At the conclusion of the project in September 2027, our extensively piloted and evaluated Continuing Professional Development (CPD) programmes for doctoral supervisors will be shared with colleagues across the sector.
It is the design, handover, piloting, and revision process we are following between now and then – with your support and feedback at its core – that will enable us to deliver those programmes, whilst contributing to our broader goal of enhancing research culture.
This page will provide you with the information you need to plan, deliver, and provide feedback on your piloting activities. It should be read alongside the Facilitator Manuals, which contain essential information and supporting materials for each professional development intervention. You can also refer to our Practitioner Partner FAQs. If your question is not covered there, please contact our Relationships Coordinator, Dr Chris Birchall, by emailing rsvp-piloting@york.ac.uk.
Key dates for pilot phases
The first phase of piloting begins with our Phase 1 online launch event on 30 September and 1 October 2025, and runs to 31 March 2026. This is the period during which pilot sessions using Phase 1 materials should be delivered and when reflective feedback should be written and submitted back to RSVP.
To ensure that your feedback can be addressed in our Phase 1 revisions, please ensure that you return your feedback to RSVP using our online Practitioner Partner Pilot Feedback Form [Google Form] by 31 March 2026.
Important note: Two Phase 1 interventions, Peer Mentoring Circles and the Supporting Reflective Practice and Recognition programme, are designed to run over six months. The 31 March 2026 deadline for returning feedback does not apply to these interventions. Feedback should be returned as soon as possible after these pilot programmes are complete, with a final deadline of 30 June 2026.
Additional CPD interventions will be shared in Phase 2 which begins in January 2026.
Phase 1
Delivery: October 2025 - March 2026
Feedback deadline: 31 March 2026
Phase 2
Delivery: January 2026 - June 2026
Feedback deadline: 30 June 2026
Piloting step-by-step
1
Read the information sheet and confirm your consent to participate
The piloting process has been subject to an ethics clearance process at the University of York (reference ACT08092506).
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All colleagues who will be facilitating or delivering pilot sessions should read the Information Sheet for CPD Intervention Facilitators [PDF]. Having done so, if they agree to take part they should complete the RSVP Pilot Programme Facilitator Consent Form [Google Form].
2
Identify which CPD interventions you wish to pilot in your institution
Browse the Resource Hub and download the materials for the CPD interventions you are considering piloting. Every individual intervention has its own Facilitator Manual – a single shared master document that combines essential information and supporting materials.
You are not expected to pilot everything – we fully expect you to be selective based on your local needs and capacity.
3
Reflect on your feedback throughout
You will need to submit your final feedback and reflections using our online Practitioner Partner Pilot Feedback Form [Google Form] after you have delivered each pilot. However, because we are interested in your reflections from throughout the piloting process, we encourage you to begin capturing notes and reflections at the planning stage.
Once you have identified which interventions you plan to pilot, you should download the text document version of the Practitioner Partner Pilot Feedback form, and save one version of the document for each intervention that you are piloting. You can use these documents to capture your notes and reflections throughout the process, and as the basis for your final online feedback submission for each intervention.
4
Adapt the materials as required to suit your local context
Supervision is deeply influenced by the contexts in which it takes place, and we encourage you to adapt our materials to your own needs and preferred approach. This adaptability is key to the project: seeing how the interventions work across diverse institutional and cultural settings is part of our evaluation.
All materials will need a minimal degree of adaptation before delivery (for example, adding your institution's branding and relevant internal signposting links). Guidance on these changes is clearly signalled in each Facilitator Manual.
You may also elect to make more substantial changes. This could range from altering a title to make it consistent with an established naming convention for your supervisor CPD activities, to combining two interventions into one session, or extracting an activity from an intervention and merging it into an existing session running locally.
We don’t place any restrictions on how you adapt the materials during your piloting, provided that as part of your piloting feedback you outline those changes clearly, and include a rationale for your approach. Knowing how and why Practitioner Partners have adapted our materials will help us understand how they work in different contexts, and will inform our approach to design and revision.
We suggest making notes or drafting your response to this question at the same time as you are adapting the materials, while your thoughts are fresh.
