Your supervisor and advisor

Supervisor

As a new PhD student, you will be assigned a supervisor, who is responsible for guiding your studies. You are, however, expected to have the capacity and enthusiasm to organise your own research and to work on your own initiative. You are expected to submit written work at regular intervals for discussion with your supervisor.

We very much hope you will not have any problems with supervision, but if a problem does arise – because, for example, your supervisor is on leave for an extended period or your research takes a new direction, or for personal reasons – you should contact, in the first instance, any of the following: the Director of Postgraduate Education, your advisor, the Head of Department or your College tutor. With any of these, you may wish to discuss whether you want to continue along the more formal lines of complaint proposed by the Student Registry.

Advisor

By the middle of the first term of your PhD the Degree Committee will appoint an advisor for you. You should be actively engaged in selecting your advisor. You are encouraged to submit written work to your advisor at any time, and you should meet your advisor at least once a year.