The PhD Transfer Review
Recently I passed a major PhD milestone, my 12 month Transfer Review.
What is a Transfer Review?
The review gets called different things, depending on your institution, such as a Transfer Assessment, Confirmation, Transfer Upgrade, or Upgrade Assessment. It’s an incredibly important progress point. There are usually more informal reviews at designated points through the PhD progress, such as 6 monthly or yearly reviews, but the Transfer Review is the only formally evaluated point apart from the final viva.
This process varies from institution to institution, however it usually occurs at the 12 month point of a full time PhD (or a part time equivalent). It involves preparing a report on progress to date, plans for the completion of the PhD, data collection timelines, and your research questions and ideas so far. You also have to submit an example of writing, like a finished chapter or paper draft, or literature review outlining the background to your work. There will be training documents and various paperwork required by your university that you complete with your supervisor. You’ll also be asked to arrange a panel to present your work to. This will include someone external to your project to act as an examiner, who will ask questions about your direction and decisions. The whole process is similar to the final viva that occurs right at the end of a PhD.
The point of the Transfer Review is to establish whether your supervisors and the panel are confident you are working to a PhD standard, and that you can realistically complete what you have proposed to do. Should you fail at the Transfer Review stage, you will not be allowed to complete your work, but will be awarded a Master’s level qualification rather than “progressing” or “transferring” to a PhD. That means there’s a lot riding on this - and it can (but doesn’t need to) be a very stressful point in your journey.
My Transfer Experience
My main focus following my 6 month review was narrowing down the scope of my research and data collection proposal. My 6 month review was a similar process to the Transfer Review, without the added pressure of the formal evaluation which decided whether I could progress with my work. The feedback I had then was that I was trying to do too much, which I completely agreed with. The project I’m exploring, Connecting Our City in York, has so many different aspects to it that it was hard to let some go and focus more on others. Luckily for me, I found so many aspects of my research interesting. The nature of a PhD, however, is to delve deeply into something. As such, my main focus in my Transfer Review presentation was explaining the progress I’d made since that 6 month review in honing and refining my research. This is a really important part of leaning to become a researcher.
Part of the Transfer process also involves updating the working title of your PhD. When you start your studies, your title is likely to change and become more specific and concise. Previously, my working title was “Exploring York’s Connecting Our City Mental Health Transformation Project”. As part of the review, I submitted a title change to “Exploring the Experiences of People Significantly Engaged in the Development and Delivery of a Community Mental Health Hub Model in York”. This change in title represents a need to focus more tightly on one area of a complex activity. When I first started my PhD, there were many ways I could collect data and explore my subject. Following the research I conducted throughout my first year, I identified an area that I believed would provide rich learning and data, and that would also contribute to a gap in current literature.
Personally, I spent a lot of time worrying about the transfer process. It took up all of my attention in the weeks before the submission date for my writing example and in person panel exam. It felt like a huge point in the PhD journey where - my imposter syndrome told me - I could be potentially revealed as not up to the task. Your supervisors and examiner are usually really rooting for you to succeed, however, rather than searching for ways to catch you out. It is also important that if there are any small problems, they are discussed at this early point, otherwise they can grow and become big issues later in your work. Despite being incredibly passionate about my work and really enjoying the PhD process, and my supervisors being incredibly supportive and reassuring me I was doing all the right things, I was a bit of a wreck!
Now that it’s over and I have passed, I feel validated. My confidence has had a boost (though I’m told I should be much more confident. This seems to be a trait that almost every other current or previous PhD student I’ve spoken to seems to share…). Aside from the stress, the process was actually very valuable for a number of unexpected reasons. Evaluating my progress since the 6 month review helped me to realise that my research has actually come a very long way, and overcome a number of barriers and challenges. I’ve refined my focus and writing style over and over since that initial 6 month presentation, and can now speak much more articulately about my research subject. It was a great practice run for the final viva which will come at the end of the PhD, and gave me an idea of what I will need to prepare for. The discussion during the panel presentation also gave me new insights and different perspectives that I can now explore and expand upon in my thesis. Everyone was kind and encouraging, but challenging and treated me as a peer. One of the more unexpected personal transformations that occur during a PhD is slowly adopting a new professional identity as a researcher and author, and being treated like a peer in the Transfer Review is an important part of learning to share your views with the world, defend them, and discuss them. I have to say also, that presenting to people whose research I respected deeply before even joining York St John, was a real privilege (as well as mildly terrifying!). A PhD doesn’t present many milestones to celebrate, so this is a big one. If you’re working on your own, or if you’ve just passed, take time out to take stock of how far you have come.
What’s Next?
Since passing my Transfer Review, I have continued to work on my literature review and a scoping review, which I aim to publish. Now that my focus has become clearer and more narrow, I can continue to build on the structure of my thesis and finalise my plans for further data collection. I am also happy to announce that I will be the Post Graduate Research Representative for the school of Education, Language and Psychology at York St John for the 2023-2024 year. I’m looking forward to sharing more of my learning in the coming months, as well as some writing about my findings so far. Time seems to be absolutely flying by, and I’m savouring every moment of the journey.
