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A controversial one-year postgraduate degree designed to train students in research skills has been been praised by students, universities and research councils in the United Kingdom, defying widespread scepticism that the course would fail to take off.

The idea of a ‘research master's’ degree (MRes) received a lukewarm response when suggested by the former Conservative government in its white paper on science and technology policy in 1993. But with the pilot phase now into its third year, several universities have acknowledged that the courses provide a good preparation for a PhD programme, and last week the government said it will allow sponsoring research councils to continue to fund the course when the pilot phase ends this summer.

Several universities say they have been surprised by the large number of high-calibre students that many MRes courses tend to attract. This trend was confirmed in a report from the four research councils that have been supporting the degree. “We were all a bit sceptical at the start,” says Bob Price, director of human and corporate resources at the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council, one of the sponsoring councils. “No one was totally enthusiastic.”

Not everyone has been convinced. The Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council and the Institute of Physics, for example, remain sceptical about the appropriateness of the MRes approach. They argue that the degree's structure — short project work in one or two subject areas combined with taught courses in research skills — will not be directly relevant to the longer-term research of a PhD.

Philip Diamond, manager of higher education and research at the Institute of Physics, says that the four-year MPhys degree courses supported by the institute are a better preparation for research in physics. About one-third of UK undergraduate physics students are studying for an MPhys degree.

But Price says that most of the universities taking part in the project have been convinced of the degree's uses as an introduction to research skills. Some are even offering MRes programmes funded through non-government sources, and many receive students from overseas.

The MRes course can be likened to a ‘PhD primer’. Students spend two-thirds of their time undertaking several short, or one longer, research project. The remainder is spent studying taught courses on research skills. The short projects are in a different subject from the student's first degree. The idea is to show that research skills need to be transferable, as full-time researchers often have to change fields or work in multidisciplinary teams.

The origins of the course stemmed from concern that some students embarking on three-year PhD programmes lacked the confidence or ability to study independently, leading them to drop out. An MRes course would allow them to assess whether or not they were suited to research.

If at the end of the course they choose not to continue with a PhD, they would have a qualification that would also be relevant to industry. Chris Wharton, co-director of the MRes programme at the University of Birmingham, says if he had his way he “would get all PhD students to do this course”.

Wharton says that one of his main worries when the course began was whether it would attract enough high-calibre applicants. This fear appears to have been unfounded. The research council report shows that last year 32 per cent of MRes applicants in the biological sciences came with first-class degrees, compared with just 11 per cent of applicants for conventional master's degrees.

The research councils have supported more than 200 students per year on 30 courses at various UK universities. Courses offered by the medical, natural environment, and biological sciences councils are oversubscribed. In contrast, the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council — ironically one of the most enthusiastic supporters of the MRes — is having difficulty attracting suitable students, as a relatively high proportion of those ending their course have been undecided about their future career.