Postgraduate Researcher Experience Survey (PRES)

Postgraduate Researcher Experience Survey (PRES)

The HEA developed PRES for use by any higher education institution (HEI) in the UK that wishes to use it. It is generic in nature, but allows HEIs to add some specific questions of their own if they wish to. The core question set includes questions relating to the revised (2004) QAA Code of Practice and to skills development. PRES has been developed using the CROS survey methodology to ensure that an institution's results are confidential to that institution. The HEA will have access only to the aggregated national figures.

The HE Academy undertook a pilot survey in the summer 2006 to explore researcher experiences of research degree programmes with the intent to provide the sector with a national tool (PRES). Following this pilot survey, the full version ran between March and May 2007 with 58 institutions participating. It achieved almost 11,000 respondents and an overall response rate of 25%.

72 institutions participated in the 2008 survey, which ran between March and May.  The national results will be available in the autumn.

More information