The last of this academic year's Responses from Imperial College Union has been published: The Postgraduate Research Experience Survey Response. It is a great pleasure to see the results of the Postgraduate Research Experience Survey 2013, and to note that both the participation and satisfaction of students in the survey have greatly increased since 2011. First and foremost, everyone involved in these achievements should be congratulated, and the Union would like to commend the College on the improvement.
Satisfaction is, nonetheless, not yet 100%, and so this report is written in the hope that – after speaking with postgraduate research students from across the College – the Union can help identify areas that would assist the College on improving further. Overall, BioEngineering, Earth Science & Engineering and Clinical Science PhD students are the most satisfied, with Business School and Mechanical Engineering PhDs satisfaction below the College average. Since the 2011 Survey, BioEngineering, the Centre for Environmental Policy and Clinical Sciences have improved the most, with satisfaction in Mechanical Engineering and Molecular Biosciences declining. Recommendations here hope to turn ‘mostly agree’ and ‘neither agree or disagree’ into ‘definitely agree’.
The Union has completed the report based on conversations with the Graduate Students’ Union (GSU) representatives, postgraduates not involved with the GSU, best practice from around the College and sector, and from PRES data 2011 and 2013.
