In 2004 the Quality Assurance Agency for higher Education (QAA) published its revised code of Practice for Research Degree Programmes. This code sets minimum standards, agreed by the sector, for institutional arrangements in managing research degrees. In this respect it is a very useful document in that it clarifies the roles and responsibilities of academic institutions, supervisors and the students themselves. As such it provides a framework on which to build the supervisor-student relationship. However, one area which the code fails to address is the management of industrially sponsored research projects. This indicates a necessity for further investigation combined with effective dissemination. It was obvious to us that projects of this type are likely to involve greater complexity, not least in the number and nature of the relationships involved, i.e., supervisor-industry sponsor, student-industry sponsor as well as the existing supervisor-student relationship.

The specific questions that we aimed to address were as follows:

• What additional issues do the supervisor and the student face in supervising/undertaking industrially sponsored research in comparison to a Research Council/University sponsored project?
• How might a supervisor address these issues?
• How should a student approach these issues?
• What preconceptions are held by industrial sponsors?
• What guidelines are necessary for all parties before embarking on such a project?

These research questions have been explored by means of both initial questionnaires, which were distributed to representatives of all three parties – students, supervisors and sponsors – and qualitative interviews with the three stakeholders across the Schools, to ensure greater objectivity.

The findings highlighted issues such as the disparity between the expectations of academic supervisors and industrial sponsors regarding levels of contact with students, which could lead to difficulties and misunderstandings which may not be identified until it is too late to resolve them. There would appear to be a need to ‘tighten up’ contact processes between the different parties to ensure more effective communication and collaboration. One positive finding was that industrial sponsors said they would welcome more guidance about expectations and procedures in the form of a guidebook, which accords with our intention to draft guidance notes based on our research to be distributed to prospective industry sponsors, as well as all staff and newly-appointed researchers in our Schools who are about to undertake industrially sponsored research projects. Recipients of these notes will be encouraged to provide feedback on the usefulness of the guidance and any other issues they encountered.

The guidelines will help Schools to improve the induction process for industrially sponsored students and would help in the selection of an appropriate representative from the sponsoring organisation. Finally, the supervisor guidelines would be a useful resource on the SEDU website for new and existing supervisors.