Developing postgraduate provision
Sussex currently has around 3,000 postgraduate students, the highest number we have ever had enrolled. In a fast-changing world, the challenge now for us is how we chart a continued healthy future for postgraduate provision at Sussex.
Michael Farthing, Vice-Chancellor
Postgraduates play an important role in the life of any institution and, at Sussex, we have from our earliest days valued having a good proportion of our students pursuing higher-level study.
A fair number of the students who study here as postgraduates come from within the University, reflecting the value of a Sussex undergraduate education. Others come from institutions in the UK and overseas, bringing fresh insights and perspectives to us.
With fees of up to £9,000 a year being introduced for undergraduates, the effects on students opting for postgraduate education in future years are uncertain. In principle, with fees repaid at a fixed proportion of income and only once graduates earn more than £21,000, students can opt for postgraduate study without impact on future repayments. However, the effect in practice has yet to be seen.
As the economy here and overseas develops, we can expect to see demand for highly skilled graduates continue to grow over the longer term, with postgraduate education becoming more of an expected norm for many professions, as in the USA.
In responding to these changing circumstances, Sussex has actively developed attractive new postgraduate provision – with specialist courses within areas such as business and finance, building on strong connections to related fields such as law and mathematics, or new journalism programmes within Media, Film and Music. Other developments are actively linked to some of the new academic developments at Sussex – such as the range of programmes in a number of schools that address climate change.
To sustain such initiatives, part of our fundraising programme is aimed at putting in place good financial support for talented students undertaking postgraduate study at Sussex, and donors have funded a range of new scholarships, such as the Carpenter Scholarships on African climate change.
Some of the most interesting developments at Sussex recently have been in relation to postgraduate research students –who are the lifeblood of future academic endeavour across all institutions.
Starting within our undergraduate programmes, the Junior Research Associate (JRA) bursaries - which we first introduced in 2008 and are now in their fifth year - have already given rise to new generations of doctoral students who gained a taste for independent research in their second year of undergraduate study.
The Doctoral School, which we created in 2009, plays an active role in supporting the wider postgraduate research community, helping for example to support and direct skills training. The Research Hive in the Library, again supported by external funding, has provided a new base of postgraduate research activity, complementing the dedicated research spaces elsewhere on campus.
As we will see increasingly competitive demand for promising early-career researchers, we need to ensure we offer attractive financial support and opportunities. We have in the last year worked to enhance the scholarships we offer our PhD students – partly through donor support but most significantly through the research council scholarships that we attract, such as the ESRC Doctoral Training Centre. This year we have been able to promote investment of nearly £5m for more than 80 full and partial scholarships.
With this sort of strong boost, we have seen a welcome increase in applications from home and EU students for postgraduate research, growing so far this year by more than 70%.
All of this is set against a context of uncertainty arising from government policy, which has been more focussed on undergraduate study than postgraduate in recent years. The recent postgraduate report from the 1994 Group - which was widely welcomed in public by students and other institutions - has set a strong challenge to the government on this.
Through this period of uncertainty and change, Sussex will continue to chart a positive and realistic plan for growth.