Attendance and Engagement
Attendance and engagement with your research programme is demonstrated through the regular completion of GRS2 forms with your academic supervisor. This is usually on a monthly basis but can be bimonthly for part-time students.
If you are an International Student with a Tier 4 General or Student Route visa, then the completion of your GRS2 forms is the basis of the evidence for reporting to the Home Office regarding your continued academic engagement.
Absence Reporting
If you need to disengage from your research programme for a short period of time (less than 8 weeks) then you must inform your academic supervisor.
If you are an International Student with a Tier 4 General or Student Route visa you must complete an Authorised Absence for International Students application. This includes absences for adverse personal circumstances, academic requirements, and holidays.
Please read these guidance notes (PDF, 188KB) for a full list of the reasons where an Authorised Absence is required and a summary of the appropriate evidence that needs to be provided before an absence can be approved.
When completing the form, you should enter your academic supervisor as the Authorised Signatory and enter CAL-c-calsat@adf.bham.ac.uk as the Administrator.
If you need to disengage from your research for a period of more than 8 weeks, then you should consider whether you would benefit from a Leave of Absence and should discuss this with your academic supervisor and/or your School's Wellbeing Officer(s) at the earliest opportunity. Please read the Leave of Absence for Postgraduate Research Students guidance for further information.
Reasonable Diligence
All postgraduate research students are expected to show reasonable diligence with their programme of study. This means that students must engage with supervision on a monthly basis with meetings occurring within a maximum of 6-week intervals (or the equivalent for part-time programmes). Where students miss two or more supervision meetings, they may be referred to their School’s Head of Postgraduate Studies for consideration under the University’s Reasonable Diligence processes.
Please read the Code of Practice on the Supervision and Monitoring Progress of Postgraduate Researchers and the Code of Practice on Student Attendance/Engagement and Reasonable Diligence, which can be found on the Codes of Practice, Policies and Guidance page, for further information.