The expansion of postgraduate and early-career research: Student, staff, and disciplinary perspectives

We draw on information gathered as part of the Strategic Review of the Psyc hology Discipline and its Research to discuss the expansion in postgraduate research in psychology that is currently occurring in Australia, and the p osition of early-career psychologists. Both PhD and professional coursework enrolments are increasing markedly. Given the tight constraints on academi c staff numbers and general research funding, postgraduate research will co nstitute an increasing fraction of Australia's total research effort in psy chology. In the context of planning postgraduate research and encouraging e arly-career research in all settings, we present data showing the diversity of funding sources tapped by researchers in psychology, the importance of links between universities and external agencies and industry, the importan ce of multidisciplinary research, and the key role played by postgraduate r esearch and research by practitioners in strengthening links between the di scipline and the profession of psychology. Beginning postgraduate students, their supervisors, department heads, and policy-makers should all carefull y consider the full range of possibilities for enhancing the value of postg raduate research. Further, early-career professional psychologists should r eceive every encouragement to participate in collaborative research, and to consider the full range of collaborative research possibilities in their p ractice. We suggest a number of implementation strategies towards these aim s.