Supervision
The student-supervisor relationship is critical for the successful completion of a PhD. The supervisor is an important source of support and direction for the PhD candidates during their doctoral journey. RIKON’s supervisors are senior faculty staff and experts within their research domain. In addition, in RIKON we employ a co-supervision model which provides students with access to a greater breadth of expertise.
Research at RIKON
With our 50 strong researcher community across four research academies, RIKON is one of Irelands leading and productive research centres. At RIKON the emphasis is on both theoretical and applied research and our researchers produces leading research, with peer reviewed academic projects and outputs published in leading journals and disseminated at conferences world-wide.
Training
We have a responsibility to ensure that our doctoral students’ training and development needs are met across two skills categories: generic skill training and discipline-specific training.
In terms of Generic Skills Training, South East Technological University provides a generic skills training programme to all registered research students and its modules covers the skills required to conduct world class research. In addition, as part of the Institute’s Quality Assurance framework, a general training plan is developed by the candidate and his/her supervisors within the first year of the PhD programme. A component of this plan is a skills audit; this is completed by the candidate in conjunction with his/her supervisors in order to identify the candidate’s specific training needs. The plan is reviewed annually and modified as necessary. Finally, each research student must complete a Reflective Logbook of Research Training completed over his/her PhD programme; this must be submitted for examination with his/her dissertation.
Discipline –specific training occurs at the individual level with supervisors and supported collectively across the research centre through activities such as seminars, training & master classes, national & international conferences. One of the benefits of being part of a large research centre is that not only do our doctoral students benefit from that personal one-on-one supervisor mentoring & training, doctoral researchers can also avail of one-to-one discussions/tutorials provided by any of the research centre’s staff; students can draw on staff who have an in-depth knowledge on research themes as well as research design and methodological skillsets, ranging from subjective to positive methodological/analytical approaches etc. Where necessary, RIKON will also provide external access to skill training not available within WIT through its extensive network of academic and industry partners.
Stimulating Research Environment
RIKON has evolved a strong research culture of collegiality that is characterized by high morale, a spirit of innovation, dedication to work, receptivity to new ideas, frequent interaction, high degree of cooperation, low member turnover, good leader/member relationships, and open discussion of disagreements. RIKON is devoted to student well-being and their learning; indeed, research students have, consistently, highly rated the vibrant network of colleagues in RIKON whom they have frequent and substantive research communication both in a formal and informal manner. Through RIKON’s extensive national and international network, students have the opportunities to engage with visiting professors and collaborative researchers from other universities. Professional development opportunities are routinely and proactively offered to doctoral candidates to assure their continued growth and vitality.
As a graduate student you will have access to leading experts, state-of-the-art equipment and facilities and will be encouraged to publish and present your research findings at international fora. Our doctoral students are located in a special purpose built postgraduate research centre, where the student will have access to printing facilities and a PC/laptop, loaded with necessary software for completion of their dissertation, is also made available. Our students are located together in order to enhance not just academic collegiality and learning support but also to provide a peer network for learning/social support. The Institute’s library contains over 60,000 items and subscribes to 350 journals – increasing regularly. The library also has full text academic electronic reference sources housed on leading databases such as ABI Inform, Business Source Premier, Emerald Full text, Science Direct, Web of Science, etc., as well as databanks such as Thomson One to facilitate the online literature search capabilities of postgraduates. The student will therefore have access to the entire key academic journals in business literature.
You will be part of the research community and a member of our Graduate Business Society, founded and led by research students since its inception which consists of postgraduate research students and researchers at WIT Business School, regularly holds social events and master classes in research. This allows members and in particular, postgraduate students to interact with colleagues and in essence provide a sense of belonging. The society also invites highly acclaimed international researchers to give master classes in various business research methods for all postgraduate students, lecturers, and researchers at WIT. Also at WIT, the full resources of the Research Office, Development Office and the Student Support Offices will be provided to support the you and the project
At RIKON, we are passionate about research and we want your time and experience with us to be a truly memorable one.