Review of Wellcome Trust PhD Research Training: The student perspective

Supporting the training of the research population through PhD awards is a key feature of the Wellcome Trust's funding programme, but how effective is this training?

This is the second study in a series of three that tries to answer this question.

The first study analysed the careers of a cohort of past Trust-funded students to determine whether the Trust's aim of producing high-quality graduates for biomedical research is being met. The third study asked for the opinions of PhD supervisors.

Executive summary

The purpose of this study was to explore the experience and expectations of current Wellcome Trust-funded PhD students receiving training on either the new four-year PhD training programmes or via the more traditional three-year studentships. This was done through both in-depth interviews and from final-year student questionnaires. The study's findings will constitute part of a wider review of Wellcome Trust PhD training programmes, which will include an opinion survey of academic supervisors of Trust-funded PhD students as well as analyses of the subsequent career progress of past Trust students.

In-depth interviews were held between October 1998 and February 1999 with 45 current Trust-funded students on either three-year Prize Studentships or four-year PhD Programmes, and at various stages of their PhD training. In addition, the results of a questionnaire survey of 146 final-year Trust students carried out in July 1998 and July 1999 were mapped, as appropriate, onto the findings of the more qualitative survey.

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