Dr Nicola Palmer RSVP Co-Investigator, Head of Doctoral Training at Sheffield Hallam University, UK and Senior Lecturer at the University of York, UK
Dr Palmer is Head of Doctoral Training at Sheffield Hallam University and leads the pedagogy and scholarship strand of RSVP. She is an active research supervisor who has rich experience in examining and supervising to completion over 30 doctoral candidates across different types of doctoral awards in diverse institutional contexts.
Dr Philip Coombes Senior Lecturer in Marketing at Sheffield Hallam University, UK
Based at Sheffield Hallam University, Dr Coombes' research interests include conducting systematic review methodologies of various types and approaches, including bibliometric and meta-analysis reviews of literature.
Dr Richard Tresidder Member of RSVP Pedagogy and Publications strand, and Associate Professor at Sheffield Hallam University, UK
Dr Tressider is an Associate Professor of Marketing at Sheffield Hallam University. During his long academic career, Richard has validated PhDs and Professional Doctorates and managed doctoral programs. Richard is a UKCGE Recognized Research Supervisor and has developed and managed development programs for doctoral supervisors, delivering these both in the UK and internationally.
Laura Herriman Senior Administrator, Researcher and Innovator Development Academy (RIDA), Sheffield Hallam University, UK
Laura Herriman is a Senior Administrator at Sheffield Hallam University working within the Researcher and Innovator Development Academy. Laura has previously worked on RSVP, coordinated work package activities, training, and events in the Doctoral School. Laura’s background is in events and marketing management, having over a decade of experience managing large-scale events, projects, and executing marketing plans.
Despite being the pinnacle of academic training, doctoral education and supervision remain one of the least understood domains in higher education research. The conventional model of doctoral education, centred on original research within an apprentice-supervisor framework, has undergone a significant transformation. Emerging alternatives emphasize shorter program durations, integrated teaching components, collaborative structures, and practice-based, problem-solving orientations (Cardoso et al., 2020). These shifts reflect broader changes in the foundations, aims, methods, expertise, organization, and processes of doctoral education (Cardoso et al., 2022), contributing to its global expansion over the past two decades (Sarrico, 2022). As scholarly interest intensifies, the volume of publications in this field has surged, yet systematic syntheses remain scarce (see Liu et al., 2025; Wang et al., 2022, as notable exceptions). Few bibliometric or meta-analytic reviews have been conducted, leaving the conceptual landscape of doctoral education and its related supervision research under-mapped and difficult to navigate.
This paper addresses that gap by examining the intellectual landscape of doctoral education and supervision research over the past ten years. Using bibliometric methods – specifically citation and co-citation analyses – it identifies influential authors, thematic clusters, and evolving research trajectories. Bibliometrics applies statistical techniques to academic publishing (Campbell et al., 2005), enabling the detection of dominant contributors and patterns that inform policy and funding decisions. Citation-based approaches offer quantitative and complementary insights into relationships among documents, authors, and journals, revealing core literature and conceptual linkages (Garfield, 1972; Gingras, 2010; McCain, 1986; Osareh, 1996).