Responsibilities

Principal Supervisors track the progress of the candidate and lead the supervisory team. The Principal Supervisor has final responsibility for the decisions made by the supervisory team. The Sub-Dean Graduate Studies should be consulted or advised on substantive matters effecting candidature.

A brief overview of their responsibilities are listed below. Refer to Section 2 HDR Policy - Responsibilities of supervisors and the Sub Dean (Graduate Studies) fact sheet for more information.

Principal Supervisor responsibilities

The Principal Supervisor will lead the supervisory team and is generally the key contact for HDR candidates.

Key Principal Supervisor responsibilities include, but are not limited to:

• Negotiate expected roles with Co-Supervisors, in conjunction with the candidate
• Coordinating the operations of the supervisory team to ensure the candidate is supported in all areas
• Rigorously monitor the candidate’s ongoing performance, discussing any inadequacies with the candidate, and completing mandatory progress reports
• Communicating any issues with the Faculty Sub-Dean Graduate Studies
• Ensuring research is undertaken with the appropriate ethics and other approvals in place
• Ensuring suitable resources and facilities are available to the candidate
• Recommending suitable examiners to the Office of Research Services and Graduate Studies when required
• Supporting the Co-Supervisors where needed, leading any inexperienced supervisors and contributing to their supervisory development and skills.

Supervisory team

All members of the supervisory team will contribute to providing guidance on matters such as:

• The nature of research
• Data management plan
• The choice of the research topic
• The planning and execution of the research program
• Ethical issues relating to the research
• Methodological issues
• Data analysis issues
• Exploring solutions for unexpected problems which arise in the research