King's College London

Professor Shitij Kapur, Vice-Chancellor & President of King's College London, reminded everyone that King’s 4000 doctoral researchers are the largest community of researchers in the university and therefore play a critical role underpinning the quality and breadth of King’s research.

The Doctoral College works in partnership with King’s Doctoral Students Association (KDSA), the representative body for doctoral students.

Doctoral researchers are automatically members of the King's Doctoral College from the point of enrolment. In addition, they are members for two years after leaving, continuing to benefit from access to an extensive portfolio of career support.

Dr Nigel Eady, Director of Research Talent, said,

King’s doctoral researchers go on to successful careers in many sectors. We are proud that our high quality career support means researchers not only progress effectively during their degrees but also report very high levels of satisfaction having left King’s – they say their career plans are on track and they are doing work they find meaningful.

Damon Cleaver, President of KDSA and 3rd Year PhD Student, said,

In recent years, we have successfully advocated for improved pay and conditions for Graduate Teaching Assistants. We look forward to working with the Doctoral College to tackle issues like the cost of living. We’re also delighted to partner on an improved induction programme over the coming months, to build a thriving and diverse research community.

As well as a clear student focus, the Doctoral College is committed to high quality supervisor support. King’s is a core member of the Next Generation Research SuperVision Programme (RSVP), which is transforming the culture and practice of research supervision.

Professor Rebecca Oakey, Dean for Doctoral Studies, said,

The Doctoral College’s Supervisor Excellence Awards celebrate the efforts our academic staff invest in training the next generation of researchers. We also recognise the critical role many other staff play, which is why we now also have prizes for those supporting students but who are not officially a member of the supervisory team.

Rebecca also announced the third round of the King’s Prize Doctoral Programme. This investment in cohort-based doctoral training, leverages significant external funding, with the first round of programmes bringing in £2.3M of industry funding and £17.7M of programmatic funding. These student-focused, interdisciplinary cohort programmes provide high quality training in areas of King’s research strengths.