All the past queries talk about finding out the reputation of the supervisor rather than the uni is more important. I want to know how you find this out, I am an International student so travelling to UK is not possible. Is it rude to email his students? and will they give an accurate view of the whole thing? or is there another way?

if u know ur field of research well then u shud know if ur supervisor is good. I.e. are they a leader in that field or are tehy just starting out. So a search on the internet to find out more about them - look at they're list of publications and website.

I am in Pakistan and I have limted access to publications.

what field are you in? there are websites where you can look at just the abstracts, and you can see if they have publications in good journals

Or you could email the supervisor and ask them to email you some publications.

Or you could look at their homepage on their Uni website and see what publications they list. Although publications will give you an idea of whether they are good (eminent in their field) but they wont tell you whether they are good (a nice person to have as a supervisor)!!

How many publications indicate supervisor is highly regarded in field. I searched my supervisor and found 5 publications in his name (with co authors). What does this say?
None have been recent either.

I am hoping to apply for a Computational chemistry vaccancy

Try searching on sciencedirect.com

The number of publication could be an effective way of determing the goodness of a supervisor, but other factors such as the social environment and interest of the supervisor in the PhD topic in question can be important. It is surprising to know that supervision in some high universities in the UK leaves much be desired. The big name profs simply don't have time for their students.

Well the number of publications alone will not tell you much- you will also have to look at the quality of the journals. In molecular biology people regard Nature, Science, Nature or a Cell paper the highest.

At the end of the day finding the wright supervisor (for you)is totally down to luck.

Yeah, you should also look up the impact factor of the journals, you should be able to find the info by typing "impact factor" into google.

isnt it possible for you to visit ur supervisor or phone he/she. I dont understand how you can have a supervisor without meeting them or not knowing anything about them - that would freak me out. Do a google search on he/she to see if theyve taken part in any conferences etc and what projects tehy are involved in. Also see how many other students they have supervised to see how experienced they are.

I'm with reena - if you know your subject area you should know who is good. Who wrote the articles/publications that really stand out, not just in the field but in terms of what your ideas are?