Berlin University Alliance

“Like an elephant,

a supervision is easy to recognise

but difficult to define”ⁱ

The supervisory relationship represents a crucial element in the successful completion of a doctoral project. But what exactly is supervision? What does it mean to you? How can it be defined and evaluated?

The "Good Supervision Culture" Project had the goal to initiate a conversation between doctoral candidates and university employees (e.g., supervisors) involved in the higher education didactics with emphasis on the quality of supervisory relationships. As part of a project within the Berlin University Alliance (BUA) on good supervision culture, a series of roundtable discussions will be organized.Doctoral candidates and the supervisors will have the opportunity to discuss the topic, both within each target group and also across the groups. These discussions may lead to the adoption of new resolutions in the context of a good supervisory culture.

Topics for discussions are inspired by data from nacaps (National Academics Panel Study), feedback/suggestions from doctoral candidates and a survey of professor’s opinions about the supervision (Berlin Leadership Academy).

It is planned to organize "Round Tables" in each of the four BUA partners.

i Frank King, “Notes on supervising”, in Computer Science (1995)