i can't find a phd supervisor

An official website of the United States government

The .gov means it’s official. Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

The site is secure. The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

• Publications
• Account settings

Preview improvements coming to the PMC website in October 2024. Learn More or Try it out now .

• Advanced Search
• Journal List
• PLoS Comput Biol
• v.17(9); 2021 Sep

Ten simple rules for choosing a PhD supervisor

Department of Biology, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada

Catherine Bannon

J. scott p. mccain, introduction.

The PhD beckons. You thought long and hard about why you want to do it, you understand the sacrifices and commitments it entails, and you have decided that it is the right thing for you. Congratulations! Undertaking a doctoral degree can be an extremely rewarding experience, greatly enhancing your personal, intellectual, and professional development. If you are still on the fence about whether or not you want to pursue a PhD, see [ 1 , 2 ] and others to help you decide.

As a PhD student in the making, you will have many important decisions to consider. Several of them will depend on your chosen discipline and research topic, the institution you want to attend, and even the country where you will undertake your degree. However, one of the earliest and most critical decisions you will need to make transcends most other decisions: choosing your PhD thesis supervisor. Your PhD supervisor will strongly influence the success and quality of your degree as well as your general well-being throughout the program. It is therefore vital to choose the right supervisor for you. A wrong choice or poor fit can be disastrous on both a personal and professional levels—something you obviously want to avoid. Unfortunately, however, most PhD students go through the process of choosing a supervisor only once and thus do not get the opportunity to learn from previous experiences. Additionally, many prospective PhD students do not have access to resources and proper guidance to rely on when making important academic decisions such as those involved in choosing a PhD supervisor.

In this short guide, we—a group of PhD students with varied backgrounds, research disciplines, and academic journeys—share our collective experiences with choosing our own PhD supervisors. We provide tips and advice to help prospective students in various disciplines, including computational biology, in their quest to find a suitable PhD supervisor. Despite procedural differences across countries, institutions, and programs, the following rules and discussions should remain helpful for guiding one’s approach to selecting their future PhD supervisor. These guidelines mostly address how to evaluate a potential PhD supervisor and do not include details on how you might find a supervisor. In brief, you can find a supervisor anywhere: seminars, a class you were taught, internet search of interesting research topics, departmental pages, etc. After reading about a group’s research and convincing yourself it seems interesting, get in touch! Make sure to craft an e-mail carefully, demonstrating you have thought about their research and what you might do in their group. After finding one or several supervisors of interest, we hope that the rules bellow will help you choose the right supervisor for you.

Rule 1: Align research interests

You need to make sure that a prospective supervisor studies, or at the very least, has an interest in what you want to study. A good starting point would be to browse their personal and research group websites (though those are often outdated), their publication profile, and their students’ theses, if possible. Keep in mind that the publication process can be slow, so recent publications may not necessarily reflect current research in that group. Pay special attention to publications where the supervisor is senior author—in life sciences, their name would typically be last. This would help you construct a mental map of where the group interests are going, in addition to where they have been.

Be proactive about pursuing your research interests, but also flexible: Your dream research topic might not currently be conducted in a particular group, but perhaps the supervisor is open to exploring new ideas and research avenues with you. Check that the group or institution of interest has the facilities and resources appropriate for your research, and/or be prepared to establish collaborations to access those resources elsewhere. Make sure you like not only the research topic, but also the “grunt work” it requires, as a topic you find interesting may not be suitable for you in terms of day-to-day work. You can look at the “Methods” sections of published papers to get a sense for what this is like—for example, if you do not like resolving cryptic error messages, programming is probably not for you, and you might want to consider a wet lab–based project. Lastly, any research can be made interesting, and interests change. Perhaps your favorite topic today is difficult to work with now, and you might cut your teeth on a different project.

Rule 2: Seek trusted sources

Discussing your plans with experienced and trustworthy people is a great way to learn more about the reputation of potential supervisors, their research group dynamics, and exciting projects in your field of interest. Your current supervisor, if you have one, could be aware of position openings that are compatible with your interests and time frame and is likely to know talented supervisors with good reputations in their fields. Professors you admire, reliable student advisors, and colleagues might also know your prospective supervisor on various professional or personal levels and could have additional insight about working with them. Listen carefully to what these trusted sources have to say, as they can provide a wealth of insider information (e.g., personality, reputation, interpersonal relationships, and supervisory styles) that might not be readily accessible to you.

Rule 3: Expectations, expectations, expectations

A considerable portion of PhD students feel that their program does not meet original expectations [ 3 ]. To avoid being part of this group, we stress the importance of aligning your expectations with the supervisor’s expectations before joining a research group or PhD program. Also, remember that one person’s dream supervisor can be another’s worst nightmare and vice versa—it is about a good fit for you. Identifying what a “good fit” looks like requires a serious self-appraisal of your goals (see Rule 1 ), working style (see Rule 5 ), and what you expect in a mentor (see Rule 4 ). One way to conduct this self-appraisal is to work in a research lab to get experiences similar to a PhD student (if this is possible).

Money!—Many people have been conditioned to avoid the subject of finances at all costs, but setting financial expectations early is crucial for maintaining your well-being inside and outside the lab. Inside the lab, funding will provide chemicals and equipment required for you to do cool research. It is also important to know if there will be sufficient funding for your potential projects to be completed. Outside the lab, you deserve to get paid a reasonable, livable stipend. What is the minimum required take-home stipend, or does that even exist at the institution you are interested in? Are there hard cutoffs for funding once your time runs out, or does the institution have support for students who take longer than anticipated? If the supervisor supplies the funding, do they end up cutting off students when funds run low, or do they have contingency plans? ( Fig 1 ).

Professional development opportunities—A key aspect of graduate school training is professional development. In some research groups, it is normal for PhD students to mentor undergraduate students or take a semester to work in industry to get more diverse experiences. Other research groups have clear links with government entities, which is helpful for going into policy or government-based research. These opportunities (and others) are critical for your career and next steps. What are the career development opportunities and expectations of a potential supervisor? Is a potential supervisor happy to send students to workshops to learn new skills? Are they supportive of public outreach activities? If you are looking at joining a newer group, these sorts of questions will have to be part of the larger set of conversations about expectations. Ask: “What sort of professional development opportunities are there at the institution?”

Publications—Some PhD programs have minimum requirements for finishing a thesis (i.e., you must publish a certain number of papers prior to defending), while other programs leave it up to the student and supervisor to decide on this. A simple and important topic to discuss is: How many publications are expected from your PhD and when will you publish them? If you are keen to publish in high-impact journals, does your prospective supervisor share that aim? (Although question why you are so keen to do so, see the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment ( www.sfdora.org ) to learn about the pitfalls of journal impact factor.)

Rule 4: It takes two to tango

Sooner or later, you will get to meet and interview with a prospective PhD supervisor. This should go both ways: Interview them just as much as they are interviewing you. Prepare questions and pay close attention to how they respond. For example, ask them about their “lab culture,” research interests (especially for the future/long term), and what they are looking for in a graduate student. Do you feel like you need to “put on an act” to go along with the supervisor (beyond just the standard interview mode)? Represent yourself, and not the person you think they are looking for. All of us will have some interviews go badly. Remember that discovering a poor fit during the interview has way fewer consequences than the incompatibility that could arise once you have committed to a position.

To come up with good questions for the prospective supervisor, first ask yourself questions. What are you looking for in a mentor? People differ in their optimal levels of supervision, and there is nothing wrong with wanting more or less than your peers. How much career guidance do you expect and does the potential supervisor respect your interests, particularly if your long-term goals do not include academia? What kind of student might not thrive in this research group?

