C10 Workshop summary and outcomes

Investigating researcher careers: the implications of a new cohort study

Catherine Benfield, Higher Education Statistics Agency and Kate Reading, Portfolio Manager, Research Councils UK

Overview

A new cohort study commissioned by Research Councils UK (RCUK) in partnership with the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) aims to help the research councils, government and others to understand the economic impact of postgraduate research training. The study will establish a ‘panel' of all UK- and EU-domiciled doctoral graduates for a longer-term study to track their careers over a number of years. This first step involves further development of the HESA longitudinal survey of the destinations of leavers from higher education which asks graduates about their careers and choices roughly 3.5 years after graduation (known as the DLHE Longitudinal Survey). The success of the study will depend on maximum response to the DLHE survey. Universities play a key role in providing graduate contact details for this survey.

This session aimed to:

• provide an outline of the scope and next steps in the cohort study
• explore the strategic and practical engagement of universities in this study.

Presentation summary

The approach taken by RCUK stems from an options analysis conducted by the Institute for Employment Research (IER), at the University of Warwick. This concluded that, to fill the ‘gap in knowledge', regular national data sources were too broad or too infrequent to be of much use. Further development of the HESA Longitudinal Survey of Destinations of Leavers of Higher Education (LDLHE) was recommended as a route for providing initial statistics - although it was also noted that this might not fully cover everything RCUK wish to know, given competition amongst sponsors of the LDLHE for question space. The options analysis recommended seeking more detailed career profiles from a subset of respondents to broaden and enrich the data. It also recommended that ongoing aspects of the study include annual web-based routes for surveying doctoral graduates.

RCUK has since commissioned an enhancement to the questions in the existing HESA survey to specifically target doctoral graduates. The DLHE Longitudinal Survey captures information about what the graduate is doing on a fixed date (24 November in 2008) and also captures a ‘career history' since completion of studies. All survey work will be completed by IFF Research, who contacted institutions in early September to begin collection of graduate contact details. Field work commences on the reference date and closes in March 2009. The first results will become available for analysis in May 2009 and the analysis will also inform future phases of the study as it follows doctoral graduates' career paths over a number of years.

It is widely recognised that statistics alone cannot provide the whole picture of how doctoral graduates contribute to our economy and society and plans for the study include commissioning the gathering of case studies and career profiles from individuals who agree to this when responding to the DLHE survey. Case studies will investigate such issues as:

• attractiveness of research training
• influences towards/from research careers
• gains as a result of their training
• contribution(s) to:
• employer/economy
• social group
• wider society.

Discussion outcomes

Participants agreed that this is an important survey and everyone needs to help ensure that it has a sufficiently high profile within universities to ensure buy-in from all involved in contributing contact details. For example, participants emphasised the need to inform universities at VC-level (a copy of the letter is available at http://www.rcuk.ac.uk/rescareer/rcdu/impact.htm).

The survey also needs to be publicised to respondents, making use of all available publications, newsletters and so on and various routes were highlighted at the workshop.

Questions to elicit case study data will need to be carefully structured to produce rich data and enable it to be used effectively. The participants suggested questions which will feed into the cohort study project.

 

View the C10 presentation slides for Catherine Benfield
View the C10 presentation slides for Kate Reading