Dr Karen Clegg RSVP Co-PI and Director, and Reader in Doctoral Education and Practice, School for Arts and Creative Technologies, University of York, UK
Karen is a Reader in Doctoral Education in the School for Arts and Creative Technologies at the University of York and Co-PI/Director of the Next Generation Research SuperVision Project (RSVP), a £4.6million, Research England funded project designed to transform the practice and culture of research supervision. An experienced Researcher Developer and senior manager, Karen has created and implemented policy, designed and delivered award winning accredited programmes for research students, fellows and academic staff. Her research and publication portfolio includes assessment, reflective practice and doctoral education. She is an elected executive member of several professional bodies, a trained coach and an accomplished conference speaker.
In this keynote address for the 2026 Quality in Postgraduate Research Conference (QPR) - made available to illustrate the issues we are exploring - Karen discusses the challenges research supervisors face in their role, and considers how we transform graduate supervision for the future. She draws on RSVP data from the UK Research Supervisor Survey (2021 and 2024) in addition to the RSVP Collection report by Professor Stan Taylor on Professional Development Provision in the UK. The focus group data reports referenced in the presentation will be made available as part of the RSVP Collection. Her opinions and delivery are all her own!
You can watch the keynote presentation, and access the slide deck below: