Hi all,

Just a quickie as I've already spent too long procrastinating this morning! Does anyone know what the benefit of having PhD students is to a supervisor/university? Do they make money from having us present? I know they obviously get our piece of research accredited to them at the end and it makes them look good in the REF, but is there anything else they get out of it?

Just curious...

Without PhD students and postdoctoral researchers an academic would have virtually no research output. Science PhD's are basically doing the research that the supervisor would like to do themselves, so with groups of about 20 people it would be impossible for them to do it alone. Also, without PhD's there would be no research grants, and with the drop in research output the Universities reputation would akin to a college and not a University. I think it may be somewhat different in the humanities?

some also probably enjoy nurturing the next generation of academics (maybe)

If you have a large group that publishes regularly it boosts the academic's profile and reduces the time it takes to go up the promotion ladder. They are often assessed on how many papers they have to their name so it gives them increased job security when the university is looking at cut backs. They also get a chance to cherry pick the best graduates and try to keep them on as post-docs further increasing their chances of being associated with good research results.

Thanks MHK and Waddett, I was just interested to see the picture from the other side, so to speak! I guess a lot of it comes down to kudos then!

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Shared research credits rarely apply to the relationship in the humanities. I don't know of any PhD students who have co-written papers or books with a their supervisor (before or after graduation). Obviously it still helps towards their internal research credits, but I'm not sure how highly its weighted. For example, in the eyes of the university would supervising 1 successful PhD be equal to publishing X number of papers? It is an alternate way of building up your profile. The 'star' researcher in my department has much fewer PhD students. Presumably he doesn't need them (draining his time!)

In my uni :

_ the more the supervisor has PhD students to supervise, the less he/she has to teach modules.

One of my colleagues (PhD student) has co-written an article with his supervisor ... so it happens !