Treat the PhD position like a partnership: What do you seek to get out of it? Keep in mind that a large portion of research is conducted by PhD students [ 4 ], so you are also an asset. Your supervisor will provide guidance, but the PhD is your work. Make sure you and your mentor are on the same page before committing to what is fundamentally a professional contract akin to an apprenticeship (see “ Rule 3 ”).

Rule 5: Workstyle compatibility

Sharing interests with a supervisor does not necessarily guarantee you would work well together, and just because you enjoyed a course by a certain professor does not mean they are the right PhD supervisor for you. Make sure your expectations for work and work–life approaches are compatible. Do you thrive on structure, or do you need freedom to proceed at your own pace? Do they expect you to be in the lab from 6:00 AM to midnight on a regular basis (red flag!)? Are they comfortable with you working from home when you can? Are they around the lab enough for it to work for you? Are they supportive of alternative work hours if you have other obligations (e.g., childcare, other employment, extracurriculars)? How is the group itself organized? Is there a lab manager or are the logistics shared (fairly?) between the group members? Discuss this before you commit!

Two key attributes of a research group are the supervisor’s career stage and number of people in the group. A supervisor in a later career stage may have more established research connections and protocols. An earlier career stage supervisor comes with more opportunities to shape the research direction of the lab, but less access to academic political power and less certainty in what their supervision style will be (even to themselves). Joining new research groups provides a great opportunity to learn how to build a lab if you are considering that career path but may take away time and energy from your thesis project. Similarly, be aware of pros and cons of different lab sizes. While big labs provide more opportunity for collaborations and learning from fellow lab members, their supervisors generally have less time available for each trainee. Smaller labs tend to have better access to the supervisor but may be more isolating [ 5 , 6 ]. Also note that large research groups tend to be better for developing extant research topics further, while small groups can conduct more disruptive research [ 7 ].

Rule 6: Be sure to meet current students

Meeting with current students is one of the most important steps prior to joining a lab. Current students will give you the most direct and complete sense of what working with a certain supervisor is actually like. They can also give you a valuable sense of departmental culture and nonacademic life. You could also ask to meet with other students in the department to get a broader sense of the latter. However, if current students are not happy with their current supervisor, they are unlikely to tell you directly. Try to ask specific questions: “How often do you meet with your supervisor?”, “What are the typical turnaround times for a paper draft?”, “How would you describe the lab culture?”, “How does your supervisor react to mistakes or unexpected results?”, “How does your supervisor react to interruptions to research from, e.g., personal life?”, and yes, even “What would you say is the biggest weakness of your supervisor?”

Rule 7: But also try to meet past students

While not always possible, meeting with past students can be very informative. Past students give you information on career outcomes (i.e., what are they doing now?) and can provide insight into what the lab was like when they were in it. Previous students will provide a unique perspective because they have gone through the entire process, from start to finish—and, in some cases, no longer feel obligated to speak well of their now former supervisor. It can also be helpful to look at previous students’ experiences by reading the acknowledgement section in their theses.

Rule 8: Consider the entire experience

Your PhD supervisor is only one—albeit large—piece of your PhD puzzle. It is therefore essential to consider your PhD experience as whole when deciding on a supervisor. One important aspect to contemplate is your mental health. Graduate students have disproportionately higher rates of depression and anxiety compared to the general population [ 8 ], so your mental health will be tested greatly throughout your PhD experience. We suggest taking the time to reflect on what factors would enable you to do your best work while maintaining a healthy work–life balance. Does your happiness depend on surfing regularly? Check out coastal areas. Do you despise being cold? Consider being closer to the equator. Do you have a deep-rooted phobia of koalas? Maybe avoid Australia. Consider these potentially even more important questions like: Do you want to be close to your friends and family? Will there be adequate childcare support? Are you comfortable with studying abroad? How does the potential university treat international or underrepresented students? When thinking about your next steps, keep in mind that although obtaining your PhD will come with many challenges, you will be at your most productive when you are well rested, financially stable, nourished, and enjoying your experience.

Rule 9: Trust your gut

You have made it to our most “hand-wavy” rule! As academics, we understand the desire for quantifiable data and some sort of statistic to make logical decisions. If this is more your style, consider every interaction with a prospective supervisor, from the first e-mail onwards, as a piece of data.

However, there is considerable value in trusting gut instincts. One way to trust your gut is to listen to your internal dialogue while making your decision on a PhD supervisor. For example, if your internal dialogue includes such phrases as “it will be different for me,” “I’ll just put my head down and work hard,” or “maybe their students were exaggerating,” you might want to proceed with caution. If you are saying “Wow! How are they so kind and intelligent?” or “I cannot wait to start!”, then you might have found a winner ( Fig 2 ).

Rule 10: Wash, rinse, repeat

The last piece of advice we give you is to do this lengthy process all over again. Comparing your options is a key step during the search for a PhD supervisor. By screening multiple different groups, you ultimately learn more about what red flags to look for, compatible work styles, your personal expectations, and group atmospheres. Repeat this entire process with another supervisor, another university, or even another country. We suggest you reject the notion that you would be “wasting someone’s time.” You deserve to take your time and inform yourself to choose a PhD supervisor wisely. The time and energy invested in a “failed” supervisor search would still be far less than what is consumed by a bad PhD experience ( Fig 3 ).

The more supervisors your interview and the more advice you get from peers, the more apparent these red flags will become.

Conclusions

Pursuing a PhD can be an extremely rewarding endeavor and a time of immense personal growth. The relationship you have with your PhD supervisor can make or break an entire experience, so make this choice carefully. Above, we have outlined some key points to think about while making this decision. Clarifying your own expectations is a particularly important step, as conflicts can arise when there are expectation mismatches. In outlining these topics, we hope to share pieces of advice that sometimes require “insider” knowledge and experience.

After thoroughly evaluating your options, go ahead and tackle the PhD! In our own experiences, carefully choosing a supervisor has led to relationships that morph from mentor to mentee into a collaborative partnership where we can pose new questions and construct novel approaches to answer them. Science is hard enough by itself. If you choose your supervisor well and end up developing a positive relationship with them and their group, you will be better suited for sound and enjoyable science.

Funding Statement

The authors received no specific funding for this work.

Choosing the right PhD supervisor for you

Choosing the right phd supervisor.

This is advice we’ve collected for students who have decided that a PhD is the right path for them, are aiming to do impactful research and seeking an academic supervisor.

This post does not cover whether or not you should be doing a PhD. If you’re unsure whether to pursue a PhD, you might find useful advice in our post on testing your fit for a research career instead. You could also apply for our coaching for more personalised advice.

• The supervisor-supervisee relationship will probably have a big impact on your experience of getting a PhD, your development, and your prospects after your PhD. Your supervisor will likely be your primary mentor for several years, so it’s worth investing time in finding a good match.
• You could find a supervisor through reading academic papers, being on academic twitter, looking at university faculty webpages, talking to students and academics, networking at conferences or via our database of potential supervisors.
• Key factors to consider when finding a supervisor include their research expertise, supervision style and academic reputation. Also consider the  departmental/lab community you would be joining.

We’re sharing this advice because:

• We want to support impact-oriented students, who have decided a PhD is the right path for them, to make good decisions when finding a supervisor.

In the process of writing this advice we received feedback from a number of people based on their PhD experiences; thanks to Caspar Oesterheld, Matt Coleman, Vivian Belenky, Bill Wildi, Linda Linsefors, Adrià Garriga-Alonso and Jaime Sevilla for their valuable feedback and ideas. Contributors to this post didn’t necessarily review or agree with all points made, and all errors remain our own.

How important is finding the right PhD supervisor?

Your supervisor will likely be your main point of contact for academic support during your PhD. The quality of your relationship and your supervisor’s availability, style of supervision and alignment with your goals will probably make a big difference to your experience – in terms of your wellbeing, whether you’re supported to do the research you want, and even whether you complete your PhD.

