A senior lecturer from UCLan has secured a national award for offering ‘outstanding support’ to PhD students.

UCLan Senior Lecturer Dr Clive Palmer was named ‘PhD Supervisor of the Year’ at the annual FindAUniversity Postgrad Awards 2022 after beating off competition from a final shortlist of eight.

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Postgrad awards judges chose Clive as the winner because of his ‘proven commitment’ to sharing best practices in PhD supervision, with his lockdown ‘Learning Shack’ keeping over 50 PhD students on track during the pandemic.

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He said: “I am honoured to receive this recognition, which comes with the privilege of supervising some very talented people on their PhDs.

“Clive’s Learning Shack’ was my way of combatting the isolation of doctoral study during the pandemic.

“I would like to extend a thank you to my nominee and especially to colleagues at FindAUniversity.com for this prestigious award.”

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The competition received hundreds of nominations and is open to all students undertaking Master’s or PhD study, academics who supervise PhD or Master’s students and institutions working with Master’s or PhD students.

Clive’s Learning Shack was set up during the pandemic as a hub, meeting place and resource centre to support his students and staff.

He has also created a ‘PhD by Portfolio’ pathway.

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It demonstrated his commitment to postgraduate learning at an institutional level and to widening participation across the higher education sector.

Clive supervises research across subjects within socio-cultural sport, PE, coaching and outdoor education and has worked at UCLan since 2008.

He was also shortlisted for Outstanding Research Supervisor of the Year in the Times Higher Education (THE) Awards 2021.

Clive will receive a trophy to showcase his achievement.

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