The Graduate Research Governance Director's Operating Manual

Description

What is the The Graduate Research Governance Director's course about?

A working manual for the person who has to keep HDR candidature, integrity, and TEQSA evidence stitched together across faculties. You are the person who has to hold the line on HDR integrity, candidature, examination, and partner-institution governance, with no neat reporting line that bundles all four. The role description says coordination. The reality is that when something goes wrong in any.

Why this course?

What do you take away from the The Graduate Research Governance Director's course?

Run a defensible HDR examination process where the appointment, the conduct, the outcome ratification, and the appeal pathway each leave clean evidence. Hold a research integrity case across faculty, central, and partner-institution lines without losing the candidature thread. Negotiate and amend cotutelle and joint-award MoUs whose dispute and termination clauses survive a partner pulling out. Produce a TEQSA evidence pack for the.

What you get with this course?

Twelve written modules in the Art of Service learning environment, each with worked examples drawn from real HDR governance casework. Decision-record templates for candidature variation, scholarship termination, progression show-cause, examiner appointment, and contested examination outcome. Annotated cotutelle and joint-award MoU clause library with the failure modes each clause prevents. Board paper and senate paper templates for contested HDR outcomes. Quarterly TEQSA research.

What you will have in hand by Day 1, Week 1, Month 1?

Within 24 hours of purchase: account in the Art of Service learning environment provisioned, course modules accessible, downloadable templates available. Alongside the course: the hand-built implementation playbook is delivered, tuned to the candidate volume, faculty structure, scholarship mix, and partner footprint of your institution. Ongoing: the module materials remain accessible; the playbook is yours to adapt as the policy environment changes.

What does the The Graduate Research Governance Director's cover on before and after?

The case file lands on your desk because nobody else in the structure owns the join between the offices, and you build the procedural record from scratch each time. The evidence pack for a TEQSA query takes weeks to assemble because the data lives in five systems and three offices. Cotutelle MoU disputes go to the General Counsel because the clauses do.

What happens if you do not address this?

The role grows by accreting case files for the director who happens to be sitting at the desk. When that director moves on, the institution loses the procedural memory and the next case is fought from scratch. The risk is not a single bad outcome. It is that every contested HDR matter takes three times as long as it should and leaves.

Who it is for?

Directors and senior managers responsible for Graduate Research Services, HDR governance, research integrity coordination, candidature and examinations administration at Australian universities. Title variations include Director Graduate Research, Director HDR, Director Research Integrity and Governance, Head of HDR Services, Manager Research Training Standards. Sits in the DVC Research portfolio or equivalent. Holds responsibility for HDR policy, examination procedures, candidature management, scholarship administration, cotutelle.

More answers: what you get with every course, refund policy, all help answers.

A focused course, tailored for you

The Graduate Research Governance Director's Operating Manual

A working manual for the person who has to keep HDR candidature, integrity, and TEQSA evidence stitched together across faculties.

You are the person who has to hold the line on HDR integrity, candidature, examination, and partner-institution governance, with no neat reporting line that bundles all four. The role description says coordination. The reality is that when something goes wrong in any of those four areas, the case file ends up on your desk and the evidence trail has to be defensible.

$199 one-time

Tailored to your situation. Access within 24 hours. 30-day money-back.

Includes a hand-built implementation playbook delivered alongside course access, generated for your specific situation.

Why this course

Graduate Research Services and Governance Directors at Australian universities carry a workload that sits across academic, regulatory, and operational lines without owning any of them outright. HDR examination outcomes are the dean's call, but the procedural correctness is yours. Research integrity investigations are run by the research integrity advisor and the research integrity office, but candidature implications, supervisor reallocation, and any examination consequences flow back through you. TEQSA's standards on research training are written at the provider level, but their evidence requests land in your inbox because you are the one who can produce a complete picture across the faculties. Cotutelle and joint-PhD partners run on their own academic calendars and policies, and the MoU dispute clauses were often drafted years ago by people who no longer work at either institution. Scholarship terminations, candidature variations, examiner appointment conflicts, and progression decisions all need a defensible record. There is no off-the-shelf playbook for this desk because every university's structure is slightly different, and the people who do this job well learn it by accreting case files for a decade.

What you walk away with

Run a defensible HDR examination process where the appointment, the conduct, the outcome ratification, and the appeal pathway each leave clean evidence.
Hold a research integrity case across faculty, central, and partner-institution lines without losing the candidature thread.
Negotiate and amend cotutelle and joint-award MoUs whose dispute and termination clauses survive a partner pulling out.
Produce a TEQSA evidence pack for the research training threshold standards without a six-week scramble.
Make scholarship termination, candidature variation, and progression decisions that the ombudsman or a tribunal cannot unwind on procedural grounds.

The 12 modules

Module 1. The HDR examination file as a TEQSA-ready evidence pack

How to structure the examination file from appointment through ratification so that every step (examiner nomination, conflict declarations, thesis dispatch, examiner reports, examiners' meeting or convener decision, ratification, candidate notification) is one folder a TEQSA reviewer or an external auditor can read in sequence. Includes the audit trail of how disagreements between examiners were resolved, which is the section most often missing.

Module 2. Candidature variations that bend policy without breaching it

The recurring candidature variation cases (extension beyond maximum, change of mode, change of project mid-candidature, suspension during integrity investigation, leave during fieldwork) and how to write the decision record so that policy is honoured, the candidate's circumstances are recognised, and a future ombudsman review sees coherent reasoning. Decision-record template with worked examples for ten common scenarios.

Module 3. Research integrity allegations: candidature and examination consequences

Where the research integrity advisor's investigation ends and your governance work begins. How to hold candidature in a defensible state during an active investigation, how to handle examination if the alleged conduct touches submitted work, how to coordinate with HR if the supervisor is also under review, and how to close the file on the candidature side once the integrity outcome is known. Includes the partner-institution variant for cotutelle candidates.

Module 4. Cotutelle and joint-award MoU clauses that hold up when a partner walks

The clauses you wish your predecessor had drafted differently: IP, dispute resolution, examination convener, language of examination, scholarship liability, partner withdrawal, candidate migration, and post-award degree conferral protocol. Annotated clause library with the failure modes each clause prevents, plus a renegotiation playbook for live MoUs whose original drafters are no longer reachable.

Module 5. Examiner appointment and the conflict-of-interest record

How to build the examiner nomination, vetting, and appointment record so that the senate-level or academic-board committee approval is procedural rather than substantive. Includes the conflict-of-interest declaration template, the supervisor's nomination justification format, and the procedure for handling a late-arriving conflict disclosure mid-examination.

Module 6. Scholarship administration as a governance instrument

RTP, university, faculty, and donor scholarships, each with their own termination, suspension, and reinstatement rules. How to administer the lifecycle so that a termination decision survives review, a suspension during illness or integrity investigation is documented, and donor-funded scholarship reporting obligations are met. Includes the rare but unavoidable termination-for-misconduct decision record.

Module 7. The progression decision record the ombudsman cannot fault

Annual progress review, confirmation of candidature, milestone failure, and the show-cause process. How to structure the file so that the supervisor's view, the candidate's response, the panel's reasoning, and the final decision are each separable and traceable. Includes the language pattern for a show-cause notice that meets natural-justice expectations without prejudging the outcome.

Module 8. TEQSA research training threshold standards: evidence in steady state

Rather than scrambling at the time of a TEQSA inquiry, how to keep the evidence base for the research training threshold standards in a steady state across the year. The data structures, the report templates, the supervisor accreditation register, the supervision load monitoring, and the candidate-experience evidence. Includes a quarterly self-assessment template.

Module 9. Supervisor accreditation, sanction, and the load register

The supervisor accreditation framework as a live governance instrument, not a one-off training tick. How to record continuing accreditation, partial accreditation, sanction following an integrity finding, supervision load thresholds, and reaccreditation after a complaint. Includes the rare case of a supervisor reallocation mid-candidature and how to document the candidate's consent.

Module 10. Academic board or senate papers for contested HDR outcomes

The structure of a board paper that gets a contested examination outcome, a scholarship termination on appeal, or a partner-institution dispute ratified in one sitting. Includes the cover sheet, the background section that survives in the minutes, the recommendation language, and the appendix structure that lets a board member find the supporting evidence in under two minutes.

Module 11. Indigenous research methodologies, ethics, and HDR governance

How HDR governance accommodates Indigenous research methodologies, community-controlled research, and the cultural review processes that sit alongside the human research ethics committee. The specific candidature, examination, and IP arrangements that come up in this work, and the policy clauses that need to be in place before a candidate begins rather than after.

