PGR Voice Survey 2025

The PGR Voice Survey ran between 12 May and 20 June 2025. A big thank you to all of the postgraduate researchers who participated, and to all of the staff who supported this. 

The survey closed with an overall response rate of 40% (1227 students). We heard from PGRs at all stages of their programme in Schools across the University, giving us an in-depth and representative insight into the PGR experience.

Headline results  

The results were positive overall, and an improvement on the previous PGR Voice Survey - PGRs responded to most questions more positively than in 2023.  

The vast majority of PGRs (94.2%) reported that their overall experience has been excellent, good or satisfactory (92.0% in 2023). 78.4% of respondents told us that the research culture in their School is positive or very positive (74.0% in 2023), and 93.3% said that their experience had fully or partially matched the expectations they had when they started their programme (92.9% in 2023). 78.3% of students still in their tuition fee paying period expect to submit during this timeframe (73.6% in 2023). 

As in the previous survey, the strongest results were in the Supervision section - 87.7% of students rated their supervision as good or excellent (84.3% in 2023), and the comments in this section were predominantly very positive. We know that supervision is a key factor in  students’ overall experience, and are proud of the good work that is happening in this area.  

One of the biggest improvements was in the Training and Development section - 78.4% rated the overall training offer as good or excellent (66.3% in 2023). This was an area of focus for us following the previous survey, particularly making training easier to browse and access, so we are pleased to see this improvement. However, PGRs once again identified this as the number one thing they think we should focus on to most improve PGR experience, so we will continue to prioritise work in this space over the coming year. 

One of our other key priorities following the previous survey was the experience of disabled PGRs, as they responded less positively than students without disabilities in 2023. In 2025 the responses from disabled PGRs improved throughout the survey - in 2023, 66.7% of disabled students agreed that the environment in their School was supportive, this has increased to 79.2% in 2025. A higher proportion of students are now engaging with the Disability and Dyslexia Support Service (DDSS), and are happier with their experience (77.5% of service-users rated their experience positively in 2023, this rose to 89.1% in 2025). There are still several areas where disabled students continue to respond less positively than students without disabilities however, and we understand there is still work to be done to ensure a fully equitable experience across the University. 

As well as the quantitative data, PGRs provided detailed written feedback on many aspects of their experience: some key themes included PGR workspaces, the Elsevier big deal, GTA opportunities, use of Generative AI, and additional challenges for particular groups of students. 

Next steps 

The University PGR Committee has conducted an in-depth analysis of the institutional results. This included benchmarking with the University of Manchester, who we co-created and delivered this survey with, and scrutinising any differences in responses between different student groups. Based on these results, they have identified eight priority areas for further work: 

• Careers and employability
• Training and development
• Disability support in Schools
• Library resources
• Generative AI
• GTA opportunities
• PGR workspaces
• LGBT+ student experience

An institutional action plan has been developed to identify key actions required to address feedback in each area. This will be delivered throughout the 25/26 academic year, and we will provide periodic updates on our progress via this webpage and the PGR newsletter.  As an example, you can see the work which was undertaken in response to the 2023 PGR Voice survey here. 

In the meantime we have run workshops with School PGR Leads and Faculty Doctoral School teams to engage colleagues with your feedback, and the actions we are planning. Schools are reviewing their (fully anonymised) results in depth as part of their annual PGR quality assurance reviews over the winter period, and discussing their reflections and next steps with Faculty PGR leadership.  Professional services teams have also received feedback relevant to their area, and results have been considered by key groups including the Library’s Open Research Advisory Group, the Generative AI Working Group, Estates colleagues developing the Campus Master Plan, and the GTA Developers Network, to inform their work with PGRs.

Any questions?

If you have any questions, you can email the PGR Voice Team on pgrvoice@sheffield.ac.uk

We conduct an institutional PGR survey every two years, the next is planned for spring 2027.