ABSTRACT
In June 1996, The Times Higher Education Supplement (A. Thomson 1996) reported on a discussion paper called ‘Quality and Standards of Postgraduate Research Degrees’, produced by the United Kingdom Council for Graduate Education (UKCGE). The article suggested that the postgraduate research sector needed urgent review to secure better quality monitoring, and commented that funding councils had focused little attention on doctoral education because they were more concerned with undergraduate and masters courses. According to the UKCGE report, there was now an urgent need for discussion and clarification of the issues concerning postgraduate research, not least because of a ‘dramatic’ increase in postgraduates doing research (A. Thomson 1996). Illustrative figures from the Higher Education Funding Council for England showed a 310 per cent increase in postgraduate research (masters and doctoral) between 1979 and 1994 (HEFCE 1996). The report argued for the need to establish effective postgraduate quality assurance policies and procedures, and monitoring and enhancement mechanisms to reassure ‘stakeholders’, including students. Earlier that same year The THES had published an article by Davies (1996) on ‘What is
the role of a PhD supervisor?’, pointing to the variation in the quality of support students received, and anticipating the debates that were to accelerate over the next decade. Davies reported the, ‘by no means exceptional’, experiences of one PhD student whose relationship had broken down with his supervisor, pointing to the problematic power relations inherent in the relationship. As a result this student did not expect to complete his doctorate, saying:
I was taken on as a research assistant without meeting [him], and when I arrived it turned out he didn’t have a PhD and hadn’t supervised before. … There has been a breakdown in our relationship. But my funding depends on my supervisor – he’s an expert in the area – and the institution doesn’t really have anyone to replace him. I’m an outsider and he is an insider – anything I say carries no weight. I do have a second supervisor, but she doesn’t have the time to see me. There have been four postgraduates in the past two years in my department, and I’m the only one left. Maybe if I’m lucky I’ll get an MPhil here, but I don’t have any control over my funding, and I’ll need a reference from this institution if I look for a job.
