Our ePhD concierge process

(aka How to help craft a strong application in the first place)

Universities are complex organisations and writing a research proposal presumes some familiarity with the literature. We have developed a concierge process to help experienced founders have a stronger application.

[email protected] is the Deputy Dean at the Graduate Research School and the official lead of the Entrepreneurial PhD program.

Our working group members also include Martin Bliemel (Transdisciplinary School), Jochen Schweitzer (Business School), and Murray Hurps (UTS Startups),

  1. Come to one of the monthy infosessions (1st Wed of every month at 11am in the Venture Lab, ground flood of UTS Business) - and/or - Contact us by email
  2. Within the infosessions and concierce process, we’ll record your interest in our database
  3. Point you to our evolving guidance and summary of the Terms and Conditions for the Entrepreneurial PhD https://bit.ly/UTSephd
  4. Help you understand the traditional and ePhD process (flowchart on the previous page, plus this one)
  5. Provide examples of successful PhD proposals (note, these are traditional PhD proposals, not ePhD)
  6. Provide examples of successful NTRO- or Practice-based PhDs (if relevant to your PhD intentions)
  7. Provide guidelines for academic writing. E.g. Literature reviews should do more than summarise one paper at a time and could be better structured as an argument that synthesises the literature. This is a decent guide on literature reviews: https://www.newcastle.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0005/827726/Literature-Reviews.pdf
  8. Help brainstorm a rough draft for the proposal.
    1. Try our new ePhD Research Proposal template!
    2. This might start with
      1. 2-4 short ideas, one paragraph each
      2. A half-page overview
      3. A longer document, whitepaper or summary of their work
      4. Helping prompt ChatGPT to brainstorm the literature review, research question and methodology.
  9. Download key articles and email them to candidates based on that brainstorming
  10. Iterate 1-2 more times on the proposal. Don’t plagiarise from ChatGPT 🙂
  11. Explore appropriate models of supervision with candidates
    1. Required: Two UTS supervisors
    2. Optional: Additional supervisors across UTS, other universities and/or outside academia (PhD qualifications recommended, but not required).
    3. Supervisor roles: Actively involved or mainly there for procedural support, while subject matter or methodological supervision is via a broader panel
  12. Help match-make with supervisors:
    1. Explore https://profiles.uts.edu.au/
    2. Use our networks, incl reaching out to each faculty’s HDR Coordinator and Associate Dean Research.
    3. Help contact appropriate supervisors, possibly including working with GRS to educate those supervisors about the ePhD

The above is to get you a strong first draft of your proposal with which to attract a supervisor.