PhD system risks leaving overseas students in the cold

Times Higher Education 20 April 2013

UK universities are wrestling with a ‘two-tiered’ approach to delivering PhDs as a result of the introduction of the research councils’ doctoral training centres, a conference has heard, writes Elizabeth Gibney for Times Higher Education. And international students are losing out.

Under the model, students are funded for four years and receive structured skills training as part of a cohort, often in interdisciplinary centres that can span multiple institutions. But international students are usually ineligible for funding from the centres. Like UK students without research council backing or a match-funded studentship – who typically can access just three years of funding – overseas students struggle to find time to participate in extra training even where the centres offer it, said Tessa Payne, head of the graduate school at the University of Nottingham, at the International Conference on Developments in Doctoral Education and Training held in Edinburgh from 11-12 April.
Full report on the Times Higher Education site

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