This might be a big ask, but is anyone willing to share their end of second year progress report? I am so confused about what this should/could look like and would just find it helpful to see one.

Cheers
Tudor

what is the report exactly about?

Hi Tudor
I can only speak from my own experience at my university. They are looking for 3 things;

1) is your thesis project feasible? With the time and resources you have? Is it theoretical sound and is your proposed methology appropiate?

2) what have you done since they last saw you? Or if they have never seen you what have you done since starting. Things to mention are obviously any research achievements ..ie developed your programme of research/ lit review/any studies you have conducted. The research achievements are the most important. But other things you have done, like courses/stats or methodologies courses, even those that may be requirement. If you got good grades mention that.
And then of course if you have any research impact related things, they love to see that. ..so publications or conference presentations or talks...engaging with lay community activities
..so public talk ect are valued in my uni also.

3) the third thing they are looking for is your plan for the coming year. It should be feasible and realistic. And don't be afraid to be creative and ambitious...and mention all those international conferences you plan on attending...and top tier publications you are aiming for. Do make it realistic and it would be great if you do actually do what you say you will do...for your next progress review and also just in general for obvious reasons.

In my uni they make it fairly easy by giving us a form to fill out....with sections for achievements and conferences and publications. And a section for obstacles that may have delayed your progress and could serve as mitigating factors if your progress was a bit slow....if that's a factor I would mention these.

I will continue in next post due word limit

I think in absence of a form. I would sumbit two documents. The first sort of like a research proposal...with abstract/theoretical framework/ method sectons and timeline to completion...

Then I would subit a progress report....outlining what you have done. List conferences/presentstions/talks/courses taken./studies conducted

I would have section or seperate page with plan for coming year, again listing confetences/presentations/talks/publicat ions and also your timeline for conducting and completing your studies. They love gant charts (Google if u don't know what these are), so it would be great if you could include that.

Best of luck with it!

Newlease

Hi Tudor,

I think Newlease36 post gives a really structure for this. At my university, annual reports/reviews are also completed via an online template that turns into a downloadable report.

I can't access these currently because I am under examination. However, headings included practical things like:

@ progress (data collected, conferences attended or poster or papers delivered; draft chapters, etc);
@ finances (what money had been used from any research funds provided);
@ milestones achieved (ethics report approval; data collection stage over; draft of thesis)
@ Problems or concerns (lack of data; interview concerns; number of participants; ethical issues if any)
@ Supervision (what meetings/communications had taken place; any concerns or changes to supervision)

Once you had completed your online reporting under the headings, you were also invited to upload a written report that you might have written. This could include the content above and additional items that you wished to mention in a summary or similar. I did try to access the specific headings (the ones above are from memory) but unfortunately I don't have access any more and any downloaded copies that I might have kept are buried in files, within files, within files on my laptop-if I did keep them that is. After the first couple of reports, I tended just to report briefly and factually using the templates, rather than writing lengthy documents.

Does your university provide any guidelines in the research or faculty information in their online resources sections?

Best of luck with it all , P.

Thank you both! I have been referring to your responses in this thread as much as to my University's online guidance! Basically, we had an online form to fill in, but also had to produce a 6-page report outlining the project and progress to date. This is really helpful - thanks for the tangible examples. My report is nearly finished now.