Insights from practice A handbook for supervisors of modern doctorate candidates

The supervision of work-based research requires complex capabilities from supervisor(s)
as they seek to:
• address the diverse needs of a candidate operating
at doctoral level within a work environment where
their priorities are, in part at least, set by the needs
of their organisation and work role; and
• supervise the creation of knowledge at doctoral level.
And yet there has to date been little study of these
needs and no commonly accepted framework of
practice for supervisors is currently available to draw
upon.
In moving beyond this state of the art the project
team won Erasmus funding for a project whose
objectives were to:
• Access best practice in the supervision/advising of
modern doctorates:
• Identify the host/sponsoring organisation’s
requirements from supervision (if any) and their
contribution to it
• Develop a framework of practice (supported by
training resources) suitable for modern doctorates
• Disseminate this best practice framework to all
stakeholders
• Produce a sustainable impact on supervisory
practice throughout the EU.
This handbook is one of the outputs for the project
and its aim is to provide a quick reference guide for
supervisors wishing to enhance their practice in the
area of modern doctorates through accessing the rich
experience of others in the field.