Raising the visibility of doctoral research at Warwick
Project Overview
The Doctoral College launched this initiative in 2026, supported by Enhancing Research Culture funding, to increase the visibility, recognition, and celebration of the vital contributions made by Warwick’s doctoral researchers. Doctoral researchers play a central role in the University’s research excellence, culture, and impact. Yet we know—from student feedback, academic colleagues, and the Warwick Research Culture Survey—that their contributions are not always fully acknowledged. This project is a key step toward addressing that gap.
The aim of this project is to identify a solution to capturing the full, diverse range of doctoral student contributions to research and, in doing so, to facilitate active recognition of these contributions.
The objectives are:
- to scope and specify the solution (tool and data collection methodology);
- begin the collation of historic and current doctoral contributions to research;
- and take advantage of opportunities to showcase what we learn through the project (such as at the PGR Festival).
The project aims to encompass all doctoral research and to be inclusive of every doctoral student’s contribution. We will focus on existing students, but also work with key stakeholders to collect the stories of graduates.
Our Approach
Our Approach
The project has taken a collaborative and evidence-informed approach to understanding how doctoral researcher contributions are currently recognised, recorded and showcased across Warwick.
So far, we have:
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reviewed existing provision for showcasing doctoral researchers and their contributions across 20 departments at Warwick, as well as research groups. We met with key members of staff responsible in departments for PGR profiles, to understand good practices and the operational challenges they faced in updating departmental PGR profiles;
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conducted focus groups with doctoral researchers to understand their experiences of visibility and recognition at Warwick. We also explored what kinds of PGR contributions students feel should be recognised, including research outputs, teaching, public engagement, collaboration, mentoring, committee work and wider research culture contributions;
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gathered feedback regarding Symplectic Elements from PGRs at the PGR Festival and other engagement events (e.g., PGR/ECR networking events hosted by various Research Spotlights). We facilitated these conversations by introducing and discussing Symplectic Elements with PGRs as a possible tool for recording and increasing the visibility of their research activity;
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considered how PGR visibility could be embedded into existing institutional systems, events and communications (e.g., induction sessions).
This approach has allowed us to move beyond simply identifying the need for better PGR visibility. We are now developing a clearer understanding of what PGRs want from a visibility system, what concerns they have, and what practical conditions would make such a system useful, inclusive and sustainable.
Project Team
The project team is led by the Head of the Doctoral College, Rhiannon Martyn, together with Louise Sutcliffe, Postgraduate Student Development Officer, and is supported by an ECRF‑funded project assistant, Youn Affejee.
We have worked collaboratively with doctoral researchers and key University stakeholders, including academic departments, Research and Impact Services, Academic Development Centre, and Marketing and Communications.
If you would like to be involved, please contact Louise Sutcliffe at: doctoralcollege@warwick.ac.uk
Why this matters?
Warwick’s PGRs have consistently told us that recognition is essential to a positive doctoral experience.
This initiative supports:
- A stronger, more inclusive research culture
- Warwick’s ambitions for future REF submissions
- Attraction and retention of excellent doctoral researchers
- Alignment with sector-wide work led by the Russell Group and UK Council for Graduate Education
Recognising PGR contributions is also one of the five key strands of Warwick’s PGR Strategy, making this project a crucial step in delivering that vision.
Outputs and emerging findings
The project has generated a number of emerging insights that will inform future work by the Doctoral College and University partners.
PGRs have strongly reaffirmed the importance of visibility and recognition. Many students want their contributions to research and research culture to be more visible, but they also emphasised that visibility should be meaningful, accurate and useful rather than an additional administrative burden.
Students highlighted that PGR visibility varies across departments and student groups. For example, part-time PGRs, students working with external partners, and those less physically present on campus may experience different levels of recognition and connection.
PGRs also told us that visibility should extend beyond publications. They wanted wider contributions to be recognised, including conference activity, teaching, public engagement, collaboration, mentoring, leadership, creative practice, community-building and contributions to departmental or institutional research culture.
As shown in the word cloud above, feedback on Symplectic Elements suggested that the platform may offer a useful route for improving PGR visibility, particularly if it can help doctoral researchers record their expertise, outputs and activities in one place. However, students also raised important considerations around time, duplication with other platforms, control over what is visible, accuracy of information, and the need for clear guidance and support especially for new students. There was also positive cases of student being able to expand their academic network by searching for researchers in their domain through the public facing search tool associated with Symplectic Elements. We recommend anyone giving it a try by clicking on this link!
The next phase of the project therefor aims to create recommendations on how PGR visibility can be supported through existing systems and events, including Symplectic Elements, induction, departmental webpages and the PGR Festival.