Why good PhD information is too hard to find
This week saw the Martingale Foundation has run a series of events about its report The Path to PhD (full disclosure: I am an unpaid ambassador for the Martingale Foundation, though I had no involvement in the preparation of this report).
The report is an interesting analysis of the jagged path to PhD for students from poorer backgrounds. As the report states:
“Only 33% of the population of England and Wales come from the highest socioeconomic backgrounds – yet students from these backgrounds make up 66% of all STEM PhD students.”
“The higher the degree, the lower the proportion of students from low-socioeconomic backgrounds. Students from low-socioeconomic backgrounds make up 24% of STEM undergraduate students, but just 18% of STEM PhD students and 22% of all (masters and PhD) STEM postgraduate research students.”
Aside from any kind of moral failing it is the systematic shallowing of the talent pool precisely in the areas needed for the industrial strategy that should concern policymakers. While there are clearly structural factors in funding and culture more practically, Martingale alights on poor information as a barrier to PhD study. Recommendations include for PhD adverts to contain standardised information:
“Stipend level, duration of funding, details of the project, the key requirements to apply including skills and experience, the application process and where applicants can ask questions. This would equip students to approach supervisors, gather information and put forward the strongest possible application.”
A system where information is not standardised, where project details are vague, where skills and experiences are ill described, and where there is little opportunity to ask questions sounds like a clearly terrible idea. And yet, this is precisely how that PhD applications can be.
Even worse, the chaotic application landscape is not uniformly chaotic between providers. Some providers will allow students to speak to potential supervisors and some will not. Some providers will encourage applications to be made directly with potential supervisors while others will strictly forbid it. Information can be clear where there is an obvious grant maker or it can be bitty where there are the odd pots of funding available. This is before getting to the pre-information needed for international students like visas, NHS surcharges, working regulations, and other costs.
It seems entirely bizarre that more has not been done to address such a well known issue. The tap-on-the-shoulder culture of PhDs is partially because of favouritism, or convenience, or because of personal relationships, but it is surely also because the marketplace for PhD students is mediated by a set of confusing and diffuse messages.
The root cause of the confusion is not malice. This would be easier to deal with and could be regulated out, or dealt with by HR, or covered by one of the sector’s many culture initiatives. Instead, the expression of confusing communications emerges from the aforementioned structural challenges with PhD study.
The obvious contrast to undergraduate study is that there is no single route for application. For PhD students information is diffuse because the ways in which to get funded are varied. The question which then stems from this is why there couldn’t be a “UCAS for PhD students.” The answer is that the complexity of the funding cycles for PhD abrogates a straightforward application cycle. There are various grant giving dates, different institutional approaches, an informal economy of applications that would need to be addressed, and admissions are on a continual rolling basis. While there are websites that aggregate information, UCAS would not be able to impose an agreed set of rules on a system that is so complex.
There is also an inherent terminology problem. Applying for a master’s is – relatively – straightforward, as the terms are analogous to previous study. There are essays, tutorials, lectures, and while the funding system is complicated it is also supported by the whole infrastructure of Student Finance England (in the case of England). The transition is sharp but the vernacular does not require too much imagination. For PhDs, funding requires an understanding of grants and stipends; the difference between an MPhil and a research master’s as a route to PhD study is not obvious; and the difference between a PhD, DPhil, and professional doctorate is less obvious still.
Even the most committed student who takes time to wade through the acronyms and complexity may also need help from time to time. Unlike in the transition to undergraduate, and the transition between undergraduate and master’s study, there are fewer people that can translate the morass of information. This is partially a numbers game, as there are just fewer people that have done PhDs. It is also the reality that as we progress through our education journeys our ties to our institutions, and the people that work in them, tend to become weaker as we gain greater independence.
The problem manifests as information but its cause lies in the routes into PhD, the necessary complexity of terminology, and the lack of support in understanding the information that is available. The solution feels tantalisingly obvious – that providers should just explain what they are doing in a more standard way. This could undoubtedly help. But it is perhaps also time to consider whether there should be more systematic review of who is accessing information, what they are doing with it, and what is the impact on their journey into PhD study.