Your supervisor’s research skills will likely also affect your own development as a researcher. This paper ( see the summary here ) finds that supervisors who produce prize-winning academic research seem to increase the chance their supervisees go on to do the same; ‘students who studied under a future prizewinner were almost six times more likely to become superstars in their field than equally talented students of non-prizewinners.’

When should you search for a supervisor?

Universities often expect that students will identify and connect with a specific supervisor before formally applying for a PhD. Even if you’re applying to a programme that involves spending a year or two doing classes before choosing a research focus and supervisor, it’s still useful to reach out to check if the supervisor(s) on the programme seem like a good fit for you. Anecdotally, your application is also more likely to be accepted if a supervisor is already excited about working with you. 

Before you reach out, check there’s no rule against reaching out written on the supervisor’s profile or programme webpage, as some universities and programmes have a rule against students contacting supervisors before formally applying.

There are many guides online if you want to see the steps typically involved in finding a PhD programme in different countries, for example this and this overview for the UK, this guide for the USA or this series about PhD study in various countries.

Factors to consider when searching for a supervisor

In addition to considerations like location and funding availability, here are some key factors that might be useful to gather information on during the process of finding a supervisor.

The supervisor’s research expertise

Working with a supervisor and research group with particularly strong research skills and a strong track record is very helpful if you want to stay in research long term (if you’re pursuing a PhD primarily for credentials, it is likely not quite such an important factor). Looking at the h -index of supervisors you’re considering, reading research papers yourself and considering the opinions of other academics are some ways of getting a general sense of this. 

In terms of specific expertise, while it’s certainly helpful if your supervisor or research group has a good understanding of the topic or concept you want to study, strong expertise in a methodology you want to master may be more important to your development as a researcher, as long as they are receptive to your topic. Having a secondary supervisor with strong expertise in the specific topic or concept you want to study, as well as a primary supervisor with expertise in the methodology you want to use, can be a good way to balance this, although programmes and supervisors will have different policies on this.

Researchers and research teams will also have their own ideologies that you will likely need to adopt to some extent in your own research, so look at some of their research and check if the approach resonates with you when deciding if they would be a good fit.

The supervisor’s and university’s academic reputation

Particularly if you want to pursue an academic career, a supervisor’s academic reputation and research success is also worth considering because the reputation of your supervisor will affect how a letter of recommendation from them is received if you apply for academic or postdoc positions after your PhD. For careers outside of academia, such as policy and public-facing roles, having attended a top university is also particularly likely to be useful.

Style of supervision

Consider what style of supervision would work well for you – how independently or intensively do you want to work, for example? When talking to a potential supervisor or students who have worked with them, you might want to ask about the supervisor’s interpersonal style, what their expectations are of students, and how ‘hands on’ or ‘hands off’ they are ( this post goes into more detail about the different dimensions you could consider regarding the latter point).

You can make some guesses about these factors before meeting potential supervisors or students. For example, if an academic is earlier in their career, their progression will depend on supervising students , so there’s generally a greater incentive for them to be more engaged as a supervisor and to graduate students quickly. More established academics often have wider research interests and allow supervisees more autonomy and flexibility.

As well as the style of support that will suit you in the near-term, consider what will help you achieve your long-term goals. Particularly if you may want a career in research, it’s useful to have a supervisor who will encourage you to publish, so you could check whether they have a track record of publishing with students and whether the papers are published in respected journals. If you’re largely doing a PhD because the credentials will further your career, you may generally want to seek out less time-intensive and challenging PhD experience.

Your impression of the departmental or laboratory community

The research community you join will likely also affect your wellbeing and development as a researcher. If you’re in a collaborative setting, postdocs and more experienced PhDs may play a key role in providing informal supervision, which might be particularly relevant if you want to work with a supervisor who has limited availability.

If you’re seriously considering a PhD programme, try to talk to students and postdocs you’d be working with to get a sense of the culture you’d be joining. You could also look at alumni’s careers, the research of current students and the ranking of the university to try to gauge how the environment would help you develop as a researcher. If you want to learn more about university rankings and what aspects of them are relevant to PhD students, check out this article from findaphd and see the Times world university rankings and QS World University Rankings .

Finding potential supervisors

Where to look.

If you’re looking for a potential supervisor, you may find it helpful to:

• apply to access our database of potential supervisors working in the research directions we recommend .
• network at conferences and lectures.
• look through the department faculty webpages of universities that meet your location preferences and/or that are the top universities for your research area.
• ask PhD students and academics working in your preferred research direction for recommendations. Professors at your university may be willing to leverage their own network to help you, and academics involved in EA may also be willing to help.
• read the abstracts of research articles, papers, and recently submitted dissertations relevant to your interests and note down the authors whose work you particularly like. This step can also be useful to increase the chance of a successful application later.
• follow academics doing relevant research on ‘academic twitter’ (i.e. the informal network of academics who use twitter to discuss research, opportunities and experiences). This can be useful for seeing recent papers and discussions, learning about open PhD positions, and getting some insight into potential supervisors.
• do a database search to find researchers who have produced highly cited and relevant publications. Options include Web of Science , Scopus , Dimensions , Semantic Scholar and Research Rabbit . You could also use Elicit , an AI research assistant. 

When you find a potential supervisor you’re interested in, check whether they are accepting students during the upcoming application cycle before investing more effort. Consider keeping a spreadsheet of the programmes and supervisors you’re interested in, with relevant factors (e.g. location, research fit and funding) to help you narrow options down. When you start reaching out to supervisors, this will also help you follow up 1-2 weeks later if you have a record of who you contacted, as well as keeping track of application deadlines. (If you do this, we’d love to see the results! Please send them to us here ).

Contacting potential supervisors

Writing an initial email.

Below are some tips for reaching out to potential supervisors.

Do your research

Before you contact supervisors, check whether their university profile has relevant information about their availability or details about whether and how they want to be contacted. Assistant and associate professors are particularly likely to be seeking students. If their profile doesn’t say they are seeking students, check this with them briefly before sending a longer email.

Academics get a lot of emails, so make your email easy to engage with.

• Use a subject line that makes it clear why you’re reaching out (e.g. ‘initial enquiry about PhD opportunities for Sept 2021’)
• Keep it short -– a couple of paragraphs is usually enough.

Briefly but clearly describe your goals

Explain the research question you want to answer, why you believe it’s important, and, if possible, how your previous research connects to it and how it would fit into the broader picture of your goals. You’ll stand out more if you’re sincerely trying to answer an open research question in your field. However, if there’s some flexibility in your interests then mention this too – it might increase the likelihood the supervisor will be open to working with you.

Be informative

You should generally also include:

• your qualifications.
• that you’re emailing regarding a specific opportunity if this is the case.
• your funding status, for example if you’ve already secured external funding or are planning to apply for funding.

Build connection

• Check the supervisor’s title (e.g. Professor/Dr) and use it in the first email (after that it’s fine to follow their lead).
• Say if you were referred by a current/former student, saw them give a talk or have read their research.
• Explain why you are interested in working with them (and ideally how their recent research connects to your topic).
• Offer to schedule a call if the supervisor wants to discuss things further (or ask if they’re open to a call if you want to meet with them). Use a tool such as Calendly to make scheduling easier.

If you don’t hear back

We suggest sending a check-in email 1-2 weeks later, and then it’s best to move on. Not hearing back doesn’t mean you got anything wrong – academics usually get more emails than they can keep on top of.

Meeting potential supervisors

If you arrange a meeting with a potential supervisor, you could ask them if they want to see your research proposal (if relevant) prior to the meeting (this will also give you the chance to ask for feedback during the meeting).

