This document summarizes changes made to improve the research student experience at Cranfield University. It discusses the challenges facing postgraduate education including high student debt and lack of PhD funding. It then describes how the creation of a Doctoral Training Centre (DTC) at the Cranfield Defence and Security school addressed these issues. The DTC provided support, training, and a sense of community for research students through initiatives like regular meetings, a virtual learning environment, and an annual symposium. These changes helped transform the university experience for research students during a time of broader reforms in UK higher education.

1. Improving the research student
experience: A tale of change within
change
Annie Maddison Warren

2. Cranfield University?
• Postgraduate university
• 4639 students (half FT/half PT)
• 106 nationalities
• c.800 research students
• 1559 staff (305 academic, 93 professorial and 255
research)
• 3 + 1 / 50

3. Specialist Themes
Aerospace Water
Environment &
Agrifood
Leadership and
Management
Manufacturing
Energy & Power
Transport Systems
Defence and Security

4. League Tables?
Unique facilities:
• Crash Impact Centre
• National Wind Tunnel Facility
• Secure Site at Shrivenham
• Airfield and Aircraft
Top 5 UK research-
intensive university with
Universities of Oxford, and
Cambridge, Imperial College and
University College London
Of our research is rated
world leading or
internationally excellent
81%
Mechanical, Aeronautical &
Manufacturing Engineering:
4 in the UKRanked Top:
39 in the world

5. Cranfield Defence and
Security?
• A School of the University, based at the Defence
Academy of the UK at Shrivenham, Wiltshire
• 350 Staff
• 149 FT and 1625 PT Taught Students
• 70 FT and 80 PT Research Students
• 5500 CPD Students
• £30m Turnover

6. Setting the Scene…

7. The Environment
• Students graduating with debts of up
to £50k
• An exclusively postgraduate
university – inability to offset fees
• A lack of funding for PhDs
• A shrinking postgraduate market
• Doctorates down 1% (2003-2012)
• Employers uncertain about what
skills a research student can offer
• Uncertainty about what good looks
like in the world of PhDs

8. An Opportunity…
Academic Lead
of the DTC…?

9. CDS DTC
• A great boss
• A team and regular meetings
• From virtual to real…the rPod!
• Cradle to grave
• Interviews, induction and cohorts
• Research skills and training programme
• Science and social sciences
• PhD process
• Part time students at a distance (global classroom and VLE)
• Welfare
• Delivering qualified and employable researchers
• Experience of teaching
• Creating a research community
• Defence and Security Doctoral Symposium
• Academic Writing and Communication Fair

10. The rPod
The rPod

11. The VLE

12. e-Learning Capabilities
Global Classroom
• High quality videoconferencing
capability for teaching, research
and collaboration
 Can connect to any standards
-based facility anywhere in the
world
 High definition cameras and
projectors, state-of-the-art
microphones and speakers
 Real-time interaction between
lecturer and students
 Ability to provide courses and
educational products worldwide
Global Classroom

13. DSDS15

14. Academic Writing and
Communication Fair 2016

15. University Transformation
• Standardisation
• Unification
• Streamlining
• QAA audit

16. Policy Transformation
• Government white paper on the future of Higher
Education (HEI): Higher education: success as a
knowledge economy – white paper (16 May)
• The need for reform in the sector (last major
legislative reforms in 1992)
• Access (social mobility), inflexible courses,
unsatisfactory provision, skills shortages,
competitive market
• HE Bill in October
• Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF)

17. Lessons for Life
• For me, the essence of
being an excellent
university is the
interaction between
our staff, students and
the environment in
which we live and
work.
Sir Peter Gregson
Vice-Chancellor
Cranfield University

18. Lessons for Life
• For me, the essence of
being an excellent
DTC is showing our
students and staff that
we care about them
and are willing to
invest in them as
people, learners and
researchers. Annie Maddison Warren
Academic Lead, CDS DTC
Cranfield University

19. Lessons for Change
• Vision
• Passion
• The right people in the right place at the right time
• Top level support (and cover)
• A brilliant team with a clear intent
• Tapping into the zeitgeist!
• Luck…