Contacts and glossary
Last reviewed 17 September 2026
Who to ask
| For | Contact |
|---|---|
| Course choices and approvals, supervisors, review panels and timing, conference funding requests, seminar attendance | Postgraduate Research Coordinator (PGRC) |
| Seminar abstracts, access to example referee reports, general PhD enquiries | School HDR support, econ.hdr@unsw.edu.au |
| Seminar invitations and expense claims | Sussan Su, Administrative Officer (HDR Support), q.su@unsw.edu.au |
| Travel approval and travel budgets | Hock Thye Chan, School Manager |
| Booking a slot for your annual progress review presentation | SOE seminar coordinator |
| Seminar dates and swaps | The PGRC and the PhD student representative |
| Enrolment in MPDBS courses | Business School Research Office |
| Enrolment in PhD courses | SOE office or the PGRC |
| Taking a course outside the School | The course's Lecturer in Charge (LIC) |
| University-wide rules, forms and support for research students | Graduate Research School, through the UNSW HDR Hub (UNSW login required) |
If you have a problem with your supervision
Talk to the PGRC, who acts as a confidential adviser for research candidates and is the first point of contact for resolving problems with candidature. If the PGRC is one of your supervisors, or talking to them doesn't resolve the problem, contact the Graduate Research School through the HDR Hub, or use UNSW's student complaints process.
Glossary
| Term | Meaning |
|---|---|
| APR | Annual progress review: the yearly review of your progress after confirmation. UNSW's policy calls it a Research Progress Review. |
| Confirmation review | The first-year review that confirms your PhD candidature. |
| DRTG | Development and Research Training Grant, from the Graduate Research School. |
| FCM | UNSW's travel management company. All UNSW trips are booked through it. |
| GRIS | Graduate Research Information System, where you lodge review forms, variations of candidature and your thesis. |
| GRS | Graduate Research School. |
| HDR | Higher degree research: UNSW's term for research degrees such as the PhD. |
| JM, JMP | Job market; job market paper. |
| LIC | Lecturer in Charge of a course. |
| MPDBS | Master of Pre-Doctoral Business Studies, the one-year program some students complete before the PhD. |
| Notification of Intention to Submit | The GRIS form you lodge at least two months before you submit your thesis. |
| Oral examination | The examination at which you defend your thesis before your examiners. Required if you started the PhD in Term 1 2023 or later; the MPDBS year does not count. |
| Panel chair | The UNSW academic who runs your thesis examination, usually from the School of Economics. The panel chair is not one of your examiners. |
| PGRC | Postgraduate Research Coordinator, the academic who coordinates the School's PhD program. UNSW policy calls the role Postgraduate Coordinator (PGC). |
| PLO | Program Learning Outcomes. |
| Pre-Trip Approval | The approval every UNSW trip needs, lodged through MyTravel@UNSW. |
| RA | Research assistant. |
| Response to Examiners form | The form on which you answer the examiners' reports and record the corrections you have made. |
| Show cause | A formal request to explain why your enrolment should continue, for example after an unsuccessful review. |
| SOE | School of Economics. |
| Variation of candidature | A formal change to your candidature, such as working away from UNSW, lodged in GRIS. |