Milestones
The University is committed to providing structured progress management to all HDR Candidates to ensure satisfactory progress is being made by identifying and supporting you to address progress issues which may arise during enrolment. Your progression is supported by a sequence of activities that include up to three milestone reviews. They are designed to support and facilitate your progress towards your thesis submission date, providing you with an opportunity to receive structured feedback on progress to date.
Milestone reviews must consider quality and progress, your plans for professional development to facilitate and finalise high quality, ethical and timely research, under the guidance of appropriate supervision.
Milestones provide an opportunity for HDR Candidates to raise any issues that are affecting progress, so that action to address these issues can be considered and implemented where appropriate.
For more information about the HDR Milestones, please see the following pages and refer to the HDR Milestones Policy and the HDR Milestones Procedure.
Annual Review (For candidates without a milestone review in a twelve month period)
Doctoral Candidates must undertake three milestones and Masters by Research Candidates must undertake two. Recommended timings of the milestones for part-time HDR Candidates are outlined in the below table: All candidates should refer to the document requirements as listed in the Milestone Required Documents webpage. Documents are to be received by the Milestone Review Panel at least fifteen (15) working days prior to the panel meeting and must be in a Word (.docx) or PDF (.pdf) format. The Milestone Review Panel is responsible for assessing and making determinations as to whether a HDR Candidate has met the relevant criteria to pass a milestone. Panel Membership will consist of: The discipline representative may also be called the expert reader and is the panel member who will review any written requirements as part of the milestone. During the meeting you will be interviewed separately and together with the supervision team. During the meeting the supervisors exit and you will have the opportunity to have a confidential discussion about supervision, to review your Study Access Plan (if applicable), or to raise other concerns. Subsequently the candidate exits while the committee discusses the supervision and the candidate’s progress in confidence. The decisions available to the Milestone Review Panel are: You may apply for an extension to your milestone given extenuating circumstances. The Milestone Extension form must be completed and submitted to the Graduate Research School no later than two (2) weeks prior to the originally timed milestone. You may only be granted a maximum of two (2) months extension to the milestone deadline. If an extension is granted, future milestones will not move forward and it will not extend any period of candidature. If you are undertaking mandatory coursework as part of your degree, you may be eligible for a milestone extension.Full-time equivalent Milestones Masters by Research Candidate Timing Doctoral Candidate Timing Induction including Supervision Agreement form submission 3 months FTE after commencement 3 months FTE after commencement Confirmation of Candidate (Milestone 1) 6 months FTE after commencement 12 months FTE after commencement Mid-Point Review (Milestone 2) N/A 24 months FTE after commencement Thesis Review (Milestone 3) 18 months FTE after commencement 36 months FTE after commencement Part-time equivalent Milestones Masters by Research Candidate Timing Doctoral Candidate Timing Induction including Supervision Agreement form submission 3 months after commencement 3 months after commencement Confirmation of Candidate (Milestone 1) 12 months after commencement 24 months after commencement Mid-Point Review (Milestone 2) N/A 48 months after commencement Thesis Review (Milestone 3) 36 months FTE after commencement 72 months after commencement
