Recommendation

Our response

1: Current students expressed the benefits of hosting in-person events, specifically as an opportunity to meet existing PGRs from diverse racial, ethnic, and religious backgrounds before applying. OP can host such events. 

We hosted a 1-day Research Summer School in August 2023 on Newcastle University's campus aimed at explaining what a PhD is, how to apply, and hearing from real-life experiences of our PGRs. We provided interactive sessions such as ‘What is an effective researcher?’ and a tour of our campuses.  

We also host applicant webinars where candidates can come and meet our PGR researchers.

2: Academic supervisors play a key role in attracting, supporting, and recruiting fairly. We recommend further training and guidance is provided; OP can work in collaboration with HEI partner colleagues to academic supervisors to ensure consistent and inclusive recruitment is undertaken at each step of the process. 

We provide academic supervisor briefing sessions every September at the start of our recruitment process. We also provide Equality, Diversity & inclusion training for all supervisors who have PhD projects advertised. All academic supervisors follow the same recruitment process, including our candidate assessment criteria.

3: Funding was the single most important factor when considering pursuing a PhD. OP can highlight how funding is allocated and stipends are paid to students by providing additional guidance online. Specific guidance on application documents was requested by participants. 

We are preparing further guidance on studentship funding and this will be added as additional guidance on our Studentship pages during our next recruitment process: https://research.ncl.ac.uk/one-planet/studentships/

4: Lack of knowledge (cultural capital) in preparing these documents will disadvantage prospective students. OP can develop online content in the form of “starter-packs” to answer student queries across a range of topics (e.g., creating application documents, PhD lifestyle, how funding works).

We are working on developing this material with our Postgraduate Researchers and will launch this information during our 2024/25 recruitment process.

5: OP can use strategies such as ring-fencing to commit studentships to students of minoritized ethnicity; such strategies should be communicated to prospective students.

In November 2023 we will be launching our next recruitment process for entry October 2024. We have 13 studentship awards available and 1 of these will be ring-fenced for UK minoritised ethnic candidates.

6: To harness familial encouragement and provide role models, OP can develop video content featuring people talking openly about how they manage a PhD, deal with cultural or societal resistance, and overcome challenges to successfully pursue their academic career.

We are currently filming new video materials that we hope we provide more context about 'What a PhD is', 'what do we offer', 'our values' and the lived experiences of our PGRs. We hope this will provide more contextual information on the realities of undertaking a PhD.