Postgraduate Research Experience Survey 2017: UCL results

PRES 2017 ran from mid February until mid May, with response rates up significantly since the survey was last run (47% compared with 36%), and slightly higher than the sector average response rate of 46%.

UCL students reported an overall satisfaction rate with their courses of 81%, which is broadly in alignment with the sector benchmark of 82%. And UCL was found to be performing broadly in line with the sector average in all key areas surveyed - supervision, resources, research culture, progression, responsibilities, research, skills, professional development, teaching and overall experience.

83% of students surveyed had access to the specialist resources they needed to carry out with their research, and 75% were happy with the seminar programme their department offered. But there were some disappointing findings too. Only 71% of students reported being able to access suitable working space, while just 71% considered the provision of computing resources and facilities to be adequate.
Professor David Bogle, UCL Pro Vice-Provost of the Doctoral School, said:

'We are pleased that the response rate to the Postgraduate Research Experience Survey has risen significantly since it was first run, in 2015. The results show we have an excellent research training environment, of which we are proud; but there are areas in which we want to do better, particularly around the topics of research culture and resources.  We are working with our academic faculties and departments, and the non-academic areas who offer key services to our doctoral community including the Careers Service, ISD and the Library, so we can keep doing what works well and implement improvements.  We will be posting updates on our website to let everyone know what is being done.

'We are undergoing a major buildings transformation programme at the moment, and are working hard to address the issue of pressure on study space which is of concern to us and our research student community. UCL has invested over £1 million to develop new learning spaces over the last year, with 534 study spaces were opened during 2016-17 across UCL Library Services; but we are also working with faculties to look closely at the provision of research student work space in departments".

Read the full results here