Research Policies and Expectations

This page provides important research policies and expectations based on recommendations from our School's policies and our group's research culture. It is important for all postgraduate students to be familiar with these before conducting their research. For any feedback, please email the PI (Dr Nhat (Nick) Pham) at phamn@cardiff.ac.uk.

PhD Timeline:

The university’s typical time limits for a full-time PhD are 3 Years (+1 writing-up year) and 5 years (+2 writing-up years) for part-time
For URKI-funded students, it is important to note that URKI expects that the thesis will be submitted within the funding period (3.5 years for EPSRC DTP/DLA). Full URKI Ts and Cs can be found below.

How to do well in your PhD?

I would refer you to an excellent guide, "Good PhD student, bad PhD student", from Abhishek Gupta at the Ohio State University.
"Being a good PhD student is hard. Most struggles are not caused by lack of intelligence — they are caused by habits, mindset, and expectations that were never articulated clearly."

Talking about habits, here are some good habits that you should have:

Don't fully understand? Ask, and don't make assumptions! My door is always open if you have quick questions. In fact, I would like to see students who proactively ask to clarify the goals, rather than doing something based on their assumptions and then having to redo it, which is a waste of time and effort for both of us.
Be ambitious; be on time and don't hide issues! It is totally reasonable to be realistic and manage expectations, but once we agree on something, try to keep to your word. If any issues arise, bring them up with me immediately. At the end of the day, I would like to see you successful with your PhD research; thus, I don't mind if we face issues (they are part of research). This will make it easy for me to plan when I know what is going on.
Proactively update status! Don't be a silent worker and wait for me to ask for status. A quick regular update will significantly help us to be on the same pace, and show that you can manage your research independently.
Don't take criticism negatively! Criticism is a part of research, and it is how you can learn to improve from your own mistakes. Excuses and defensiveness are bad mindsets and should be avoided. Criticism is not your enemy; neglect is.

Publications:

For PhD thesis - a very general expectation: At least three publishable papers from the thesis content.
Aim for at least A-ranked conferences or high-impact journals. It is important to note that the School only consider travel funding for A-ranked conferences.
Some example venues (but not limited to) include: MobiCom, MobiSys, SenSys, UbiComp, PerCom, INFOCOM, NeurIPS, ICML, etc. or IEEE/ACM Transactions.

Supervision meetings:

Expected to meet at least once every two weeks. Ideally weekly.
You should agree and regularly review a working pattern, including a standard schedule of meetings
At least one meeting per month must take place on campus.
Keep a record of weekly meetings and maintain a professional approach: meet deadlines and prepare for meetings!
Write and agree post-meeting summaries with action points for you and your supervisors.
A presentation template and an example for our weekly meetings can be found below.
A good weekly report should include: (1) What are the research questions? (2) Literature review. (3) Your analysis/hypothesis? (4) Experimental results. (5) an overall plan for your next submission, and (6) action items for the next week.

Our research culture:

Our typical work hours are 9-5 or 10-6. During our work hours, it is expected that you will be available via email, in-person or online meetings, and our lab's Discord channels.
Due to the nature of our experimental work, it is expected that you will be on-site during typical work hours. Working from home can be considered for work that doesn't require lab experiments. However, you will find it is more efficient to be on-site due to the availability of equipment and discussion with your labmates.
Try not to work alone! Research is more efficient and fun when you have a team!

Ownership and intellectual property:

It is important to understand that you need to own your PhD research. But what does that mean? Does that mean you can do whatever you want? Yes and no.
Technically, each PhD student and the supervisor(s) are allocated ~1 hour each week to discuss your research progress. The rest of the week, you are expected to make progress on your own. Thus, it is important to agree with your supervisor(s) on the objectives and action items to avoid being distracted from your research goals.
Always remember that creating something new does not always mean it is a novelty. A method/solution is novel only when it (1) solves your research challenges and (2) is proven by your experimental data to be better than the state-of-the-art. Similarly, building 'new' software or hardware based on available methods (reinventing the wheel) is not considered to be novel or a contribution.
While you own your PhD research, i.e., first authorship in your papers, you don't totally own the IP, including the developed artefacts and data. The stakeholders in your research include you (who conduct the work), your supervisors (who provide the ideas and guidance), the funders (well,provide the funds), and the University itself (which provides the facilities). Thus, patenting your research results is very welcome. However, please discuss with your supervisor(s) in the first place. You will be one of the inventors, but don't expect that you're the only one nor the one that has the most share.

AI Policy:

While the use of GenAI tools is becoming more and more popular nowadays and the university also provides AI tools through Microsoft Copilot, it is important to remember some policies and ethical considerations for its use, including but not limited to:

Some policies from Cardiff Student Intranet:

Used effectively, critically, and ethically, Gen AI can support your studies, but over-reliance on using AI could negatively impact your learning.
Using Gen AI tools to write the content of your assessed work is not acceptable academic practice unless your lecturers tell you it's OK to do so for a specific assessment.
Remember, plagiarism is the use of the words or ideas of other humans or of digital systems such as Gen AI without proper acknowledgement.

Research AI policies from Warwick University:

Researchers must note that content produced by AI tools is not original work. Using AI in research without appropriate declaration, acknowledgement and/or notification will be considered a form of research misconduct. Any breach of ethical principles or legal requirements due to the use of AI in research will be taken seriously and appropriate actions taken.
The use of AI in research must be declared and clearly explained. Researchers must act with integrity and responsibility to ensure the degree of originality, validity, reliability and integrity of outputs created or modified by AI tools. This includes ensuring any outputs include accurate information as to the creation of the research and the role of AI in this.

Policies for extenuating circumstances (EC)/extension:

It is important not to consider the extension in your PhD planning, and try to finish in time. It is the last resort rather than a typical training period! Many students might end up taking up part-time work, which significantly distracts from their research. Being late in your PhD also negatively affects your career prospects after graduation. But if you need it, here we are...
A maximum EC of 12 months from the typical submission period (as aforementioned) can be considered due to unforeseeable circumstances. This is subject to approval from the PhD supervisor and review panel.
Similarly, Interruption of Studies (IoS) is also a maximum of 12 months. However, for students who are under a Student Visa, it is only limited to 59 days.
Please refer to the EC/IoS policies below.

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