Recommendation 7: Address pressures on supervisors by identifying and responding to supervisors’ major concerns in supervision.
The project recommends that universities address the increasingly complex roles and skills required of supervisors by:
- ensuring strategies are in place to provide different levels of support for supervisors at point of need: from peers; from mentors; from department or Unit leaders; and where relevant, from those responsible for conflict resolution; and
- ensuring research education leaders have resources and support to develop and implement such strategies.
The project also recommends that studies are undertaken within individual universities to identify supervisors’ specific priorities and concerns, and that additional relevant measures are put in place to address these.
Recommendation 8: Acknowledge pressure of supervision when negotiating supervisors’ workloads.
The project recommends that, when negotiating supervisors’ workloads, universities take account of:
- the need to balance supervision with other academic duties (of teaching and research);
- the number of research students that are desirable for one supervisor, in relation to the supervisor’s other responsibilities;
- the weighting of roles of principal and associate/co supervisors in workloads; and
- the time required for supervising students who are experiences specific challenge.