PhD Student Visa Holders

Please note, the below only applies to students in the School of Language, Literature, Music and Visual Culture (LLMVC) and the School of Divinity, History, Philosophy and Art History (DHPA). If you are a student in another school, you should contact them directly to confirm their processes with them.

UKVI stipulates that all Postgraduate Research students at the University of Aberdeen on a Student Visa must engage with their studies by meeting their supervisor in person every 4 - 5 weeks, so at least once per month.

The School of Language, Literature, Music and Visual Culture follows the below monitoring process to ensure we are compliant with the above:

1. PGR Student Visa holders are emailed at the start of each month reminding them of their obligation to engage with their studies in person at least once per month - the preferred engagement method is to meet your supervisor in person.

   PLEASE NOTE: Where possible, a meeting should be arranged within a similar timescale with another member of your supervisory team, but where this is not possible, you should ensure you sign-in with the relevant School Office as an alternative. Please note that this option should only be used on an exceptional basis.

2. Students are required to take meeting notes and should enter a summary of these notes on this form, whether the meeting is in-person or online. The notes can be brief.

3. These notes of the meeting are automatically sent to the relevant supervisor, using Microsoft Teams Approvals. You should only use the form link above - please do not send email attachments to the School Office Admin Team or your supervisor unless these are specifically requested of you.

• If approved, this engagement will be noted on the student's monitoring record and the visa sign-in will be considered as having been completed for that month.
• If rejected, or a student/supervisor indicates that they didn't meet on campus or had no meeting, students are automatically emailed to inform them that they need to visit the relevant school office by the end of the calendar month.

4. For students who are required to come to the relevant school office, the following applies:

• The student completes a short online form in the School Office which instantly instigates an approval process via Teams at the relevant school office. The student's details appear to the administrator and the member of admin staff checks this against the person in front of them/their ID card. Once approved, the visa sign-in will be considered as having been completed for that calendar month.

At the beginning of each month, the approvals list for the previous month will be checked and any students who have failed to engage will be put through the C6 process as appropriate, which may ultimately lead to the reporting of your visa to UKVI.