Academic Services

Mentorship and well being

Remit and progress reports, including the postgraduate research peer support project for work stream two.

Remit

There is increasing awareness of the added benefit for doctoral students to have access to a mentor. It is less clear how this mentor function should operate. It appears that there are several different possible models, each with advantages and constraints. This work stream will conduct background work to identify existing good practice, benchmark and scope for several models. Related to this, wellbeing of researchers has recently come to the fore as a priority. The work stream will look at existing support for students and relevant policy to highlight ways to communicate this effectively to doctoral students and supervisors and to identify gaps. In doing so, it will take account of other relevant University activities, for example the launch of a new University mental health strategy.

Postgraduate research peer support project

From May to October 2018, Nathalie Vladis is employed by the Institute for Academic Development (IAD) on a joint project with the Students' Association to conduct work into peer support for postgraduate researchers. This involves building models for support, supporting small pilots and creating a toolkit.

Below is information on work to date:

For more information on this please contact nvladis@exseed.ed.ac.uk       

Progress reports

June 2018

Progress report to Researcher Experience Committee.

May 2017

Researcher Experience Committee REC paper 16/17 5B.

December 2017

Researcher Experience Committee REC Papers 17/18 2B and 2C.