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First Formal Progress Report and Review Meeting

A developmental review should preferably take place during the 5th month after registration and certainly before the end of month 6. (9 months for part time students). The review is intended to to provide feedback on the progress of the PhD and constructive criticism of the project aims and methodology. The First Formal Progress Review is a University requirement.

The review process should be carried out as follows:

• The supervisor should find an appropriate assessor who has sufficient expertise in areas related to the project to make a critical and constructive assessment.
• The student should write a short report (6-10 pages) and submit to supervisor and assessor 1 week before review meeting. The report should also be uploaded to GRAD. The expected structure of the report is given bellow.
• A review meeting should be sheduled by the supervisor and held at a time convenient to all participants. The participants should normally be: the student, the supervisor(s) (at least one supervisor and preferably all supervisors, if there is more than one), the assessor. If it is not possible to find a time convenient for both supervisor and assessor, separate meetings can be held between student and supervisor and student and assessor. In this case the assessor should pass brief comments to the supervisor prior to the First Formal Progress Report form being completed. (Although it should rarely be necessary, having separate meeting is preferable to delaying the 6 month review, since the Transfer review follows soon after.)
• The purpose of the review meeting is to support the student's progress by discussion of the research topic, the progress made so far, the direction in which further work will go, any difficulties that the student has encountered and any potential problems or obstacles that the student may encounter in future.
• After the meeting the supervisor should enter a summary of the review feedback in GRAD. If any significant problems are identified the Postgraduate Research Tutor should be notified and may add additional comments.
• The student should read the supervisors comments and act on any recommendations.

There is no pass, fail or grading of the reivew. The process should be primarily constructive, although students should be prepared to respond to criticism from the assessor.

6 Month Report Suggested Structure

The 6 month review report document produced by the student should be 6-10 pages in length and should normally take the following form:

• Outline of the topic area. (1-2 pages)
• Discussion of key approaches and the relevant literature. (2-4 pages)
• Preliminary ideas for goals of PhD research. (1-2 pages)
• Description of preparatory work that has been carried out (such as familiarisation with relevant software or simple preliminary experiments). (1-3 pages)
• Plan of activities for the rest of year 1. (~1 page)

The document should be written in the style and format of a conference or workshop paper. It is recommended that you use a template supplied by one of the conferences in your area (i.e. one that you might submit to in future). A comprehensive literature review is not required at this stage but references to the most relevant work in the area should be given. References and bibliography should be presented in accordance with one of the standard accademic formats.

The supervisor should provide help regarding formatting and structure and general advice on suitable content. Feedback on drafts of the report should be given by the supervisor and may also be given by other researchers or students. However, the specific content of the report must be originated by the student undertaking the review.