First graduate from Birkbeck's innovative, flexible NewRoutePhD
First graduate from Birkbeck's innovative, flexible NewRoutePhD
Barbara Gibson, a business consultant and lecturer in international management and marketing, has become the first graduate from the NewRoutePhD Intercultural Communication programme in Birkbeck’s Department of Applied Linguistics and Communication.
The NewRoutePhD™ is an integrated programme of postgraduate training which combines research with a structured programme of advanced training in discipline specific and generic skills. NewRoutePhD™, which was developed with full support of the UK Government, the Higher Education Funding Council of England (HEFCE) and the British Council has been taken up by leading UK Universities across a range of disciplines. The structure of this integrated PhD is designed to place students in an enhanced learning environment, where their achievements in research are underpinned by a structured programme of formal training. Taught masters level courses provide advanced theoretical and practical research skills to ensure a secure knowledge of the research area. These discipline specific courses are front-loaded into the early years of the programme to provide a secure platform for the research. In addition, generic training in professional and personal skills is provided throughout the programme. Coursework assignments are part of the assessment of the NewRoute PhD, and the required length of the dissertation is shorter than that of a conventional PhD. The Department of Applied Linguistics and Communication is the only department at Birkbeck offering the NewRoutePhD, in applied linguistics, intercultural communication and TESOL (teaching English to speakers of other languages).
Barbara, whose dissertation is on ‘Intercultural Competencies needed by global CEOS’ completed her taught modules and the research project within 4.5 years as a part-timer. She says, ‘I really enjoyed the combination of structured learning and individual research. Through the process of doing a PhD, I have learned to be a researcher and become confident that I can do anything’. She has set learning Mandarin as her target for next year!
Professor Zhu Hua, Barbara’s PhD supervisor, who is also the Vice Chair of the national NewRoutePhD™ consortium and Programme Director of the NewRoutePhDs at Birkbeck, says, ‘The programme is particularly suitable for people like Barbara who wanted to develop into a researcher and to obtain a doctoral qualification, but did not have postgraduate experience. The taught modules prepare them systematically, build their knowledge and skills base as well as their confidence, before embarking on an independent research project under specialist supervision. As the name says, it is a new route to the highest academic qualification, with structure learning support.’