Student participation

This body is made up of both student and staff representatives and is chaired by a student member. PGR liaison forums are a mechanism designed to facilitate the process of engagement with the student experience, ensuring that issues and suggestions may be considered by the graduate research student community and staff. This forum enables students and staff jointly to participate in the management and improvement of postgraduate research provision within the University. It serves as an arena in which students can identify and communicate any concerns and have them fed into the decision-making processes within their department and Faculty.

There are representatives for each department within the Doctoral College. Further information can be found in the Students' Guild and Students' Union (SU) webpages.

Each forum will appoint a Chair (Graduate Research Student Representative) who will represent those students who cannot attend and will represent the group within the department and Faculty. The Students’ Guild/SU will invite every Postgraduate Research Student Representative to a university-wide PGR Executive meeting at least once a term, where they will have the opportunity to raise issues with members of the senior management team in the Doctoral College.

The Forum will meet a minimum of three times in the whole academic year at Faculty or department level.

PGRLF Reps will be invited to attend other events during the year such as induction and Quality Review meetings.

Many PGRs gain valuable work experience alongside their research degree through teaching. Teaching is a valuable addition to their CV and important for career development, whether you intend to continue into academia or are considering an alternative career. All research students will have the opportunity to undertake support for teaching alongside their study. Opportunities for teaching will be advertised at the start of the academic year giving students the opportunity to put themselves forward for consideration.

For full terms and conditions of working alongside your postgraduate degree, see the Code of Good Practice for Employment of postgraduate students.

You will need to ensure that you have received adequate training before you undertake any teaching. Anyone involved with teaching is required to undertake the Learning & Teaching in Higher Education Programme.

There is a stage 1 programme, which is a 1-day course that runs at the start of Term 1 and Term 2. However, if you are required to do any marking of work, you must also undertake the Stage 2 programme which is delivered over several weeks in Term 1 or Term 2.

The Code of Good Practice on the Employment of Postgraduate Research Students stipulates that you should not normally work for more than 6 hours per week and over the course of the year must not exceed 180 hours of work whilst studying full-time as a research student (or for the pro-rata equivalent for part-time students).  We strongly recommend that all students take the LTHE 1-day Stage 1 programme so that you can undertake any ad-hoc opportunities that may arise during the year.

In order to claim for agreed work that you have done, you will be issued with a contract and an hours allocation template (HAT) for this work. You will need to register for eClaims and complete claims accordingly.  Claims are paid at the end of each month, and you should submit your claims promptly following the work to ensure that you are paid in a timely manner.

Please bear in mind that, as Postgraduate Teaching Associate, you will be subject to the University’s regulations.

Students who have a PTA contract will be given an associate IT account and email address. It is important that you continue to monitor your student email address for matters related to study, and your associate account for matters related to your PTA work.

Engaging with the academic culture of the department, and research groups you are embedded in is a vital part of your training and academic development and enables you to build a network of peer support. You are strongly encouraged to actively engage with relevant events and seminars in your department and more broadly across the University. There will often be visiting speakers from external institutions in your department, faculty and across the University. Details of upcoming seminars and events will usually be circulated by email and regular newsletters, they are also advertised online here: Research Events Calendar | | University of Exeter