The PGR StudentSurvey.ie is designed to provide insight into the experiences of postgraduate research students, and the 2025 results highlight many positive developments.
Students have favourable views on the level and quality of supervision they receive, have a strong understanding of what is required of them, and feel they are developing strong research and other transferable skills. Overall, they rate their higher education research experience as positive.
Viewed longitudinally, there is a continued pattern of steady improvement across several key areas of the postgraduate research experience:
•The number of students with more than one supervisor has increased.
•Personalised development plans are being implemented more widely.
•Career advice is more readily available to students.
•Social isolation continues to decline, especially compared to the COVID-19 pandemic era.
•Opportunities to spend time abroad have seen an increase in recent years.
We continue to see a welcome rise in students reporting working collaboratively with a civil society organisation or public organisation. Collaboration now stands at 26% (higher than previous surveys). This shows the continued strengthening of co-operation and growth in collaborative networks between civil society and academia, which should help pave the way for future expansion in these numbers.
A number of challenges are also identified in the report in areas such as withdrawal, feedback, and funding. So a significant challenge now arising is how to embed the positive trends we are seeing, and to leverage what we know works and enhances the higher education experience, so that all students may benefit.