Module 12. Building the operating rhythm so the desk does not depend on you

The annual cycle, the standing committees, the delegations register, the desk procedures, and the handover documentation that lets this role survive a director transition without the institutional memory walking out the door. Includes the desk procedures template, the standing meeting cadence, the relationship map with the DVC Research office, the Higher Degree Research Office at faculty level, the research integrity office, and the international office.

How this addresses your situation

Specific modules that map to what you said you are dealing with.

An HDR candidate is in show-cause and the supervisor is also under research integrity review: modules 3, 6, 7, 9 read in that order.

A cotutelle partner has signalled they will not co-confer the degree because their faculty restructured: modules 4, 5, 10.

TEQSA has scoped your provider for a research training quality review: modules 1, 8, 9 read in steady-state mode rather than reactive.

You inherited the desk three months ago and the predecessor's case files are incomplete: modules 12, 2, 7 in order, then circle back to 1 and 8.

What you get with this course

Twelve written modules in the Art of Service learning environment, each with worked examples drawn from real HDR governance casework.
Decision-record templates for candidature variation, scholarship termination, progression show-cause, examiner appointment, and contested examination outcome.
Annotated cotutelle and joint-award MoU clause library with the failure modes each clause prevents.
Board paper and senate paper templates for contested HDR outcomes.
Quarterly TEQSA research training self-assessment template.
A hand-built implementation playbook tuned to your faculty structure, HDR candidate volume, scholarship mix, and partner-institution footprint.

What you will have in hand by Day 1, Week 1, Month 1

Within 24 hours of purchase: account in the Art of Service learning environment provisioned, course modules accessible, downloadable templates available.

Alongside the course: the hand-built implementation playbook is delivered, tuned to the candidate volume, faculty structure, scholarship mix, and partner footprint of your institution.

Ongoing: the module materials remain accessible; the playbook is yours to adapt as the policy environment changes.

Before and after

Before

After

The recurring case patterns each have a tested decision record. The TEQSA evidence pack is a query against the steady-state structure rather than a six-week assembly. Cotutelle MoU disputes resolve at your desk because the clauses, the file, and the partner-relationship history are all in one place.

What happens if you do not address this

Who it is for

Who this is NOT for. Research office staff focused on grants administration, contract research, or commercial research partnerships. Faculty-level HDR coordinators whose work is supervision-side rather than central-policy side. Research integrity advisors whose role is investigation rather than governance architecture. People looking for a generic introduction to research integrity awareness or a TEQSA primer.

How it arrives

Text-based course in the Art of Service learning environment, plus downloadable templates and worked examples for every module, plus the hand-built implementation playbook delivered alongside course access.

Time investment. Around eight to ten hours to read all twelve modules end to end. Most directors read modules out of order against a live case file and use the templates as needed; the playbook is a reference document.

Why $199 is the right number

The Council of Australian Postgraduate Associations and the DDOGS network share practice informally, which is invaluable but is not a structured operating manual. TEQSA guidance notes describe what the regulator expects but not how to keep the evidence base in steady state. A consultancy review of your HDR governance arrangements typically costs more than twenty thousand and produces a report rather than a working manual. This course is the working manual.

FAQ

Is this aligned to the Australian Code for the Responsible Conduct of Research?

Yes. Modules three, five, six, seven, and nine reference the Code and the institutional procedural expectations that flow from it. The course assumes familiarity with the Code rather than introducing it.

Does the implementation playbook account for our specific faculty structure?

Yes. The playbook is built per buyer, tuned to the faculty structure, candidate volume, scholarship mix, and cotutelle and joint-award partner footprint you describe at intake.

Is this relevant if our research training office sits in the DVC Education portfolio rather than DVC Research?

Yes. The substantive governance work is the same regardless of reporting line. Module twelve covers the operating rhythm and relationship map across both portfolio structures.

Will the templates conflict with our existing HDR policy?

The templates are decision-record structures and clause patterns, not a competing policy. They sit underneath your policy and produce evidence the policy requires.

30-day money-back guarantee. If after a week of working through the materials this is not what you needed, reply to the receipt email and a full refund is processed. No questions, no forms.

Within 24 hours your account in the learning environment is provisioned and the tailored implementation playbook is delivered alongside it.