About RSVP

The Next Generation Research SuperVision Project (RSVP) is a £4.6million, Research England funded project designed to transform the culture and practice of research supervision.

Working with 20 Universities (UK and international) and global businesses (including GSK, Unilever, BBC, the Royal Shakespeare Company, Royal Armouries) and with the support of all seven UKRI research councils (plus the Crick Institute and the Wellcome Trust) RSVP is believed to be the largest collaborative, cross-disciplinary, translational research project into doctoral education ever funded.

Over the next four years (2023-2027) our project will explore four key areas.

The role of team supervision

Working with industry partners to understand the role that ‘tertiary’ supervisors (non-HEI), and often ‘hidden’ supervisors (postdocs, technicians, researcher developers), play in supervisory teams. We seek to understand from whom doctoral candidates get their steer.

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Supervision practice in different disciplines and contexts

Understanding from supervisors in HE and industry what constitutes effective supervision to develop and pilot continuing professional development (CPD) to support research supervisors in a range of disciplines.

Supervising different types of research degree

Developing support for supervisors of co-tutelle, part-time, distance/hybrid, by prior (and post) publication, portfolio and professional practice doctorates.

Understanding and combating poor supervision practice

Exploring, with Deans and Directors of doctoral schools as well as funders/government policy makers, the scope and scale of what might be considered ‘poor’ supervision practice. We will develop policy guidelines to support consistency of practice and the postgraduate research experience.

What will we do?

We will translate best practice in professional supervision to academic contexts. By working with and learning from academics, researcher developers, policy makers and industry partners to understand how they support staff through onboarding processes, mentoring and continuing professional development (CPD), we will translate, test and evaluate this practice in a variety of institutional contexts with 20 HEI partners.

The impact will be a positive culture change in the way in which doctoral supervision practice is conducted, recognised and rewarded.

Our aim is to widen and diversify the pool of confident, trained supervisors able to support an inclusive culture and the next generation of researchers. We will do this by:

Working with research institutions to pilot and test approaches to CPD
Working with industry to understand how they approach CPD

Our approach

We will focus on three key areas: scholarship, practice interventions, culture and policy change. Outputs produced for each area will be used to develop relevant frameworks, policies and materials to ensure effective approaches are embedded in institutions and produce sustainable, long-term culture change.

To get a better understanding of the current supervision CPD provision we will:

Collect and create baseline data about the volume, scale, and configuration of doctoral supervision in the UK.
Identify what constitutes poor, good and excellent supervision practice in different institutional contexts and disciplines and the factors that affect this.
Explore the value of team supervision and make clear the expectations of new, experienced, tertiary and ‘hidden’ supervisors.
Identify what can be learnt from industry about how to effectively support the careers, skills and CPD of highly talented individuals.
Publish what we learn and share it with the sector to enable greater understanding.

To effect change we will work with Deans and Directors of Doctoral Schools, funders and industry based supervisors to:

Publish a review of current supervisory CPD interventions for supervisors with international comparisons.
Develop self assessment tools for providers to benchmark their supervision support.
Run the UK Research Supervision Survey in 2024 and 2027 to support benchmarking.
Revise the ‘UKCGE Good Supervisory Framework’ making clear the expectations and roles of supervisors (main and co-supervisors) and tertiary supervisors (those outside HEIs).
Co-develop guidelines for funders on how to foster and sustain a positive culture for research supervision.

Working with the consortium and practitioner partners we will:

Design and test approaches to onboarding for new supervisors.
Design and pilot professional development interventions such as mentoring and communities of practice to support new and experienced supervisors.
Reach out and draw upon the expertise of highly experienced supervisors to develop the next generation of researchers and support culture change.
Deliver workshops and in-house training for partners.
Provide regular communication and updates and opportunities for postgraduate researchers to get involved.

All of these interventions will be evaluated and communicated to enable the sector to develop and refine existing practices.

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