Information for Supervisors

Prior to recruitment each year we run a project call whereby potential supervisors are invited to submit a project proposal.

Staff will be asked to submit an application form requesting information including:

Supervisor(s) information
Project Description
Project Timeplan
Grant information
Supervision history
Alignment with MRC DTP Themes
Information on collaborative nature of project
Projects that are collaborative in nature, either cross institution or with Industry are strongly encouraged.

Our vision is to train the next generation of research leaders expert in informatics-based approaches and biomedical technologies who are thus able to unravel disease mechanisms and devise new therapies.  Projects must be designed to equip the student with quantitative skills (e.g. statistics, computation, bioinformatics) in the context of their work which may involve one or more data sources.

All project proposals will be reviewed by two members of the Precision Medicine Academic Steering Committee and the final list of projects for advertisement decided by the Committee.

Timeline
Early August - call for project proposals issued
Late September - deadline for staff to submit project proposals
Mid October - shortlisting of projects by Steering Committee
Late October/November - staff informed if their project proposal has been sucessful or not
November - sucessfull proposals are advertised
November-Jan - advert runs
February - shortlisted interviews

Applications to the programme are submitted via the University of Edinburgh's Degree Finder.

Further information on the guidance given to applicants is available here.  We encourage all applicants to speak with the project supervisor prior to making an application.

Once the application deadline has passed, supervisors will be sent all applications received for their project.
You will be asked to review all applications and to nominate one candidate for interview along with one reserve candidate.
Interviews will be carried out by members of the Precision Medicine Academic Steering Committee and you are therefore strongly encouraged to interview applicants yourself prior to nominating them for interview.
Should your applicant be successful at interview, we will confirm that you are happy for an offer to be made and then make the offer.

Timeline
Late October/November - projects advertised on FindaPhD and website etc.
Early January - deadline for student applications.
Early January - applications sent to supervisors so they can interview candidates and submit the name of 1 candidate for interview by DTP panels.
Early/Mid February - DTP interview panels and ranking applicants.
Late February - confirmation of offers.

Supervisors are responsible for monitoring Precision Medicine DTP student progress and reporting annually.  You should ensure you are aware of the programme milestones as outlined for students and will submit reports each year as required.
The DTP PG Administrative Officer will monitor the specific milestones for this programme.  Additional information is available in Information for Students: Programme Requirements

The Postgraduate Research Annual Review is supported by MVLS Graduate School, you will receive email prompts from the system when action is required, please ensure that you complete your sections in a timely fashion.  Additional guidance for supervisors on completion of is available here. 

Supervisors should be honest with their feedback to students and raise any concerns with the Programme Director as soon as possible.

Your Precision Medicine student will have a Thesis Committee consisting of:

- an appointed Chair from the Precision Medicine Academic Steering Group
- two assessors

Important points to note:

• The appointed Chair does not necessarily need to be tuned into the area, as that is the role of the assessors. Part of the remit of the Precision Medicine DTP is to train interdisciplinary future leaders who will be able to converse at many different levels, hence their reports and talks should always be amenable to most academics.
• The assesors should be an expert on the project area and are identified and recruited by the supervisors. They must be a member of staff at the lead institution.
• The assessors cannot be a named supervisor on the project or indeed likely to be a possible supervisor later in the project, but should be relatively expert in the field or area. They should also not be related to any of the supervisors OR part of any of the supervisors teams.
• The Chair and a assesors act as both a monitor of progression and also of pastoral support, there should be at least one of these roles that is filled by a person of the same gender as the student and preferably a diverse committee is most useful.
• The Chair and assessors should be appointed promptly at the start of the first year and prior to the submission of the 10 week plan, as together they will provide feedback to the student.
• The Committee should meet annually as part of the annual review. A meeting following submission of the 10 week plan is not necessary but can performed if a useful way of everyone meeting.
• Following the meeting the Thesis Committee Report Form should be completed by the Thesis Committee Chair, in collaboration with the other members of the Thesis Committee. Once it has been signed off by all members of the committee, the completed form should be uploaded to the students Annual Review.