PRES

The Postgraduate Research Experience Survey (PRES) is a study made available to all universities across the UK with postgraduate research students. In their own words, the survey is designed to "help institutions enhance the quality of postgraduate research degree provision by collecting feedback from current research students in a systematic and user-friendly way."

PRES is now being run in 82 UK universities, and NTU has participated for the past two years. It was last conducted between March and May 2009 and is now going to be run every two years going forward, with the next one due in 2011.

Who can take part?
All students undertaking a research degree at NTU at the time of the survey will be included – MPhil, PhD and MRes. Eligible students will be emailed by the University with a link to the survey. This is a fairly short survey so should take no longer than five to ten minutes to complete.

Summary findings 2009
This year we achieved a 40% response rate which is nearly double the survey average response rate. You told us that more than three quarters of you are satisfied with your postgradyate study at NTU, with full-time students more satisfied than part-time. Business, Law and Education research students are particularly satisfied.

NTU scored extremely highly for support and guidance from supervisors, which you ranked as the most important aspect of undertaking a research degree. NTU also leads on provision of computing resources and facilities, developing students' analytical skills. You also told us that we develop research students who are confident about managing their research project, ability to learn independently, have developed analytical and communication skills.

You also tell us that we are making great progress on providing support and feedback from supervisors, providing opportunities for research students to teach, and on meeting the needs of part-time researchers. 70% of our research students would recommend NTU to other students for postgraduate research study.

Thank you to everyone who took the time to complete the survey this year.