked to respond to …

Care-full advising in the neoliberal academy: how to support PhD students through challenging fieldwork.

This is a guest post by Martina Angela Caretta, PhD. Associate Professor in the Department of Human Geography, Lund University Fieldwork, whether in a far away location or in the same city where the institution you are working at is located, is a corner stone of several natural and social sciences disciplines. Through fieldwork, PhD …

Supporting graduate student wellbeing though everyday practices, rather than ‘add-on’ initiatives

This is a guest post by Professor Kimberly Griffin, Dean of the College of Education at the University of Maryland, Dr Terra Hall from Pepperdine University, and Di-Tu Dissassa, Ashley Clarke, & Joakina Stone, all from the Department of Counseling, Higher Education, and Special Education at the University of Maryland. They work together as part …

Transformative supervision workshops as a tool for decolonisation

Laetitia Rispel is a Professor of Public Health at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa, where she holds a Research Chair as part of the South African Research Chairs Initiative (SARChI). This post is based on her 2023 paper: Relationships, power and accountability: Reflections on transformative postgraduate supervision workshops at a South …

Creating the right environment for PhD productivity

This is a guest post by Alberto Corsini (Université Côte d'Azur, France), Michele Pezzoni (Université Côte d'Azur, France), and Fabiana Visentin (Maastricht University, the Netherlands), based on their recent paper on PhD productivity, in the journal Research Policy. Today’s science relies increasingly on PhD students’ work. PhD students, through their publication activity, play a fundamental …

Five reasons we need trauma-informed postgraduate supervision

This is a guest post by Dr Katrina McChesney (@krmcchesney), a Senior Lecturer in Education at the University of Waikato, New Zealand and incoming co-editor (with Dr James Burford) of Studies in Graduate and Postdoctoral Education. Katrina’s current research interests include trauma-informed doctoral education and doctoral research by distance. Cover image by Julia Taubitz on Unsplash The World …

What did my supervisors do well?

This is a guest post by Dr Sazan M. Mandalawi, who has recently completed her doctorate at the University of Southern Queensland, Australia. She has published two recent papers, one on doing distance doctorates, and the other on the supervision of distance doctorates. I began my Doctoral journey at the University of Southern Queensland in …

Postgraduate development – bridging the research-teaching divide

This is a guest post by Dr Marita Grimwood, Associate Professor in Curriculum Design at Edinburgh Napier University. Her co-authored book, Evidencing Teaching Achievements, is forthcoming with Critical Publishing in 2023. 'Research' and 'teaching'… what do those words mean to you? So often in HE we see them set up as opposites. They can be …

Being open to critique, transparent in your motives, and when needed, step out of the way

This is a guest post by Manuela Schmidt, currently working at Jönköping University and Linneaus University and Erika Hansson, of Kristianstad University. Manuela and Erika met during their respective doctoral programs. Manuela in health science and Erika in psychology. After reaching ‘the other side’, both with PhD’s after their names, they decided to ignore the …