SRP IMPLEMENTATION PLAN PRIORITY PROJECTS
2023 SRP Progress Report
A detailed summary of the progress we made on SRP Priority Projects in 2023.
SFU Strategic Research Plan (SRP) Priority Project
Supporting Research Graduate Students
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Challenge
Graduate students are key drivers of research activity in an institution. Vancouver is an attractive destination, but the high cost of living presents a challenge to our graduate students.
Action
Working closely with the provost, the dean of graduate and postdoctoral studies, SFU Advancement and with graduate students (through the Graduate Student Society), we will study ways to shift our limited resources to better support research graduate students. This includes study of tuition waivers, scholarships and bursaries. We will also work with SFU Advancement, provincial and federal funding agencies to grow resources available for graduate student support both for existing graduate students and to grow our research graduate student body. Within a year, we will set a university-wide minimum funding level for PhD students.
- September 2024
Data collection continues and will be completed early in fall 2024. Consultations will continue throughout the fall term. - March 2024
Consultation and data gathering for programs will commence in summer 2024.
- September 2024
This summer Graduate Studies held two online and one in person (at Orientation) workshops for graduate students providing an introduction to and overview of scholarships and awards. - September 2024
Graduate Studies also provides weekly “office hours” for students who have questions about applying for scholarships. -
April 2024
Workshops for students preparing scholarship applications will begin in summer 2024.
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September 2024
The program-level supervisory policy will continue to be reviewed in fall 2024. -
September 2024
To enhance supports for high-quality supervision, in fall 2024, Graduate Studies will be hosting a supervision workshop for new faculty members along with supervision workshops for continuing faculty members at the Burnaby, Vancouver and Surrey campuses. -
April 2024
A program-level supervisory policy will be reviewed in summer 2024.
- March 2024
Three supervisor workshops were held in March 2024. Workshop plan for the remainder of the year is under development.
- September 2024
This fall, Graduate Studies will offer at least two workshops for research graduate students. - April 2024
A workshop in the form of a roundtable discussion with SFU faculty members who serve as journal editors held in April 2024 for graduate students and postdoctoral fellows. Workshop plan for the remainder of the year is under development.
- September 2024
A mediated consultation took place between Residence and Housing and Graduate Student Society representatives in summer 2024 to discuss the current and potential future states for on-campus graduate student housing at all three campuses. - March 2024
Higher level conversations are underway in the Housing committee to prioritise housing for graduate students.
- September 2024
The system is under development and on track to be delivered in fall 2024. A working group is providing insights and feedback on the development of the system. - April 2024
Discussions are ongoing with IT services to create a system by Fall 2024 that can generate reports for student funding for different programs. A more dynamic tracking system will be developed by end of 2024.
In June 2023, the Board of Governors approved a $5,400 scholarship for eligible PhD students entering programs in fall 2023 and those in the first four years of their program. This is the PhD Research Scholarship.
A minimum funding policy (annual funding of at least $28,000 for 12 terms) that applies to all research PhD students was approved by the Senate as a graduate general regulation in December 2023. Programs will develop their own funding policies that align with the university-wide policy. These will be approved by Graduate Program Committees and Graduate Studies.