Overview

The PG Research Degree Outcomes workbook enables monitoring of postgraduate research submission rates, considering submissions that would be expected to take place by the date of analysis:

- at an overall institution level
- at a faculty and department level (it is recommended that data is aggregated at department level, due to small volumes).

Emphasis is placed upon the submission of full-time doctoral students, as opposed to part-time study, or other PGR awards made by the University.

To support a more comprehensive consideration of the academic ‘health’ of PGR activity, the extent of reliance on agreed extensions or suspensions is given, together with the withdrawal of those students who would have been expected to submit.

It is important to note that this analysis remains limited to submission. Further work is planned as noted by Senate. The work will give consideration to measures of academic outcome (referrals and major/minor corrections, successful award, award of MPhil), part-time doctoral study and factors that may influence submission timing and success (including funding sources, reasons for withdrawal).
Submission is assessed in this report using a four-year window, reflecting University regulations of three-year full-time doctoral registration, plus one writing up year, or for those on a four-year doctoral programme, four years with no writing up year, disregarding any agreed extension or suspension of registration. (This is also a rough proxy for RC monitoring of funded period plus 1 year.)

Student data instances are excluded where:
- they started their programme less than 4 years from the date of analysis, or
- the student transferred out of their programme (a study instance for the programme the student transferred to will be shown, if the start date is within the window of analysis - 4 years from the HESA student's HESA start date).

The SITS record of each student in the four- or seven-year population is analysed to support categorisation as follows:
Green bands indicate submission or likely submission:
- Dark green: students who submitted within the 4 year window
- Light green: students with agreed suspensions, who, should they submit their thesis will be deemed by RCUK to have submitted "on time". In time they will move either to dark green (if they submit) or blue (if they withdraw). For future years, we will look to precisely calculate the expected submission date, taking into account the length of any suspension. This will allow us to exclude altogether students who have suspensions but have not yet reached their (revised) expected submission date.

Red bands indicate "late" submission, with no agreed extensions or suspensions:
- Dark red: students who have submitted late
- Light red: students who have not yet submitted but are late and have no agreed extensions or suspensions; in time they will move either to red (if they submit) or blue (if they withdraw)

Grey bands indcate students who have agreed extensions and depending on interpretation, may move into the green or red bands:
- Light grey: students who have submitted with extensions are NOT considered by RCUK to have submitted "on time"
- Dark grey: students who have not yet submitted but have agreed extensions; in time they will move either to light grey (if they submit) or to blue (if they withdraw). Again, in time, we exclude these students where their revised expected submission date is outside of the four-year window.

Blue bands indicate students who have withdrawn from study.

This categorisation supports the calculation of a percentage submission rate over four or seven years, percentage of submission outside of these periods and percentage of withdrawals. Data are analysed at the institutional, subject area and departmental level. (Particularly outside of the sciences, departmental data tends to be associated with small sample sizes and therefore, it is tabulated rather than presented graphically.)

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