SRHE Postgraduate Issues Network

The Postgraduate Issues Network was convened by Professor Pat Cryer for the Society for Research into Higher Education (SRHE) with the aim of providing information and mutual support. The network had its first meeting in May 1995 and met regularly three times a year until its closure in 2002. Meetings were well attended, primarily but not solely by academics with a management responsibility for postgraduates and/or research in their institutions, and delegates regularly travelled in from as far afield as Ireland, Scotland and Wales.

In October 2002, the following announcement, was circulated the first and fourth paragraphs of which refer to the network:

After considerable thought over the last year, I have decided that the time has come for me to turn away from mainstream professional work and get on with all the other things that I want to do. This of course has implications for the futures of the SRHE Postgraduate Issues Network, the associated series of Guides on Postgraduate Issues and the web gateway on research supervision.

I am pleased to be able to report that the future of the web gateway is secure. It has proved so successful, with hits averaging at about 3000 per week, that, with support from the Learning and Teaching Support Network (LTSN) and the University of Manchester, it is moving to the University of Manchester where it will be maintained and developed by a team within the University's Research and Graduate Support Unit. I will remain as a resource to Manchester via my visiting professorship.

I will no longer commission and edit for the series of Guides on Postgraduate Issues, successful as it has been. Existing Guides, which still fill valuable niches, will remain available for the time being through SRHE - see www.srhe.ac.uk. The second edition [now third] of my book for research students will remain available through regular booksellers.

A number of colleagues have asked me to explore the possibility of the continuation of the Postgraduate Issues Network through new convenors, but I have decided to let it close. Over the seven years of its existence, the network acquired more membership and generated more appreciation than I ever dared hope when I first set it up. However it very much bore the stamp of my personal beliefs and ways of doing things, and there is now no shortage of other providers. There is of course nothing at all to prevent others from approaching SRHE, should they so wish, with a view to setting up a new group.

All that is left is to thank you for your support. When, back in 1992, my interest in the postgraduate area began, it was all-but virgin territory. I felt that my background had put me in a unique position to do something practically useful, and I am very pleased indeed with how events have turned out. All sorts of individuals and groups are now taking up the work, which is just what I had wanted. I am happy to leave it in their - and your - hands.

Photos from network meetings

Contributors at a recent meeting. From left to right: Dr Peter Mertens (BBSRC); Professor Alistair McCulloch (Edge Hill); Professor Heather Eggins (Director of SRHE); Professor Howard Green (Leeds Metropolitan University); Professor Pat Cryer (University of Manchester and network convenor); Professor Graham King (Southampton Institute); and Dr Paul Clark (Chief Executive Officer of the Institute for Learning and Teaching)

  Presentation and discussion

Discussion over tea