Potentially useful topics to discuss include:

• how much contact they have with students they supervise.
• how much collaboration occurs between their supervisees.
• what they expect from the students they supervise (e.g. is there a certain number of papers students need to publish? What work hours do they expect?).
• the extent to which they let students choose topics themselves.
• what characteristics they consider important in supervisees.
• your knowledge of your own working style and goals, and whether they feel you would be a good fit for each other.
• what topics they would be most excited to have a PhD working on, to give you the opportunity to better tailor your formal application to these interests if they overlap with yours.
• whether they have suggestions of things you should do to supplement your PhD or whether there are professional development opportunities they encourage.
• whether they have feedback on your proposal, if they saw this before meeting.
• whether having a secondary/external supervisor is something they would potentially be supportive of, if secondary supervision is something you think you will need.
• if there might be funding available from them, or whether you will need to seek external funding (and any sources they recommend).
• whether they’re intending to stay at the university for several years (e.g. whether they have a sabbatical planned) and what would happen if they moved institutions during your PhD.
• whether they can connect you with some of their current PhD students.
• whether there is a project you could work on with them as a way of testing fit. This can provide particularly strong evidence of your ability, as it enables the supervisor to observe your work directly, and it gives you additional opportunities to learn more about whether the supervisor and broader environment would be a good fit for you.

Experiences of other students

If you’re seriously considering a particular supervisor/lab, we suggest contacting some current or former students to ask them about their experiences (you might find students’ names on the lab’s, department’s or supervisor’s webpage). Although meeting with supervisors can be very useful, we suggest giving more weight to students’ experiences of what it is like to be a researcher in the lab or to be supervised by the academic you are considering.

Potentially useful topics include:

• the supervisor’s interpersonal style.
• how available the supervisor is and what kind of support they offer.
• the work culture (e.g. how collaborative it is).
• how much autonomy students have in deciding what to work on.
• expectations of students, for example regarding work hours.

Finding a secondary supervisor

Much of the advice above will be applicable to a search for either a primary or secondary supervisor. If you find a researcher who seems like a great fit as your supervisor but can’t be a primary supervisor, take note – they may be willing to be a secondary supervisor if you need one, or collaborate with you at some stage of your PhD.

If you feel support from a secondary supervisor is necessary, discuss this with your primary supervisor first, to check they are supportive in principle.

Finding a secondary supervisor can be particularly helpful if:

• there’s some aspect of your topic or approach with which your supervisor or research group isn’t very familiar or aligned (which is more likely if you’re working on a topic that is relatively neglected).
• you intend to work on an interdisciplinary topic and having a secondary supervisor from a different disciplinary background would be useful.

Some suggestions for finding secondary supervision or mentorship are:

• applying for our coaching , so we can connect you with relevant researchers.
• reaching out to academics in our list of potential supervisors .

Finding further advice

We think it’s valuable to seek out additional advice tailored to your situation (e.g. that’s specific to your location, discipline and the research direction you’re interested in).

Here are a few ways to get further advice:

• Apply to our coaching and we’ll help you reflect on your plans and connect you with experienced researchers who can advise you further.
• Apply to our online community of students. We can also introduce you to students we think you’re particularly likely to find helpful to talk to.
• Email people who are where you would like to be in a few years in their careers, and ask if they are willing to talk to you. We think most people don’t reach out to others enough for this kind of advice, but many people are happy to share their experiences. Check out this Clearer Thinking podcast episode for a brief discussion of how to increase the value of these conversations.

Good luck with your search! 

We’d like to hear more about people’s experiences and tips for finding and working with supervisors (and academics’ experiences of supervising students!). If you want to suggest changes or additions to this advice, please reach out to us . Thanks!

Read next: Tips for writing a successful PhD application →

Subscribe to the Topic Discovery Digest

Subscribe to our Topic Discovery Digest to find thesis topics, tools and resources that can help you significantly improve the world.

Apply for coaching

Want to work on one of the research directions we recommend? Apply for coaching to receive personalised guidance.

Tips for writing a successful PhD application

Applying for a PhD program? Here is our advice on putting together a great application. 

Sign up to access our database of potential supervisors

Sign up for access to our database of potential supervisors who work on the research directions we recommend.

Funding database

Find funding for your PhD on one of our recommended research directions.

Effective Thesis

Privacy policy

Stay in touch

Are you interested in applying for coaching or to our other services in future? Stay in touch and get our quarterly updates by signing up to our newsletter!

Find a Doctoral Supervisor

• Research with us

Postgraduate Research

• Latest PhDs and Research Studentships
• How to apply
• Find a PhD Supervisor
• What to expect from your PhD
• Application Deadlines
• How to write your research degree proposal
• Applications Demystified
• Postgraduate Research Fees and Funding
• Partnerships in Doctoral Training
• Professional Doctorates
• Postgraduate Research Themes
• Postgraduate Qualifications Explained
• UEA Doctoral College

Meet our Research Students

• New Students FAQs
• Make an enquiry
• How to Apply

Whether you’re applying for an advertised research-led PhD project or submitting your own research proposal in your area of interest, here are 5 key points to consider as you search for the right research degree supervisor.

Postgraduate Research degrees are a highly competitive landscape, and you’ll need to be ready to take on the challenge. 

To pursue your passion and make a truly original contribution to knowledge in a particular area of study, you’ll need a supervisor to match your ambition. But how do you find the perfect supervisor for your research? We’ve covered some of the key considerations here:

1. The strength lies in the common ground

The key is to find a supervisor through the area of research or issue you’re most interested in. By shaping your selection around the topic you love, you will focus on a smaller number of relevant supervisors, and you can start looking closer at their research interests. If you’re interested in what they do, there’s a good chance you’ll be able to talk with them about this at length, and hence build a great rapport. You might find that your chosen shortlist of supervisors are already offering  funded PhD studentships  that directly fit your research interests and which you can apply directly to, or if there isn’t already an advertised project in your area of interest you can apply with a research proposal you have written yourself aligned with our  Research Themes .

2. Choose a supervisor that excites you

A real passion and belief in your work is one of the main drivers you’ll need to successfully see you through your research. But it’s not a lone journey, and you’ll want to find someone you find stimulating as part of your supervisory team. At the end of the day, you want a supervisor with whom you can discuss ideas, explore new avenues, and have a strong productive debate. The individual you choose will - if you’re successful - be there to lean on for support when things aren’t going well, but also there to challenge you when you get over-confident. A research supervisor is a pivotal figure to have in your life as you enter this chapter, so making sure you’re excited by them as an expert in their research field and a mentor is key.

If it is feasible, whilst you’re scoping out potential supervisors, try to meet them - either in-person or via video call. This way you can gain a sense of how well you’ll get on, and what affinity there is between you. Likewise, see if you can meet some of their current postgraduate researchers, as you’ll gain different perspectives and experiences that will help you make your final decision.

3. Figure out what it is you need — experience or time?

Some of the most eminent senior academics may have the prestigious expertise and the network to influence your research, but they might not have the time to get involved to the extent you’d like. More recently appointed academic supervisors, however, might not have extensive PhD supervision experience but will have more time to work with you on your chosen research topic. 

When seeking a supervisor, try to gauge how many PhD studentships they’re supervising, who else might be part of your supervisory team, as well as what research they themselves are leading; this will give you a clearer view of their prospective commitment to your own research project. Both your own and your supervisor’s organisational skills are key, you’ll both need clarity of each other’s expectations, agreed progression timelines, and contact hours for feedback and advice.

4. Think about the research network

Institutions including UEA are seeing more and more multidisciplinary projects across Postgraduate Research areas. Depending on your research area you could be working with different groups at different times throughout your PhD. Research your supervisor’s network to find out how well connected they are, and look for evidence of their current research activity, recent publications, and citations. 

