It is reasonably common for the supervisory team on a project to change, and that might happen for a variety of reasons.
Change in project direction
By its very nature, the direction of research is difficult to predict from 3 or more years in advance. Many of our students change in direction, and quite often this would require new skills that were not available in the original supervisory team.
Here, we would recommend the addition of supervisors to bring the appropriate expertise. In many cases, this represents a welcome and exciting change to the project.
Change in supervisor circumstances
A supervisor would never take on a postgraduate student without the intention of seeing through to completion. But of course, a postgraduate qualification can take up to 7 years and in that period a supervisor might leave, become ill, take on additional duties, or many other things might conspire against best-laid plans.
In this situation, we would where possible identify a like-for-like replacement to bring the missing supervisory skills back to the team.
Mutual agreement between student and supervisor
Occasionally, there are irreconcilable differences between student and supervisor. There is rarely any blame to be apportioned in these cases, and no repercussions for either party: supervisors have had many successful students in the past; and conversely, we hope students will go on to achieve success with a different supervisory team.
Depending what has gone wrong, we might identify an additional supervisor or a replacement who brings the right skills back into the team.
How does a change of supervisors happen?
Up until the project proposal is refined and submitted for review, the full range of skills needed from the supervisors can’t necessarily be foreseen. Therefore there is no consequence to changing the supervisory team from the original application, up until the proposal is submitted for approval in the first 3 months. The names of the team of supervisors is submitted for review alongside the proposal; part of the panel’s role will be to comment on the skill mix of the supervisors.
After the proposal is signed off, any subsequent change in supervisors will have to be progressed through the ICM team. You will have to complete the PGR Change of Supervision Form but your application will be subject to final approval in the graduate school.