5
Deliver your local pilots
Every Facilitator Manual includes:
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Information to enable planning, including information on the intervention's learning objectives, duration, format and target audience
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Guidance for facilitators, including timings, tips, and reflections from previous deliveries of the session
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An overview of slides and other supporting materials
You can use this material to plan, schedule, and deliver your pilot sessions.
While you have flexibility in how you adapt and deliver your pilots, there are a few requirements you should consider when planning sessions:
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All registrants should be provided with the RSVP Participant Information Sheet [PDF] and have the opportunity to consent to participating.
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You should plan how you will gather feedback from participants (see Capture feedback below).
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You will also be asked to indicate the supervisory experience levels of participants when providing feedback on your piloting activity.
Obtaining consent from participants
All supervisors who register to attend a pilot session should be provided with the project RSVP Participant Information Sheet [PDF] before the session takes place. They should be given the opportunity to provide their consent to taking part.
Consent from participants (your supervisors) only needs to be collected locally and should not be shared with RSVP. You can download our text document template for these consent forms which can be used as the basis of Google Forms, Microsoft Forms etc.​​
Guidance on supervisory experience levels
6
Capture feedback from participants
The piloting process is primarily designed to ensure we receive considered and reflective feedback from practitioner partners about the materials and guidance provided – how useful, relevant and effective they were when adapted and delivered in different contexts.
Alongside this reflective feedback from facilitators, the online Practitioner Partner Pilot Feedback Form [Google Form] includes one section focused on summarising supervisors’ feedback on the pilot sessions.
To enable consistency in our analysis, we ask you to include our Standard Feedback Questions for Supervisors [Microsoft Word]​ as a minimum when you gather feedback from attendees. If you have an established process for gathering workshop feedback, these five questions can be added into an existing local form, and you can supplement them with further questions if you wish.
You are free to gather this feedback using whatever mechanisms work best for you locally (whether digitally or on paper), and you are not required to share the raw data with RSVP.
When you complete the Practitioner Partner Pilot Feedback form, you should draw on participant responses to these feedback questions. As a minimum, we ask you to provide:
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Response rate
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Average scores for questions 1-4
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Aggregated and anonymous free text responses for question 5
Optional: Certificate of completion
7
Feed back to RSVP
Once you have finalised your own reflections and gathered feedback from attendees, you can submit your final feedback using the online Practitioner Partner Pilot Feedback Form [Google Form].
31 March 2026 is the deadline for returning your feedback on Phase 1 CPD materials. This will ensure that your feedback can be addressed during our revision stage.
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Important note: Two Phase 1 interventions, Peer Mentoring Circles and the Supporting Reflective Practice and Recognition programme, are designed to run over six months. The 31 March 2026 deadline for returning feedback does not apply to these interventions. Feedback should be returned as soon as possible after these pilot programmes are complete, with a final deadline of 30 June 2026.
We strongly recommend that facilitators complete their draft feedback soon after a pilot is complete, rather than waiting until close to the deadline. Based on the RSVP consortium team's experience during the earlier piloting phase, capturing reflections within two weeks of delivery, while thoughts were still fresh, was found to be most effective.
Your insights will shape individual interventions and help evidence impact towards our broader goal of enhancing research culture. The data and reflections you collect will also provide rich material for potential institutional case studies.
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Key actions to remember
Download the Practitioner Partner Pilot Feedback form [Microsoft Word] and capture notes and draft reflections throughout the process, particularly when adapting interventions, to ensure valuable insights are not lost.
Plan in advance how you will capture data on the experience levels of attendees, and how you will gather feedback from participants that includes the five Standard Feedback Questions for Supervisors [Microsoft Word]​.
After delivering a pilot, plan to finalise your feedback and reflections, including a summary of participant responses, within two weeks.
Submit your feedback using the online Practitioner Partner Pilot Feedback Form [Google Form] before 31 March 2026.
Summary of links and documents
Information sheets​
Consent forms​
Feedback​​
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RSVP Standard Feedback Questions for Supervisors [Microsoft Word]​ - for use in local participant feedback forms.
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​RSVP Practitioner Partner Pilot Feedback Form (text version) [Microsoft Word] - this can be used by the facilitator to capture notes and reflections throughout the process, and as the basis for the final online feedback submission for each intervention.
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RSVP Practitioner Partner Pilot Feedback Form [Google Form] - this must be completed by the facilitator by the relevant feedback deadline.​