As you move through your degree, you’ll gain further perspectives, many of which may complement the work of others in your research network. It may seem early to do so, but when you’re choosing your supervisor, think about what you can contribute that others might not be able to. After all, your research proposal and the application process will be unique to you as an individual.

5. Recognise that things will fluctuate

At the heart of postgraduate research is a willingness to work autonomously, and to trust in your own approach to your work. Your supervisor will be there to help you find your feet, and to support you as and when you need it, but it’s important you don’t rely wholly on their expertise. 

As you progress your PhD, you should reach a point where you know more than your supervisor about certain specific aspects of your research, so anticipate this when you’re finding the right person. You’ll need an individual who can give you the grounding you need, but who will also encourage you to surpass any limitations and excel on your own.

On a similar note, there’s likely never been a postgraduate who has seen eye-to-eye with their supervisor at every point of their study. As you grow into your research, you’ll develop a more equal relationship, in which critique and collaboration interplay to great effect. This is all part of the excitement of the research process!

Ready to Apply?

UEA offers a wide range of postgraduate research opportunities. Search all current  PhDs and Research Studentships , or take a look at the full list of  Research Themes  where UEA specialises and submit your own research proposal. For further information on what to consider in the application process,  access our guide  and take the first step to achieving something incredible. Our  Postgraduate Research team  can also help with any queries you may have.

Get in touch

Words of wisdom

“…It is important to highlight that the supervisor-supervisee relationship that develops as the project progresses, is equally significant for the successful completion of the project.”  Kodili Chukwuma, PhD in Politics   “…Choose an area of research that would combine your passion in the area with practicality, and look out for research staff members whose research interests are similar to yours. They will have a plethora of experience in your chosen field and will share their knowledge with you.” Natalia Balashova, PhD in Catchment Science and Environmental Hydrology   “…Identify the right person, the person you think is going to understand best your subject because of their publishing record, and then meet them, make sure you get along - this is really important!” Hippolyta Paulusma, PhD in English

• Schools & departments

How to find a research supervisor

Check that the University can provide a suitable supervisor to support you while you undertake your research.

We recommend that you get in touch informally with your prospective supervisor or, more generally, the relevant school, before you submit a formal application.

Some schools may ask that you submit a research proposal before you formally apply, but others prefer you to submit a formal application at first – you should check the information provided by the school or research institute offering the programme you are interested to find out how they would prefer you to contact them in the first instance.

Research supervisors are either staff members of the University, or based in one of the research units or institutions associated with the University.

Supervisors are in high demand and may not be able to respond to your enquiry immediately, so please be patient. Some may already be supervising the maximum number of PhD students they can, and won’t be able to take on any new students.

To find a potential supervisor:

Find the school or research institute that is most relevant to your area of interest. If your proposed research is interdisciplinary, you may need to look at more than one school  -  List of our schools and departments  

• Browse through the staff profiles on the school or institute website     
• Check the procedure for contacting the potential supervisor with your initial enquiry or research proposal    
• Check the availability of facilities and resources necessary for your research    
• If you can’t find this information, or if you have further questions, you should contact the school's administrator

Multidisciplinary research

We welcome applications from students with interdisciplinary research interests.

You should contact supervisors in the areas you would like to research. You can discuss the possibility of being supervised collaboratively by people in different academic units.

The University of Edinburgh hosts a number of Global Academies, which facilitate interdisciplinary research across the world.

Global Academies

Research proposals

You will almost certainly need to write a research proposal in order to apply for your PhD.

Talk to your supervisor about whether you need to do this. You should also check the degree finder to see if you are expected to include anything specific in your proposal.

Our guide to writing a research proposal will take you through the process step-by-step:

How to write a research proposal

• What You Should Expect from Your PhD Supervisor
• Doing a PhD

A good supervisor will act as your mentor. They will not only help you progress through each stage of a PhD program  but can also act as a source of information or someone to bounce ideas off. To get the most from your supervisor, it’s essential to first understand what their role and responsibilities are in relation to you and your PhD. This won’t only help you understand the different ways they can support you, but also enables you to define clear boundaries which will go a long way to ensuring an enjoyable and respected relationship between the two of you.

1. Expertise in Your Subject Area

You should expect your supervisor to be an expert in the subject you are focusing your PhD on. This is crucial as your supervisor will act as your primary means of support during your PhD. Therefore, the effectiveness of his or her support directly corresponds to their knowledge of your chosen subject, which could be the difference to your PhD succeeding or not.

In addition to this, a supervisor who is an expert in your chosen field could save you from unnecessarily adding a year or more to the duration of your PhD. This is because, as an expert, they will already possess an in-depth understanding of what can and cannot be achieved in the field and have an appreciation as to what would and what wouldn’t help your research stand out. This trait will help them keep you on track, which helps ensure your time is being used most effectively.

Ideally, your supervisor should have experience in supervising PhD students. Although you could theoretically tackle your PhD alone, there are many areas applicable to all PhDs, such as literature reviews, methodologies, experiments, thesis, and dissertations, that an experienced supervisor can guide you on.

2. Regular Supervisory Meetings

As good as your supervisor may be, their ability to support you only comes into fruition if you interact with them. You will be expected to arrange regular meetings with your supervisor, and if necessary, other members of your PhD panel. This will allow you to report back on your latest progress, discuss any issue you’re facing, and review any plans to identify potential improvements, etc. Some supervisors will suggest meeting at regular intervals, i.e. every other week, some will suggest meeting on completing a milestone, i.e. completion of your first draft of the literature review, and others will suggest meeting specifically as and when you need their support. While none are notably better than the other, the key is to pick what works best for you and to ensure you’re meeting them frequently, even if that means having to combine two or all of the approaches.

It’s important to appreciate your supervisor is going to be busy. They are not only going to be supervising you, but they’ll likely be providing supervision to several other students, teach undergraduate classes and have their own research projects going on. However, if you can’t meet your supervisor as often as you would like because of this, your communication doesn’t need to suffer. Instead, make use of email . Not only will your supervisor appreciate this as it gives him time to respond on his own schedule, but you’ll likely get a more detailed response.

3. Feedback on Work in Progress

Another vital aspect to expect from your supervisor is to receive continuous feedback on your work. With your supervisor being an expert in their field, he should be able to review your work and identify any issues or areas for improvement. Gaining feedback on your work is critical through all stages of your PhD. Initially, feedback will be imperative to ensure you’re staying on track. Besides this, it gives your supervisor the opportunity to help set up aspects of your PhD in ways they’ve witnessed first-hand to be most effective, for example, by suggesting an alternative way to structure your literature review or record your research findings. During the ending stages of your PhD, your supervisor will play an essential role in supporting you in the production of your thesis or dissertation. The more you liaise with them during this process, the smoother the process will be.

4. Advice and Support

The advice and support that your supervisor can offer you throughout your degree will be invaluable. As an old saying goes, you can never be distracted if you get the right advice from the right person, which in this case will be your supervisor. As well as providing technical support, many supervisors will also look to provide emotional support through words of encouragement when the moment warrants it. Having once undertaken the journey themselves, they fully appreciate how challenging and stressful the journey can be.

It’s important to note that although your supervisor is there to provide support, they are not there to help with the minor details or every problem you may encounter. The role of the supervisor is to mentor, not to teach, or do it for you. It will be your responsibility to plan, execute and monitor your own work and to identify gaps in your own knowledge and address them. Your supervisor may help by recommending literature to read or suggesting external training courses, however, you should expect nothing more intrusive than this.

5. Mediation and Representation

All universities and departments will have their own rules and regulations. As a professional academic student, you will have to adhere to these rules. These rules are unlikely to be limited to behaviour only with several rules influencing your work as a PhD student. These rules may relate to how you are expected to submit documentation or to the experiments that require special permission before being conducted within their labs. If you have any queries about any rule or regulation, your first point of contact should be your supervisor.

