Focus groups with key stakeholders, May-June 2025

Focus groups are a critical part of gathering the evidence base for RSVP, and we have been busy in May and June hosting sessions with two groups of key stakeholders:

• Deans and Directors of Doctoral Schools

• Non-HEI based research supervisors

Focus group input from representatives of both of these communities, will build on the findings of our 25 focus groups held with research supervisors based in higher education institutes across the core RSVP partners in 2024.

Deans and Directors of Doctoral Schools (DDDs)

We have been seeking the perspectives of Deans and Directors of Doctoral Schools across the UK, with a view to understanding more about their experiences as managers from an institutional perspective, as well as their approaches to dealing with poor supervision practice. We have also been discussing potential policy changes relating to UK research supervision culture, and the impacts that would be most beneficial to the sector.

We have conducted four focus groups with 20 participants, capturing input from over 20% of the total body of UK DDDs.

Non-HEI based Doctoral Research Supervisors

RSVP is committed to enhancing doctoral supervision practice and developing appropriate onboarding and continuing professional development (CPD) for all those involved in the doctoral supervision. As such, we have sought the opinions of external doctoral supervisors - professionals in organisations outside higher education who contribute to the supervision of doctoral (PhD) researchers - to inform the design of novel CPD resources, and to improve our understanding of the contribution that external supervisors make to the doctoral process. The focus groups have involved almost 70 participants across the following broad sectors and have helped us to understand how external supervisors approach their roles, support doctoral candidates, and work with university-based supervisors:

• Science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM)

• Medicine, including clinicians and allied health professionals

• Arts, heritage and the creative industries

• Business, management, government and charities

Postgraduate Researcher Voice

In addition to the above focus groups, and as part of our project governance, we have also recruited nine PGR school/faculty representatives from our core partners to collect input from the PGR voice, and their expectations of the doctoral training programme. We will meet with this group on an ongoing basis during the project lifecycle.