Examples
Worked examples
- Is an instance
The primary supervisor named on a UK PhD student's registration, accountable to the graduate school for supervision quality
Counter-examples
Looks similar, but isn't
- Not an instance
A research advisor who has no formal institutional appointment is a mentor, not a supervisor in this sense
Editorial commentary
Distinct from a mentor in carrying formal institutional accountability and evaluative authority. Many doctoral structures use multiple supervisors (primary + secondary, or supervisory team) to spread expertise and reduce dependency on a single person. The relationship has both intellectual and pastoral dimensions.
References
- Salzburg Principles on Doctoral Education (EUA 2005, updated 2010)
- UK QAA Doctoral Degree Characteristics Statement (2020)
Also known as
Doctoral supervisor · PhD supervisor · Advisor (doctoral)
Machine-readable encodings
Use in your systems
xml
<role vocab="credit"
vocab-identifier="https://casrai.org/dictionary/"
vocab-term="Supervisor (doctoral)"
vocab-term-identifier="https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/supervisor-doctoral" />json
{
"@context": "https://schema.org",
"@type": "DefinedTerm",
"name": "Supervisor (doctoral)",
"identifier": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/supervisor-doctoral",
"description": "The academic appointed by an institution to guide a doctoral candidate's research, with formal responsibility for the academic quality of supervision, progress monitoring, ethical conduct of the research, and recommendation for examination, in accordance with the institution's doctoral regulations.",
"inDefinedTermSet": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/domain/mentorship-training-and-career-stages/",
"url": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/supervisor-doctoral",
"sameAs": [
"Doctoral supervisor",
"PhD supervisor",
"Advisor (doctoral)"
],
"license": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"
}
