Citizen Writes
Life at Leicester
What is ‘outstanding’ research supervision?
06/10/2026
Congratulations to Dr Nauman Reayat, Founder and Chief Convener of the Global South Network and a Lecturer in Law, Leicester Law School, University of Leicester on his shortlisting for Outstanding Research Supervisor of the Year in the 2026 Times Higher Education Awards. We sat down with him to talk about what research supervision means to him, how his own doctoral experience shaped his approach, and why he believes a successful PhD should develop not only an excellent thesis, but an increasingly confident and independent researcher.
“I was deeply grateful when I heard about the shortlisting, but my immediate reaction was to think about all the people and the wider research community behind it,” he says. “Research supervision is often described as a relationship between one supervisor and one researcher, but people develop through much wider encounters: with somebody who challenges an argument, another researcher who understands the uncertainty of the journey, an academic from another discipline who asks an unexpected question, or a practitioner who makes them see why their work matters beyond the university. Much of what I have tried to do has therefore been about creating those encounters. Through the Global South Network, for example, we held 97 International Interdisciplinary PhD-in-Progress weekly seminars during 2024 and 2025, giving researchers opportunities to discuss developing ideas with people from different disciplines, institutions, countries and career stages. Through our wider activities, researchers have also engaged with academics, practitioners, senior judges and Supreme Courts across around 20 countries. So I do not see the shortlisting simply as recognition of something I have personally done. For me, it also recognises a way of thinking about doctoral education: PhD researchers are not people waiting to become scholars. They are already scholars whose ideas and questions matter.”
For Dr Reayat, one of the most rewarding aspects of supervision is seeing researchers begin to understand themselves differently.
“At the beginning of a PhD, people can be very conscious of what they do not know. They may hesitate to speak, worry about asking the wrong question, or assume that established academics possess all the answers. Gradually, though, the question changes from ‘Am I good enough to be here?’ to ‘What can I contribute?’ For me, that transformation matters enormously. Of course the thesis is important and a supervisor must engage seriously with argument, methodology, evidence and structure, but I am equally interested in the researcher who is emerging while that thesis is being written. Can they defend an argument, respond constructively to criticism, decide which advice to accept and which to resist, and contribute confidently in a room containing people more senior than themselves? Eventually they have to operate without the supervisor beside them. In that sense, successful supervision should gradually make the supervisor less necessary.”
That philosophy has increasingly taken his work beyond conventional one-to-one supervision.
“When I founded the Global South Network, I did not want simply to create another seminar series. I wanted researchers to encounter people and ideas they would not necessarily meet within their immediate supervisory team or department. The international interdisciplinary PhD-in-Progress weekly seminars matter because people present research while it is still developing. That involves some vulnerability, but it also creates opportunities for somebody from another discipline, jurisdiction or professional background to notice something the researcher has not yet seen. One participant described it as helping researchers step outside their own ‘research bubble’. What I find rewarding is not simply helping somebody complete a thesis, but watching their intellectual world become larger.”
Dr Reayat applied the same principle during his time as PGR Training Tutor in Leicester Law School, where researchers became peer mentors, representatives, conference organisers and commentators rather than simply recipients of training. His new role as Deputy Director for Postgraduate Research Training and Professional Development in the College of Social Sciences, Arts and Humanities at the University of Leicester allows him to consider the same question across a much wider range of disciplines: how can doctoral researchers complete their PhDs not only with a thesis, but also with greater independence, judgement, confidence and capacity to contribute?
His own doctoral experience has strongly influenced his answer.
“I was fortunate to have supervisors who gave me considerable intellectual freedom. Their expertise was not identical to the particular subject of my thesis, and that taught me something important: good supervision is not only about possessing specialist knowledge of every aspect of a project. It is also about judgement, trust, intellectual engagement and helping somebody develop as a researcher. But there is an important qualification when I describe my own supervision as relatively hands-off: it worked because I was not hands-off about my PhD. I was very active in the relationship. I came with arguments and suggestions, pursued ideas independently, brought them back for discussion and took responsibility for making sense of the wider picture. That gave my supervisors confidence to challenge and advise me without directing every part of the project.
“That distinction matters greatly to me now. Hands-off supervision should never mean absent supervision. Autonomy works when the researcher takes increasing responsibility and the supervisor remains intellectually available, ready to question, challenge and intervene where necessary. My supervisors trusted me with considerable freedom, and I gradually felt that I was leading my project while they were genuinely advising me. That gave me enormous confidence. I try to bring the same principle into my own supervision because sometimes the most useful thing a supervisor can do is resist solving a problem on the researcher’s behalf and give them the space to work out what they think.”
For Dr Reayat, this approach combines three connected elements: intellectual challenge, exposure to ideas beyond the immediate project, and meaningful responsibility.
“Researchers need their arguments challenged, but they also need opportunities to engage with people outside their immediate research environment and to take responsibility themselves. That might mean commenting on another researcher’s work, organising an event, representing other researchers, teaching or contributing to a wider academic community. Confidence rarely comes simply from being told to be confident; it often comes from doing something difficult and discovering that you can do it. A researcher who was initially reluctant to speak may later become a commentator on somebody else’s work, while somebody apprehensive about criticism may eventually volunteer to present unfinished research. Those changes can seem small from the outside, but they can be transformative.”
He is nevertheless cautious about presenting another person’s achievements as evidence of a supervisor’s success.
“Researchers succeed because of their own ability, persistence and work. A supervisor may create better conditions, open a door or help somebody recognise an opportunity, but the achievement belongs to the researcher. I have seen people develop considerably when they combine doctoral work with participation in the wider research community, because those experiences cultivate leadership, communication, teamwork and professional judgement in ways that a thesis chapter cannot do on its own.
“Some of the moments I value most would never appear on a CV. It might be somebody who was initially reluctant to speak but begins asking difficult questions, or a researcher who once looked to me for an answer and eventually says, ‘I understand your point, but I disagree, and this is my evidence.’ If somebody develops the confidence and intellectual independence to disagree with me convincingly, I do not regard that as a problem in the supervisory relationship. I regard it as evidence that the relationship is working.”
Dr Reayat believes Leicester has played an important role in allowing this wider approach to research development to flourish. He joined the University as an early-career academic, when the Global South Network was still only an idea.
“What Leicester has given me personally is space to turn ideas into things that actually exist. The Global South Network began as an idea and was able to develop into an international community involving doctoral researchers, academics, judges, practitioners and policymakers, with PhD-in-Progress seminars, conferences, judicial dialogues, mentoring and other activities. I think that sends an important message to early-career academics: you do not necessarily have to wait until you are senior before you are allowed to build something meaningful.
“The same principle applies to postgraduate researchers. They should not simply receive what an institution provides; they should have opportunities to contribute to the research environment themselves. A good research culture is not one in which everybody feels comfortable all the time, because research inevitably involves uncertainty, disagreement and intellectual risk. What matters is whether people feel sufficiently supported to take those risks. Different disciplines may have very different methods and traditions, but researchers still need intellectual challenge, good supervision, opportunities, relationships and a community in which they feel they belong. They also need people who are interested not only in the thesis they are producing, but in the researcher they are becoming.
“For me, support and excellence are therefore not opposites. Researchers should feel supported enough to take intellectual risks and challenged enough to grow. Ultimately, that is also how I understand supervision: the aim is not to produce somebody who will always need the supervisor beside them, but to help develop a researcher who eventually has the confidence to walk ahead.”