Abstract

As the context of research education has changed, the demands placed on supervisors to ensure timely completions and quality outputs has increased. It is evident from early exploration that different approaches to supervisor development exist. Institutions largely develop their approaches in response to unique combinations of global, national and local drivers but it is unclear how and why supervisor development programmes are created from a pedagogical perspective and whether or not they work.

This paper seeks to explore the rationale for the development of seven different supervisor programmes as a starting point for further investigation into ‘what works?’ It will focus on the development of two programmes, one at the University of Lincoln which is grounded in the principles and practices of pedagogies of partnership, and one at Brunel University London, which focuses on supervisor development as part of wider support for academics as they progress through the academic lifecycle.