Before starting a PhD, it’s reasonable to have many expectations in mind. However, of all expectations, the one of your supervisors is likely to be the most important. Your supervisor will act as the backbone of your research project and should provide you with continuous support throughout each stage of your degree. A great supervisor may not only be the difference between a smooth and turbulent process, but sometimes may also be the difference between a successful and unsuccessful PhD.

Browse PhDs Now

Join thousands of students.

Join thousands of other students and stay up to date with the latest PhD programmes, funding opportunities and advice.

• Postgraduate
• PhD and Professional Doctorates
• How to apply

Find a PhD supervisor

Enlisting the support of a PhD supervisor is an important part of your research journey. Discover how to choose the right mentor for your work and how to make initial contact.

Choosing a supervisor

A PhD supervisor plays a vital part in your research. They will be your mentor and help to guide your research, providing feedback and advice. They will also help to ensure your project progresses on time and complies with University policies.

If you’re proposing your own PhD project, you’ll need to find a supervisor with expertise in your area, which you can identify by:

• searching publications and articles relevant to your field for the most cited researchers
• looking for published researchers in your field with a similar methodology to your own
• reading recently submitted PhD dissertations in your area and noting the supervisors
• approaching lecturers in relevant departments and asking for recommendations.

When to contact potential supervisors

When you’ve decided on your research topic, you’ll need to find a PhD supervisor to support and guide your research. Our advertised projects will list the supervisors, but if you are submitting your own proposal, you'll need to identify a suitable supervisor too.

In either case, we recommend discussing your ideas with the supervisory team before submitting your application. Find out on this page what your PhD supervisor will do and how to make initial contact.

How to contact potential supervisors

The best way to make initial contact with a potential supervisor is by email. Academics are often very busy, so it is important that your message is tailored, clear and concise. You should:

• include a clear subject line summarising your intent
• explain your interest in the project under the academic’s supervision
• show your familiarity with the academic’s work
• outline details of funding / location and study mode if relevant.

Research your options

At NTU, you can apply for an advertised PhD project, where the supervisory team has already been identified. We also accept proposals for your own PhD project. For the best chance of success, your proposal should align with our research centres.

Browse our centres and the research staff listed within them to identify a potential supervisor, or search our staff directory below.

Director of Doctoral Programmes

Each of our Academic Schools have a Director of Doctoral Programmes (DDP), responsible for the leadership, development and management of research degrees within that subject area. Please contact the relevant DDP with any general research queries, or for information about At-distance PhD opportunities.

Richard Yarnell

Associate professor, school of animal rural & environmental sciences, senior lecturer, school of architecture design and the built environment, nottingham school of art & design, gill allwood, school of arts & humanities, dr. ishan jalan, director of doctoral programmes, nottingham business school, helen o'nions, nottingham law school, cleveland barnett, school of science & technology, school of social sciences, decide on your topic and apply, phd opportunities.

Discover our PhD opportunities that drive innovation and delivers real-world impact. Browse our PhD projects, or submit your own proposal.

How to write a research proposal

Your research proposal is the most important part of your doctoral application. Get our advice on how to write yours.

How to apply for a PhD

Everything you need to know about applying to study at the NTU Doctoral School.

• Share on twitter
• Share on facebook

How to be a PhD supervisor

The relationship between phd students and their supervisors is often said to be the most intense in the academy, with huge implications for student success. yet most supervisors receive little if any training. here, six academics give their take on how to approach it .

• Share on linkedin
• Share on mail

The anomaly of academics receiving years of training in research but none in teaching is often remarked upon. But, equally notoriously, what that research training amounts to very much depends on the individual supervisor. After all, academics are not trained in research supervision either, and both supervisors and supervisees have their own set of expectations, needs and aptitudes.

How much and what variety of direction is appropriate? And to what end? Is the PhD still best conceived exclusively as an apprenticeship for would-be academics, even though many doctoral graduates end up – willingly or otherwise – in other walks of life? Indeed, is it realistic to expect all PhD students to be proficient in independent research at the end of the process? And what to do with those who are not? Is it the supervisor’s task to make sure they drop out early? Must supervisors always be optimistic and encouraging, offering whatever level of micromanagement is necessary to get the student through?

Here, six academics give their own takes on where the lines should be drawn in the doctoral quicksand.

  ‘A PhD is about becoming an independent researcher’

If a final-year PhD researcher isn’t regularly telling me that I’m wrong, I worry; something has gone badly awry. They should argue that there’s no way my latest hare-brained experimental design could ever work, that my interpretation of the data can’t possibly be correct because it doesn’t take very basic physics into account, and that the paper published months ago by Professor W. Leader’s group at Prestige University described exactly the type of measurement I suggested in our most recent meeting. Why the heck wasn’t I aware of this? Don’t I read the literature? (They get extra credit for peppering their arguments with suitably chosen expletives.)

Demonstrating that level of project “ownership” is essential because otherwise I feel that I’ve failed in my supervision, not least because my university’s criteria for awarding a PhD – in line with those of every other university out there – stipulate that the candidate must have developed “the general ability to conceptualise, design and implement a project for the generation of new knowledge, applications or understanding at the forefront of the discipline, and to adjust the project design in the light of unforeseen problems”.

They must also demonstrate “a systematic acquisition and understanding of a substantial body of knowledge which is at the forefront of an academic discipline or area of professional practice”. I’ve never been able to square the rather perverse circle of requiring a student to be at the forefront of an academic discipline; someone whose doctoral work is, by definition, at the forefront of a discipline is most definitely not a student; they’re an expert defining the direction of their particular sub-field (or, as is more usual, their sub-sub-sub-sub-field). Still, it is clear that they should at least be in a position to swear with conviction at someone who is at the forefront of the discipline.

So I’m firmly of the opinion that we should ditch the term “PhD student” and instead use the rather more accurate “PhD researcher”. I am not alone in this. Jeff Ollerton, professor of biodiversity at the University of Northampton , has been making compelling arguments against the use of the term “PhD student” for quite some time. Retiring the “student” label would help drive a culture change that not only better recognised the core contributions made by PhD candidates to the research “ecosystem” (including those many first-authored papers submitted to the research excellence framework) but could also help improve their status in the eyes of that – hopefully dying – breed of PI who see early career researchers as the hired help, rather than the peers they should be. I was very fortunate to have a PhD supervisor with whom I genuinely collaborated; ideas were debated, discussed and dissected and I was never made to feel that I should “know my place”. I’ve since learned that this is not always the norm.  

Of course, not all PhD researchers are created equal; I am not so naive as to imagine that every doctoral candidate in every lab or library is capable of generating “a substantial body of knowledge at the forefront of an academic discipline”. But isn’t it then about time that we came clean about this? And wouldn’t phasing out the “PhD student” term help send a strong message to those who are considering taking on the formidable challenge of a doctoral programme?

A PhD is about becoming an independent researcher. The process is a universe away from the exam-and-coursework cycle that drives the vast majority of undergraduate degrees. There’s no curriculum and no textbook that map out a PhD from start to finish; no neatly annotated problems whose solutions are helpfully given in the back of the book. PhD researchers in effect write the textbook for the next generation of undergrads – what else do we mean when we say a doctoral thesis should be about expanding the body of knowledge in a particular field?    

In physics, we’ve become rather more open with PhD applicants in recent years about their chances of ultimately securing an academic position, should that be their goal. Let’s go one step further and be entirely upfront about the level of independence and self-direction involved in a PhD.

I’ve already followed Ollerton’s example and stopped referring to doctoral candidates as students. Why not join us? I suspect that your PhD researchers will appreciate the change.

Philip Moriarty is professor of physics at the University of Nottingham .

