The HEA welcomes the opportunity to respond to the Postgraduate Review being led by Professor Adrian Smith.
One area of our work is research into the postgraduate experience a specific focus of the Smith Review. The Postgraduate Research Experience Survey (PRES) and the Postgraduate Taught Experience Survey (PTES) allow institutions to enhance the quality of postgraduate degree provision by collecting feedback from current postgraduate students in a systematic and user-friendly way. The surveys are a unique online service offered by the Higher Education Academy to all UK higher education institutions. PRES was introduced in the UK in 2007 and has also run in 2008 and 2009. A total of 108 higher education institutions have taken part at least once over that three-year period. In 2009 18 644 respondents from 82 HEIs took part. The PTES ran for the first time in 2009 and a total of 14 421 students from 30 higher education institutions in England Scotland and Northern Ireland took part. To date 82 institutions have signed up for the 2010 survey.
We are grateful for the opportunity to present relevant findings and lessons learned from this research which is directly relevant to this review.
