PhD student compensated after complaining about ‘under-qualified’ academics

Martin Shipton

A former PhD student at the University of South Wales had their tuition fee refunded after complaining that they had been taught by under-qualified academics.

The student, who spoke to Nation.Cymru on condition that they were not identified, came forward following allegations made by a whistleblower last year.

According to the whistleblower, many of the teachers delivering a law course do not have PhDs themselves and/or are not research active, meaning that they have little or no academic publications to their name.

Further documents seen by NationCymru which relate to individual teachers on the courses appeared to confirm the veracity of the allegations.

The ex-PhD student told us: “It is an arduous task to summarise what happened during my short, albeit totally chaotic, experience as a PhD student at USW.

I was admitted as a PhD student in April 2024 and in December 2024, I was fundamentally obliged to leave due to the less-than-professional, unqualified, and unsupportive environment. To be honest, I am totally disgusted by what happened. During these eight months, I had a very bad time.

“For example, the second supervisor of my PhD , together with two academics in the Business School … tried to remove, surreptitiously, the Director of Studies. The latter, meanwhile, left the University for unknown reasons. This happened in July, and in September, both supervisors disappeared suddenly. I am aware that the Director of Studies left, and the other supervisor did not respond to my emails.

“Because of these circumstances, the supervisory team was ‘reassembled’ but the only academic with a law background belonged to a different University (Cardiff University), therefore an outsourced position, and the others were not related at all to law. When I asked for clarification, the answer was that the purpose of this team was to support me when my viva (the oral examination for holding the PhD title) was not successful. Therefore there was a bias, a prediction of the failure of my performance. In other words, they were not supporting the success of the PhD., but rather the lack of success.

“Furthermore, during these months, I saw an interruption of a lecture delivered by my Director of Studies: this lecture was interrupted in a very aggressive way and the person who came into the room – a person from the law department, with no PhD, no publications, who is not a lawyer at all – seemed to be out of control. I remember that he had paper in his hands that he used as a sword against the academic in charge of this lecture.

“It is worth mentioning that some students enrolled in such a postgraduate course were not able to speak and understand a very basic level of English; these students constantly interrupted lectures because either they arrived late or left early. Apparently, the reasons dealt with connections with trains or buses, or work engagements. Some students of this post-graduate programme, LLM, even commuted from London, and they appeared totally distracted.

“Additionally, as a PhD student, I was aware of only one conference organised by USW for PhD students, therefore no conference, no research seminars, no care about professional development or academic progression, no publications. no academic discourse. The Business School, law department, did not organise conferences, seminars, or workshops for researchers. In essence, no research, no academic engagement, no care of PhD students

“The academic environment at USW was/is extremely toxic. Although I was very close to discussing my viva (my PhD was extremely specialised and the ordinary route was between 6-12 months), I needed to leave this university because my feeling, corroborated by words written in emails, was/is that the only purpose was to sabotage my research and my career as a PhD student. In a nutshell, my PhD disappeared in the blink of an eye when I was ready to submit the final version of my thesis.”

Refund

After complaining about the way they had been treated, the student had the fee they had paid of more than £4,000 refunded.

A spokesperson for the University of South Wales responded: “We are very sorry to hear how they feel about their time as a PhD student. Following the departure of their Director of Studies, they were assigned a carefully selected supervisory team of experienced academics, which included specific expertise in order to provide the best possible support for them. However, they did not wish to continue with this team and subsequently withdrew.

“We refute the unfounded allegations that are being made about the circumstances, and about staff and students at the university.

“There is a supportive research environment at USW where PhD students are appropriately supervised and supported by a team of academics, and there are a range of events and resources to support academic progression and wellbeing. We are proud to have been ranked first in the UK for overall postgraduate research student satisfaction in the national Postgraduate Research Experience Survey in 2023, and continue to work hard to provide a positive experience for our PhD students.”