Network Activities
The Fourth Level Network of the Deans of Graduate Studies is engaging in a number of activities to ensure greater support and guidance for students and their supervisors. It will also liaise with employers to support non-academic employers' absorptive capacity for graduate degree holders.
Network activities include:
- The production of an Irish universities graduate student skills statement to describe the attributes and skills that a PhD student should aspire towards developing during their studies, which will inform the development of structured PhD programmes and also aid students and their supervisors in identifying students' learning needs.
- The formulation of policies and framework for the coherent development of structured PhD programmes.
- For the first time, the collaborative promotion of postgraduate research at Irish universities. www.i-studentadvisor.com/iua
- Partnership initiatives with non-academic employers to communicate the importance of PhD graduates to the development of Ireland's 'Knowledge Society'. One of these initiates involves the exploration of PhD student and/or supervisor placement with non-academic employers.
- The development of mechanisms to allow the inter-institutional availability and development of skills development opportunities.
- The authoring of national guidelines of good practice in the organisation of PhD programmes.
- Institutional and collaborative initiatives to elicit graduate student opinions on the student experience to inform policy and practice.
