Senate

Subject:          Direct Registration for PhD

Origin:            Dr Brigette Vale

Action Required: Senate is requested, on the recommendation of Research Committee, to approve a proposal to enable candidates for a research degree to register directly for the award of PhD, rather than register initially on an MPhil programme.


At its meeting on 10 June 2011, and at subsequent meetings, Research Committee has approved in principle the proposal to permit research students to be directly registered for a PhD programme, rather than initial registration for MPhil, where the candidate’s intended qualification outcome is PhD.

Under our current arrangements, unless research training has been completed by means of an acceptable Masters qualification, research students  initially register for an MPhil and upgrade to a PhD qualification following a successful review at the end of year 1 ( for full time students).

The review of current arrangements and the rationale for change was prompted by two issues.

The Planning Office raised the matter of HESA data informing statistical reporting externally, for example

‘The latest provisional data has been released to us by Thomson-Reuters for their world rankings, much of which has been sourced from HESA.  This has brought to light the issue of the course aim for research students.  As you will be aware it is the University’s practice to register new research students for MPhil before progression to PhD.  Thomson-Reuters in the league table ignore any Masters students (including research masters), focussing on undergraduate and doctorate intake and awards.  As a result the 2008-09 figures are showing an intake of 25 PGR students (mostly EngD students) when I believe this should be around 300.’

In this instance it was possible to correct the data prior to publication, but this will not always be the case for external users of HESA data.

The Academic Registrar has also reported that this issue had recently been raised at a meeting with 1994 Group Academic Registrars. A number of these had moved to initially registering candidates for PhD and subsequently amending registration to MPhil if appropriate. The motivation in this case was primarily to ease the situation with reporting to UKBA.

If we were to adopt direct registration for PhD for all intending doctoral students then the end of year 1 review process would become an opportunity to amend  registration to MPhil in cases of unsatisfactory performance.  Students would be given the opportunity to appeal, on procedural grounds, any decision to amend their registration to MPhil.

There would be a number of practical and technical benefits in ensuring that the registration of the student was more consistent with their qualification aim. It would be beneficial for the student to be registered from the outset on a programme of study which was consistent with the qualification aimed for. This would provide clarity for them and for their sponsoring body.

It would also facilitate improved records management procedures since it will become more straightforward to predict end dates for programmes.

An implementation date for the start of the 12/13 academic year is proposed, subject to the necessary IT systems development.

The necessary amendments to Regulation XXVI and to the Code of Practice on Research Degree Programmes will be brought forward for Senate’s consideration and approval subject to approval of this proposal.