Can the university force me to supervise a PGR student?

[LittlePrecious]

I don’t want to give too many detail because of the sensitivity of the situation. But I have a PGR student where the supervisory relationship has deteriorated. The student has been doing their PhD for many years and is making little progress.

My department are quite supportive and trying to encourage the student to leave for their own good. But I fear there will be a bottleneck in the future where the student refuses to withdraw and the university supports them. At this point, the other supervisor and I plan to simply refuse to supervise the student any longer. But I’m not sure what would happen then. I am not getting a straight answer from HR.

Can the university force us to supervise the student? I know this will be dependent on the university’s supervision policies but there is no clarity in these policies about the instance where academics refuse to supervise a student.

Is this an international student on a visa? I know of cases where students delayed progressing their research intentionally so that they can stay in the UK for 10 years on student visa to apply for indefinite leave and then citizenship.

Not including suspensions and leave periods, they've been registered for 8 or 9 years.

They're not an international student.

10 years is usually the limit. Check your university regs and let your student know, cc’d to the Director of PG and anyone else you can think of.

OMG - 8/9 years. 7 years is max for a part-time student in my university. 5 years for full time. There's a slight but formal progress review each summer and a formal mini-viva (with a non-supervisor as examiner) is required 1.5 years after starting. The mini-viva is brilliant for focusing attention and identifying major problems. If they do not pass or address serious problems in an allotted time they cannot continue. It's no help to you now but your institution is leaving staff very exposed by not having decent rules and procedures in place.

Where I work, PGRs are automatically deregistered at the end of their registration period and then have to apply to be allowed to submit their thesis at a later date.

Is there any progress with this @LittlePrecious?

Yes, what happened? Hope you managed to step back

Thanks for checking how I'm getting on

There hasn't been any movement on the situation. We - two supervisors, the PGR Lead and a colleague from student support services - were due to meet with the student to talk through the formal progress process earlier this week. But the student cancelled. We have another meeting scheduled in at the end of the month.

Meanwhile, two other colleagues have been drafted in. One will join the supervision team, the other will be there just to read work and give a verdict on quality - a kind of external quality check. We're trying to get our ducks in a row in anticipation of a complaint - by bringing in other people we're able to say that we gave the student every chance possible, offered all the support we could, and addressed some of their concerns about our inexperience. I have very mixed feelings about these people (men) joining the team, but I understand the logic from the formalities perspective.

That sounds like a good strategy - bringing in outside eyes, and a professional services colleague. Good luck!

Hello everyone. Thanks for all your advice and support. I just thought I'd update you all - the student has decided to withdraw of their own volition. There has been lots of talk about them working on their PhD while withdrawn and then coming back to finish off in a couple of years. But they won't be admitted back to the university if they do apply/ask to come back.

Thanks again for all your advice.

That sounds like a good outcome!

They'd have to re-apply and start again mostly likely. Thanks for the update