Postgraduate Research Experience Survey
PRES 2025 is now closed.
Your experience, your voice
Your views, ideas and feedback about your experience at the University are very important to us. We use them to make improvements to your experience as a current student and to shape teaching, learning and student support for future generations. The University participates in a number of nationally benchmarked surveys, in order to encourage positive changes to its provision and to continually enhance the student experience.
The Postgraduate Research Experience Survey (PRES) is a national survey for postgraduate research students. PRES is made available by Advance HE to all Higher Education Institutions across the UK and is designed to help us enhance the quality of postgraduate research (PGR) degree provision by collecting feedback from current students in a systematic and user-friendly way.
Who was eligible to complete PRES?
All registered PGR students were eligible to complete the survey. If you were eligible to complete the survey, we contacted you by email in Lent Term 2025 to invite you to take part.
When can I complete PRES?
The survey runs biennially and in 2025 survey will open on 18 March and close on 16 May 2025. The survey is now closed.
How can I complete PRES?
If you were eligible, you were sent an email invitation to participate in the survey. The email was sent your 'preferred address' that is set up in CamSIS. The email was sent from the address no-reply@jisc.ac.uk or noreply@app.onlinesurveys.jisc.ac.uk and contained a unique link for each student to access the survey. The link will no longer work now the survey is closed.
How long did it take to complete?
The online questionnaire took about 15 minutes to complete.
Why should I have completed PRES?
PRES was an opportunity for you to tell us about your experience. We value your feedback.
As a thank you for participation, every eligible participant who completed the PRES 2025 survey was automatically given one entry into a random prize draw with the opportunity to win one of seven prizes. Prizes will be awarded in the form of one £250, two £125 and four £50 e-gift cards for John Lewis & Partners and Waitrose & Partners. [Prize draw Terms and Conditions]. The survey is fully endorsed by the University and the Cambridge Students' Union.
What did the PRES involve?
Participants were asked to rate their overall satisfaction with the quality of their course, how well elements of it have met their expectations, and their satisfaction within the following themes:
- Supervisions
- Resources
- Research Culture
- Community
- Progress and Assessment
- Responsibilities
- Research Skills
- Professional Development Opportunities
- Overall Satisfaction
The University also asked additional institution-specific questions about funding your study.
Is PRES anonymous?
Your survey response is confidential to the team processing the results and no reporting outside of this team will identify any individual. Any results communicated outside of the team will be anonymised. We asked that you did not identify yourself or any specific members of staff in any comments you made.
How will my feedback be used?
Your responses will be combined with those of your peers to help inform considerations of future enhancement. Where areas that may need attention are identified in our provision, this will be discussed with the Faculty or Department and also in University committees to ensure that our learning and teaching provision is of the highest quality.
AdvanceHE also aggregate results from all participating institutions to produce annual Sector reports that a comprehensive picture of the postgraduate research experience.
What if I have any questions?
Email PRES@admin.cam.ac.uk.