All PGR students undergo regular progress reviews. For PhD students these take place at 4 months, 1 year, and annually thereafter (interim reviews are held for part-time students). For MSc (Res) students, there is only 1 progress review at 5 months.
Each student is assigned a progress review committee which consists of two members of academic staff. One member fulfils the role of the convenor, and is normally in a similar research area and goes on to become the internal examiner of your thesis. The other member does not need to be in the same research area but will bring relevant academic experience and expertise and also acts as a mentor for you.
The purpose of the progress review is to determine whether a student is progressing satisfactorily in their studies and to give an opportunity for wider discussion on development and any concerns.
Before each review meeting a student fills in a self-assessment form on MMS and submits a piece of written work; the supervisory team also completes an assessment form on MMS. The committee will then read all 3 documents prior to the review and following the review meeting they submit a report and an outcome (categorised as either green, yellow, amber or red). DoPGR has access to all reports and outcome and will read and submit to the Provost’s Office.
In terms of process, the PGR Office will be in touch with a student, their supervisors and review committee members 6 weeks before the deadline for the review meeting. The student is responsible for liaising with the committee members to set a meeting date and must then inform the PGR Office. All documents must be submitted 1 week before the meeting to give the committee members time to read (PGR Office will prompt if they’re overdue). DoPGR will write to the student and supervisors following submission of the committee’s report. If the outcome is amber or red, a re-review will be required after a short time.
All details of the progress review can be found in the Education section of the University website.
Progress review schedule and what is required can be found here.
Additional progress review information for Wellcome Trust DTP students