Appointment of Supervisors
Students taking a research degree are required to have at least two Supervisors - a Principal Supervisor and an Associate Supervisor. Exceptionally, a student may have a third Supervisor if this is appropriate for their research.
The supervision may be shared equally between the Supervisors or one Supervisor may be responsible for a greater proportion of the supervision.
The Department/School is required to ensure continuity of supervision throughout the research programme. However, alternative arrangements may have to be made in the event of a staff member being on sabbatical/study leave, maternity leave or absent for any other reason.
In the event of a Supervisor leaving the University to pursue a career elsewhere, the matter of continuing supervision should be discussed with the Director of Postgraduate Research and a decision made as to what arrangements for supervision are to be put in place.
Members of staff who are themselves candidates for a research degree may not supervise a research degree.
External students normally have an additional External Supervisor who is responsible for their day-to-day supervision, provided a suitably experienced person is available to act in this capacity.
If a proposed Supervisor is not the holder of a Degree of Doctor of Philosophy or its equivalent at an approved University nor has had appropriate experience of supervision at doctoral level, a list of the proposed Supervisor's publications must be submitted to the Research Degrees Committee for approval of the supervision.
Moreover it is important to have at least one member of the supervisory team who has supervised a research student at doctoral level to completion before (preferably at the University of Bradford). Ultimately it is the balance of supervision that matters - from subject specialism and supervisory experience between the supervisory team appointed.
For more detailed information please see refer to the Regulations for Research Degrees, Section 6 (follow Quick links to the right of the page).
Changes to Supervisory Team
The Hub-SAS (Research) team must be informed in writing of any changes to supervisory arrangements as soon as they arise. The process for notification of this change comes from each Departmental Administrator who will have received approval of the change from the relevant DPGR. Please email this request through to hub-research@bradford.ac.uk Please confirm the previous supervision team (including the terms: Principal/Associate and relevant workload splits which are generally 50/50, 70/30 and 90/10) and the revised team (with terms and workload splits).
Changes in supervisory arrangements often indicate a change in project area, if this is the case please clearly identify this in the request. Moreover, if the student is in receipt of a external studentship or sponsorship (for example, Research Council, Embassy etc.), it might be applicable that the relevant funding body is notified. Please ensure any such permission of change is included with the request. The Hub-SAS (Research) team will make a note of the change in supervisory arrangements on the student's record, notifiy Research Degrees Committee and ensure the student is notified of the change in writing.
