In this extra post, Anna Pilz discusses her participation in the Postgraduate Certificate in Academic Practice (PgCAP). Her assessment task for the option course on ‘Working with PGRs’ led her to develop a project for the Principal’s Teaching Award Scheme (PTAS) on ‘Co-Creating a New Development Needs Analysis for PGRs’ (January 2024-July 2025). Anna is an Academic Developer and Trainer in the Institute for Academic Development.
Soon after I had taken on a new role as Academic Developer at the Institute for Academic Development in autumn 2022, I enrolled on the PgCAP programme. I was motivated not only to gain professional accreditation via a Fellowship of the Higher Education Academy, but also to reflect on my teaching practice and pedagogical approaches within the context of my new role that involved designing and delivering training for postgraduate researchers and research staff across career stages.
One of my responsibilities in the role is to convene a three-week online course on “Getting Started with Postgraduate Research” for Master by Research and PhD students who are just at the beginning of their research degree journey. The PgCAP option course on ‘Working with PGRs’ therefore appealed to me. For the assessment, I chose to write a review report of the current use of Training Needs Analysis (TNA) at the University of Edinburgh to gain an understanding of current institutional practices within the context of sector-developments and scholarship on doctoral education.
Reviewing the use of Training Needs Analysis
One of the key elements of doctoral education is an emphasis on postgraduate researchers’ training and development. Within the Researcher Development Team, we had already identified the need to revisit the existing TNA. A TNA is a person-centred, reflective activity in form of a self-assessment, described by scholars as a key ‘pedagogical tool designed to assess doctoral researchers’ strengths as well as weaknesses’ (Elliot et al 2020, 149). Therefore, it is relevant right from the start and throughout the researcher degree journey by reflecting on strengths, development needs, intentions, and opportunities.
To understand current practices at Edinburgh and students’ experiences, I looked at the Postgraduate Research Experience Survey (PRES) from 2023. Although satisfaction with supervision was at 86.5% at the University of Edinburgh in the 2023 Postgraduate Research Experience Survey, the question regarding the extent to which the ‘Supervisor helps identifying training’ reached the lowest satisfaction rate (76.3%) out of the four questions put to PGRs. The PRES survey highlights the need to involve both PGRs and supervisors in the process of engaging in training, development, and career conversations.
This is also reflected in wider sector conversations, including in UKRI’s Economic and Social Research Council’s 2022 review on “Strengthening the Role of Training Needs Analysis in Doctoral Training”, which signals supervisors’ crucial role in enabling effective use of TNAs as a tool. For any Training Needs Analysis, then, resources and training needs to be considered for supervisors, too. As Adams et al (2022) recommend, it’s important to ‘set clear expectations for supervisory input’ and offer ‘training to support supervisors in navigating DNA conversations’. This may involve addressing unconscious biases about career goals as well as emphasising that development needs ought to be integrated throughout and not only at the start or the end of a research degree journey. My review thus concluded that any revised TNA and associated processes and resources needs to engage and focus on both user groups: PGRS and supervisors.
Shifting to a Development Needs Analysis
Postgraduate research students arrive at the University of Edinburgh with their own personal set of skills and aptitudes, cultural attitudes to learning, understandings of the Higher Education and research landscape, professional experiences, and have a variety of career aspirations. Scholars have proposed the productive concept of a ‘doctoral learning ecology’, which is based on the understanding that ‘the doctoral journey takes place simultaneously within and across several domains of learning, namely, discipline, institution, workplace, and the person’s lifeworld.’ (Elliot et al 2020, 148)
The ‘doctoral learning ecology’ invites a wider conceptualisation of development than the term ‘Training Needs Analysis’ allows. My review thus followed UKRI’s ESRC recommendation to adopt the term Development Needs Analysis (DNA) (Adams et al 2022). A good DNA equips PGRs for whatever direction they want to take during and after their research degree. Successful engagement with a DNA – both through reflective self-assessment and through conversations with supervisor(s) – can affect a sense of control, ownership, and empowerment for their career trajectories.
From report to cross-university PTAS project
Having shared the report with Fiona Philippi, Head of Researcher Development at the IAD, and – on her suggestion – with the Doctoral College Forum, I started to develop an application to the Principal’s Teaching Award Scheme. To improve PGRs’ satisfaction, enhance the student experience, and ensure the quality of doctoral education in line with sector developments, I wanted to co-create a new Development Needs Analysis for the University. With its wider professional and career emphasis, the new DNA would benefit from collaboration with the Careers Service, and Sharon Maguire (Assistant Director, Careers Service) was soon on board. To connect the DNA with institutional priorities, we also recruited Laura Bradley, Dean for Postgraduate Research in the College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences.
Our new DNA must be applicable across disciplines. It’s been important to identify pilot communities that would allow us to test and evaluate the use of our new DNA by both students and supervisors. Tom MacGillivray, Co-Director of the Precision Medicine Doctoral Training Programme, and Kimberley Czajkowski, Graduate Officer in Classics in the School of History, Classics, and Archaeology, joined the project to pilot our DNA and resources in their respective contexts. With the team assembled, we drafted and submitted our PTAS application. The project was timely as it aligns with the University’s strategic priorities as set out in the 2024 Postgraduate Research Cultures Plan.
Following the successful outcome of the application, we recruited Majdouline El hichou, a PhD student in GeoSciences, as our Research Assistant. So, what all started as part of my own professional development, resulted in a project all about professional development, and created a professional development opportunity. You can read about how we established learning needs among both the PGR and supervisor communities, and why and how we co-created a draft of a new Development Needs Analysis in Maj’s blog, out next week.
References
Adams, Elizabeth, Scafell Coaching and Joanne Neary, Strengthening the Role of Training Needs Analysis in Doctoral Training (UKRI, Economic and Social Research Council, 2022). https://www.ukri.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Strengthening-the-role-of-TNA-Report-April-2022.pdf.
Elliot, Dely L., Søren S.E. Bengtsen, Kay Guccione, and Sofie Kobayashi (2020), The Hidden Curriculum in Doctoral Education (Palgrave Macmillan).
The University of Edinburgh (2023), Postgraduate Research Experience Survey (PRES).
Anna Pilz
Dr Anna Pilz (she/her) is an Academic Developer and Trainer in the Institute for Academic Development at Edinburgh. She designs and delivers training for researchers across career stages ranging from 1:1 support to online resources and workshops. As a first-generation academic, she is passionate about building communities and aims to enable, facilitate, and encourage conversations about research processes in all their shapes, sizes, and forms. She inaugurated and leads on the University’s Researcher Realities initiative.