‘Being a decent supervisor means being a decent human being’

My PhD supervisor taught me a valuable lesson about good supervision: it involves far more than teaching a doctoral student how to be a good writer and researcher. It is about believing in students’ academic potential, fostering their confidence and supporting them on whichever of life’s pathways they choose to take.

From the outset of my own PhD, I got a strong sense from my supervisor that he had faith in my abilities as an academic – he wanted me to succeed, and he never stopped telling me that he believed I could succeed. He was therefore committed to helping me develop the skills I would need when it came to navigating the postdoctoral job search. He advised me to do some tutoring early on, so that I could learn more about the art of teaching. He alerted me to job opportunities and gave some invaluable advice about performing well at interviews. He encouraged me to spend a semester at an overseas institution, which proved particularly fruitful, allowing me to develop my confidence on both personal and academic levels. Lastly, he instilled in me a passion for networking and collaboration, both of which have proved invaluable throughout my academic career.

Over the past few years, as I have taken up the mantle of PhD supervision, the lessons I learned from my supervisor have stayed with me. As well as guiding my students’ research and writing, I always take time to share some of the transferable skills that I acquired. I encourage them to participate in projects that will build their self-confidence as academics and in the wider world. I nudge them to present regularly at key conferences and have invited some to collaborate in writing projects with me. I seek opportunities for them to network with other academics in their field, or apply for a tutoring job, or gain experience and confidence in talking about their research. Following the example of my own supervisor, I want my students to know that I will do my best to nurture their abilities and support their endeavours as much as I can.

Nevertheless, good supervision is not solely focused on students’ future job prospects. Being a decent supervisor means being a decent human being, and showing students your respect and support. I always recall that, just before I began my PhD, my supervisor offered to assist me with my doctoral funding application; he knew I needed the funding and he wanted me to succeed. Despite being already overstretched with other academic commitments, he took time to look through my application with me, using his own rich experience to highlight its weaknesses and strengths. And throughout my studies, he supported me quietly as I went through the personal traumas of a family bereavement and a relationship break-up.

This basic sense of kindness is wrought from an acknowledgement that our PhD students are human beings, just like us. They look to us as role models – both academic and otherwise – and it is our responsibility to show them that we are good academics and good people. Hopefully, they will carry on this tradition if, in later years, they become supervisors themselves.

Kindness is something I place at the forefront of the relationships I share with all my students, and, honestly, it’s not that hard. Words of encouragement during moments of self-doubt, a listening ear when life’s stresses get in the way, a shared coffee or lunch when money is tight – small gestures that, as I recall myself, can go a long way in making the PhD journey that little bit easier.

Caroline Blyth is a senior lecturer in theological and religious studies at the University of Auckland .

‘Providing structure is hugely beneficial to both the student and the supervisor’

Some of life’s most important roles come with no training – you have to learn everything on the job. Being a parent is one of those, and being a PhD supervisor is another. The similarity between these undertakings probably extends even further – to me, being a PhD supervisor means having the opportunity to nurture a young researcher, and to provide them with a strong and secure foundation on which they can establish a career.

This involves figuring out how best to support and encourage them, while also establishing strong expectations and boundaries. It means being present and available to provide input and feedback, while at the same time fostering confidence, independence and a sense of responsibility for their own future. It means being a role model, and inculcating skills and values (such as academic integrity) that will serve them throughout their career, whether that is in academia or beyond. It also means supporting them through the inevitable hard times, and revelling in their successes. In other words – it’s a pretty hefty responsibility, and often a difficult and stressful one.

I have a rather unconventional supervision history – my first faculty position did not permit PhD student supervision – so the bulk of my experience comes from more informal supervisory relationships with people from a variety of backgrounds, from recent bachelor’s graduates, to postdoctoral fellows, to more senior researchers. But these experiences, together with my memories of my time as a student and my growing experience as an undergraduate, MSc and PhD supervisor, have taught me some important lessons.

Among the most significant is the importance of structure: setting clear and explicit expectations, including deadlines and milestones (such as submission of papers for peer review), backed up by regular meetings with a specific agenda, action items and student follow-up. Providing such structure can be a lot of work, but it is hugely beneficial to both the student and the supervisor.

For students who are making the transition from the undergraduate or taught MSc setting, one of the most challenging features of the research PhD is often the lack of deadlines and the feeling of achievement that comes with meeting them, as well as the benchmarking that feedback on assignments or exams provides. Easing that transition allows the student to gain a sense of achievement and awareness of areas of growth and weakness, but it also alerts the supervisor to any signs of difficulties that might stand in the way of completion, such as mental health difficulties that may need support and a potential revision of the PhD plan and timeline. It can also provide a clear basis for communicating with a student that things are not progressing as they should, and that completion may not be a realistic goal at all.

All that said, I have to acknowledge that I often find it difficult to follow my own advice. Academic time goes by at warp speed, and sometimes attempts at structure just fall by the wayside. I also think that the onus for managing the relationship should not fall on the supervisor alone: students must also take responsibility for their own progression.

Figuring out these roles and responsibilities can be one of the most challenging aspects of being a PhD supervisor, and seeking out formal training in good management skills (now offered by many universities) can be immensely beneficial. But, ultimately, the nature of the PhD structure is necessarily dictated on a case-by-case basis by both the supervisor’s and the student’s personalities and working styles. For some students, a “micromanagement” style may prove necessary, while for others, a lighter touch will be more effective. I naturally shy away from the former and find it difficult to implement.

No doubt many academics – who, by definition, were proficient at working semi-independently during their own doctorates – feel the same. But if we have admitted a student to a doctoral programme, we have to accept that it is incumbent on us to give them the help they need to succeed.

Sometimes, of course, a gap will remain between expectations and student progress. In such cases, structures for performance tracking and feedback can help supervisors to determine whether or not the completion of the PhD is within reach. Given the recessive job climate in academia, stepping off the PhD track can often be a sensible option, and should be thought of as goal adjustment, not defeat.

Clare Kelly is Ussher assistant professor of functional neuroimaging at Trinity College Dublin and adjunct assistant professor of child and adolescent psychiatry at New York University .

‘We can augment research skills with practical talents that build resilience and hone interpersonal intelligence’

PhD dropout numbers are approaching 50 per cent for many scientific disciplines in the US. That is because – speaking exclusively of scientific training – the truth is that not every doctoral student is cut out for independent research. In light of that, we should reconsider the true importance of possessing a doctorate.

After all, independent research is not the only walk of life in which the deep subject expertise and critical thinking skills acquired during doctoral study have enormous value. The years spent learning complex material, performing experiments and analysing data are immensely beneficial to anyone capable of doing these things. And sharing that information is necessary for the rest of society, too.

We need credentialed experts in every field, spread broadly, to enrich the lives of others who may not be so fortunate to have such opportunities. This is especially essential today, when misinformation is more believable than fact, and people confuse opinion with scholarship. Ideally, experts of every discipline should be embedded at all levels of the community, from teachers to church leaders, from small business owners to corporate leaders, to connect people to wisdom.

Perhaps the first step towards achieving this goal would be to remove the term “non-traditional career” from the academic advising vocabulary – even while keeping it very much inclusive of the production of PIs. We are living in a time of immense innovation, so fresh thoughts about employment trajectories should be equally novel. A student who ends up working outside academia should not be regarded by their supervisor as a failed self-cloning experiment. A PhD teaches students how to think, but we can broaden the scope of our mentoring to augment research skills with practical talents that build resilience and hone the interpersonal intelligence that is valuable in a wide range of careers.

In many US universities, students intent on entering the research phase of their doctorates have first to pass a two-day written and a one-day oral candidacy exam, so we already have sufficient preliminary evidence of their subject content mastery. When their suitability to be an independent researcher is in doubt, I try to direct my own students into jobs that may better suit their skills within academia. One example is student instruction; I offer teaching opportunities in my undergraduate courses in the form of 1–2 credit hours of independent study. This allows the doctoral students to prepare a topic, present it and create test questions, as well as to host and moderate the associated discussions on the electronic learning platform. The postgraduates are often surprised at how difficult and time-consuming this is.

