Procrastinating a little, here :)

I was just wondering if there was any way to see things like PhD pass/fail rates broken down by university, and whether there was also a support body/union for research students? On talking to fellow research students within my own university, I'm struck by how the experience can differ from department to department. I'm also increasingly stunned by some of the horror stories regarding supervisors that I've read in here and heard from others.

A PhD is such a massive investment of time and money, I'm growing increasingly amazed that there is no official support body for students for when things go wrong, or to ensure that unis are keeping up their end of the bargain. Surely as post-grad fees become more important for universities they should be forced to release figures like these for comparison?

I don't know about other research councils, but AHRC publishes submission rate statistics for its award holders. These are spreadsheet lists, by institution, specifying what percentage of award holders had submitted within specific time frames.

See http://www.ahrc.ac.uk/FundedResearch/Pages/ResearchStatistics.aspx

There is no support body/union for research students in the UK. Individual student unions/associations at universities are supposed to take on this role, but at two universities (I started a PhD twice, completed the second time) I found them of little use, and out of touch with PG issues.

The fact that there is no support body is genuinely ridiculous. So much time, money and effort, and no protection of any kind? As you say, unions and associations tend not to have much to do with pg issues, and are really geared towards undergrads. I've heard from three people over the past couple of months tolerating situations which would have led to some sort of legal action in the workplace, yet they cannot do anything about it as post-grads due to the political climate within departments. Internal arrangements to deal with such matters are often a joke, too.

I cannot find details of fail rates either. The submission rates are interesting, the AHRC seems to acknowledge that the figures aren't what they would want - but how universities respond to their strictures on this can be somewhat alarming. I know one instance where an overdue AHRC-funded individual was ostracised, shamed and had resources withdrawn until they submitted.

======= Date Modified 05 Aug 2011 20:53:06 =======
I posted this lot on a related thread, so here goes again to save folks having to transfer threads..