EAST-SPARK Toolkit
Day 2 - Modules 5 -6
EAST-SPARK Modules 5–6 focus on how supervisors guide doctoral candidates through the research journey and connect them to wider academic horizons. They address how progress can be structured through phases, milestones, feedback, and timely response to challenges, while also showing how internationalisation can enrich doctoral education through networks, mobility, collaboration, and wider scholarly engagement. Together, these modules present supervision as an active and developmental practice that supports both steady progress and broader academic growth.
Powerpoint slides for each module can be downloaed by clicking on the module’s image.
Module 5 focuses on how supervision is carried out over the course of the doctorate once the candidate, the project, and the initial supervisory relationship are already in place. Its purpose is to help participants think about how the doctoral journey can be structured in a way that makes expectations clearer, progress more visible, and support more responsive over time. In this sense, the module builds directly on Module 4. While the previous module concentrates on roles, expectations, communication, and supervision agreements, Module 5 asks how these can be turned into ongoing supervisory practice across the different phases of the PhD.
Module 6 broadens the perspective of the training by focusing on internationalisation as part of doctoral education and supervision. Its purpose is to help participants understand that internationalisation is not limited to student mobility, but includes a much wider set of international, intercultural, and global dimensions that can shape doctoral study. The module also helps supervisors reflect on why internationalisation matters for doctoral candidates, for universities, and for supervisors themselves, and where the supervisor’s role begins and where it should end.
Modules 5–6 provide trainers with a strong opportunity to move from foundational questions of supervision to the ongoing practice of guiding doctoral candidates through the research journey. Module 5 focuses on how supervisors can structure progress over time through phases, milestones, feedback, and timely response to difficulties. Module 6 then widens the perspective by exploring internationalisation as part of doctoral education, including mobility, networks, collaboration, and broader academic engagement. Together, these modules lend themselves well to interactive delivery, combining practical reflection on supervisory practice with discussion of wider institutional and international contexts.
Modules 5–6 focus on how supervisors support doctoral candidates once the doctorate is fully underway. They address how to make the research journey more transparent and manageable through clear expectations, milestones, feedback, and early response to challenges. They also explore how supervisors can help candidates connect to wider academic opportunities through international and intercultural engagement, networks, mobility, and scholarly collaboration. Together, these modules show that effective supervision supports both steady progress and broader scholarly development.
Modules 5–6 highlight two important dimensions of high-quality doctoral education: sustained support for progress across the research journey and meaningful engagement with wider academic communities. Module 5 addresses how supervision can be structured to promote transparency, momentum, and timely intervention, while Module 6 focuses on internationalisation as a way of strengthening doctoral development, visibility, and academic connection. Together, these modules reinforce the importance of supervisory practices and institutional conditions that support both successful progression and broader scholarly integration.
These presentations were created jointly by Fredrick Nyamwala, Caroline Ayuya Muaka, Caroline Kimathi, Stephen Ojiambo Wandera, Emmanuel Mutungi, Alinane Linda Nyondo-Mipando, Fanuel Aaron Lampiao, Tukae Atiyo Mbegalo, Brighton Emmanuel Maburutse, Angela Meyer and Lucas Zinner in the framework of the EAST SPARK project. The content has been inspired by the authors‘ own experience, the academic literature and various training courses in which the authors have had the opportunity to participate. In this regard, the authors would like to express their special thanks to CREST at Stellenbosch University and CARTA.
It is intended to be shared under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license. Everyone is welcome to use, adapt, or distribute this content, provided that it is done under the same condition and proper credit is given to the authors. This work has been made possible through the support of the OEAD,