For instance, pharmacology or biochemistry students with talents that may be more suited to the biomedical industry could be partnered with industry experts in their field who offer internships beyond the bench, to see how they fit in a non-academic environment. Many academic scientists have their own ties to industry, so it is not too much of a stretch to imagine that this could be arranged for the few students a year – perhaps as early as the second year of graduate school, before the research phase begins.

Some will say that PIs are not in a good position to prepare people for careers with which they themselves have no personal familiarity. But we were trained to develop young scientists and to get them to their destination. Whether that destination mirrors our own should be irrelevant.

Jennifer Schnellmann is associate professor of pharmacology at the  University of Arizona .

‘Students need to bring their interests into conversation with the discipline as a whole’

I’ve always conceived higher education to be a process of negotiation between the consumption and the production of knowledge. Students who are capable consumers of knowledge – usually those who do well in examinations – do not necessarily become equally capable producers of knowledge: that is, researchers. The reverse is also true.

Production of knowledge should start early, ideally in the form of undergraduate research papers. But, of course, it comes much more strongly into focus during the doctorate. There are debates about whether the dissertation is the last work of the research trainee or the first utterance of the professional. Perhaps it is a bit of both, but the proportions typically vary according to whether the student is working in the humanities or the natural sciences.

Research in the humanities is, for the most part, done by individuals, while scientific research is more of a group activity, led by a principal investigator. What this means is that anyone who has completed a doctorate in the humanities – my field – is, by definition, capable of independent research – unless the degree has been obtained by unfair means! Advisers share their expertise in the larger subfield, but the dissertation project itself is very much the student’s own.

I’ve known advisers who recommend that their students do not publish before completing their degree; and I’ve known advisers who encourage students to publish, present and network as much as possible even before the dissertation is completed. The conflict is between an approach that sees a doctorate as a complete, disinterested immersion in scholarship versus one that conceives it as professionalisation – which includes socialisation into the institutional lives of a given discipline, as well as more material functions such as seeking jobs, grants and fellowships. Scholarship and professionalisation are related and mutually reinforcing, of course, yet they are not the same and some people are better at one than the other.

My recommendation to my advisees is that they pursue a middle course. The origin of their scholarship, I tell them, should be something that sparks their passion, but once the fire is started, they need to bring their interests into conversation with the discipline as a whole. So, yes, they should use publication to enter into the conversation, but they should guard against letting professionalisation take over the independence and integrity of their intellectual lives. Dissertations should not be shaped in response to the jobs market. But once they have their scholarly trajectory in place, they should identify how it addresses needs and gaps in the discipline as practised today.

One of the big debates in my field, literary studies, is the book versus dissertation question. Should a doctoral student concentrate on fulfilling the traditional expectations of the very small group of people who will ever pay their dissertation any attention, adorning it with copious footnotes and a lengthy literature review that even the examiners won’t read? Or should they write with the wider book audience in mind right from the beginning?

My personal recommendation is to try to write the book. “Try” is the operative word: it is not easy to write something that coheres and reads like a book, especially for the first-time writer, yet aiming to do so will still lead to a radically more readable style. And this is important in the humanities, where the product and the process are not easily separable. It is probably OK for an article describing a new drug to be written in a dull or inaccessible style. But in literature, scholarship must also bring pleasure, even to academic readers.

In any case, students will be revising their dissertations for publication soon enough. Why waste huge chunks of time during their postdoctoral fellowship or first tenure-track job doing so? Much better to cut out the flab from the very outset.

Saikat Majumdar is professor of English and creative writing at  Ashoka University . He is the author, most recently, of  College: Pathways of Possibility  (Bloomsbury India, 2018).

‘The paltry credit offered in the US system disincentivises true mentorship’

Over the past half-decade I have directed well over a dozen graduate projects, and I believe more than ever that the effectiveness of the process should be replicated across the curriculum.

Working one-to-one with a senior scholar expert in the field is a unique boon for student persistence and engagement. To the extent that a thesis, dissertation or other extended research project effectively reduces the corporate scale and increasingly impersonal feel of higher education, it is a process worth celebrating. Because it is also labour-intensive, time-inefficient and messy, it offers an antidote to the brand of assembly-line education preferred by degree mills.

The thesis and dissertation serve as invaluable reminders that student engagement in the 21st century, regardless of level, has everything to do with helping scholars find authorship and agency. When students propose their topic, research it and ultimately defend it, they are more likely to experience the kind of ownership that produces the best, most accountable scholarship. Even removed from faculty guidance, extended independent research projects are valuable for the self-directed, iterative learning processes they cultivate.

However, the idea that a doctoral or master’s candidate could derive significant value from the dissertation or thesis even without faculty supervision raises the question of how meaningful, in practice, the role of director is. For example, graduate students often enrol in thesis or dissertation hours equivalent to a full-credit course, then re-enrol in those hours to work on their credit-bearing project for a second semester. However, if contact hours with supervising faculty members are minimal, as they often are, can we consider those credit hours well earned? The integrity of the thesis and dissertation process depends in large part on the activeness and availability of the director; if that director only meets in-person with their advisee once or twice a semester and again at the defence, have they not become mostly ceremonial figures, there to cement the illusion of academic legitimacy?

It isn’t that thesis advisers and dissertation directors are lazy, but that the paltry credit offered for their labours in the US system disincentivises true mentorship. While a graduate student may earn the equivalent of two full classes’ worth of credit for two semesters of thesis or dissertation work, the faculty member who signs on as director does well to earn a quarter of the credits they would otherwise earn teaching in the classroom.

Provosts may argue that because the thesis and the dissertation qualify as independent research, any credits awarded supervising faculty should reflect that supporting (read: secondary) role. Such logic works in cases where the graduate student is self-motivated and intellectually prepared, but it fails spectacularly in instances where the degree candidate needs significant retraining or academic acculturation.

The thesis or dissertation process works best with fully engaged supervisory faculty properly credited for their work. It is vital that director and degree candidate be realistic about what may be achieved in a given period of time. In my view, both grad students and their supervising faculty members are better served by shorter theses and dissertations, where greater focus and depth make for a truer simulacrum of life. PhD candidates will need to add chapters at a later date to merit publication by a scholarly or university press in any event, and the intervening years between the completion of the thesis or dissertation and its ultimate book publication serve to age the scholar and their scholarship. With candidates for advanced degrees getting younger, the postdoctoral years become more conducive to the maturative process that ripens the writer and refines the research.

For my money, the thesis or dissertation is best regarded not merely as pre-professorial training but as the beginning of collaborative intellectual enquiry designed to last a lifetime.

Zachary Michael Jack is associate professor of English at North Central College in Naperville, Illinois.

Register to continue

Why register?

• Registration is free and only takes a moment
• Once registered, you can read 3 articles a month
• Sign up for our newsletter

Or subscribe for unlimited access to:

• Unlimited access to news, views, insights & reviews
• Digital editions
• Digital access to THE’s university and college rankings analysis

Already registered or a current subscriber? Login

Related articles

Social science impact demands faster publishing and more reproducibility

Timeliness and rigour are vital, but the publishing and incentives systems are not set up to deliver them, says Meron Wondemaghen

Beware the public backlash from ‘science triumphalism’

A radical new manifesto for science communication is warning about the dangers of making arrogant claims that academic knowledge can explain the mysteries of the universe. Matthew Reisz meets its authors

Universities tear up academic calendars to offer flexible study

Changing term dates leaves staff fearing extra workload pressures and encroachments on research time and summer breaks