You will attend a PEM at least once a year throughout your candidature to review your progress against your required milestones and ensure you are on track to submit your thesis on time.
This is also an opportunity for you to discuss your progress to date, your supervision arrangements, any challenges you may be experiencing, and any additional resources or support you might require.
Your PEM has two steps:
The online PEM form contains questions about various aspects of your candidature. Once you have completed your section, the form is sent to your lead supervisor to complete their section.
If you need to raise confidential concerns about your supervision arrangements, you can do this on the PEM form by selecting ‘Yes’ to the question ‘Do you have concerns about your supervision?’ This will open a separate confidential section of the form, which will not be visible to your supervisor.
The meeting part of your PEM generally takes approximately 30 minutes. It is attended only by you and an independent two-person panel made up of academic staff from your faculty or school, one of whom will act as panel chair.
Your lead supervisor may attend part of your PEM but will not be present for the whole meeting, so you can discuss any confidential supervision concerns if applicable. The panel will discuss your completed PEM form with you and provide feedback, assistance and support as required.
After the meeting, the panel chair will complete their section of your PEM form, and you will have an opportunity to review and respond to their comments and provide feedback on the PEM process and its effectiveness in supporting your research.
Your PEM form will then be forwarded to your faculty or school’s Associate Head, Research Education (or equivalent) to assess and make a recommendation to your faculty or school as to your PEM outcome as outlined below.
You will receive an email a few weeks beforehand containing instructions on how and when to complete each of these parts.
It's important to complete each part of the process by the specified deadline to ensure that your supervisor and panel members can access the form in sufficient time for the PEM. Late completion of the forms could result in the matter being referred to the Associate Head, Research Education.
Your first PEM is generally held between eight and 11 months after your start date and is known as your Confirmation PEM because its purpose is to confirm that you have met all the probation period requirements that apply at the beginning of your candidature.
Unlike subsequent PEMs, your Confirmation PEM has only two possible outcomes: ‘Satisfactory or excellent progress’ or ‘Unsatisfactory progress’, which correspond to confirming that you have or have not met the requirements of your probation period, respectively.
Subsequent PEMs are generally held annually throughout your candidature, except during periods of suspension or examination.
In some cases, your supervisor or your faculty or school’s Associate Head, Research Education (or equivalent) may require an additional PEM, such as following an approved suspension.
When your faculty or school’s Associate Head, Research Education (or equivalent) has assessed your completed PEM form, they will recommend one of the following outcomes, of which you will be informed when it has been confirmed by your faculty.
These possible outcomes are outlined more fully in the Progress Planning and Review for Higher Degree by Research Students Policy.
You are currently meeting your progress requirements, and your faculty believes you are on track to submit your thesis early or on time.
You are not currently meeting your progress requirements, and your faculty believes there is a risk you will not submit your thesis on time. It may also have concerns about inappropriate academic practice.
In this case your faculty or school will provide support to help you get back on track, such as by recommending a period of leave to allow you to meet other commitments before returning to your studies, a change to your supervision arrangement if your current arrangement is no longer productive, or completion of a particular unit of study to enhance your understanding of a challenging aspect of your research.
A supplementary PEM will usually also be scheduled within a certain period afterwards, to check whether the support provided has resulted in you getting back on track.
You are not currently meeting your progress requirements, and your faculty believes there is a risk of significant delay in the submission of your thesis or that it will not be completed at all. It may also have serious concerns of inappropriate academic practice.
Such cases are forwarded to the Associate Dean (Research Education) for assessment, often requiring you to ‘show good cause’ as to why you should be permitted to continue your candidature. You will be provided with instructions on how to do this.