Griffith PhD in Ecotourism - Griffith University

APPLYING FOR AN ECOTOURISM PHD AT GRIFFITH UNIVERSITY.
Ralf Buckley, Director, International Centre for Ecotourism Research
Purpose. This is a summary of the steps you need to take to apply to study for a PhD in
ecotourism at Griffith University. It is intended for people who have made preliminary
enquiries about the possibility.
Status. This is an informal and unofficial summary of the process, from the particular
perspective of ecotourism. It is not an official University document. The official University
documents are available under Higher Degrees by Research, http://www.griffith.edu.au/hdr
Australian PhD system. The Australian PhD system is more similar to the UK system than
the US system. It is purely by research thesis, not by a mixture of thesis and coursework. It is
a three-year degree.
Ecotourism at Griffith. Griffith University is currently ranked world first in sustainable
tourism research, including ecotourism. This includes academic staff in both the International
Centre for Ecotourism Research (ICER), and the Centre for Tourism, Sport and Services
Research (TSSR). More on these below, but you can check out either or both through the
Griffith University website. Info on ICER is at www.griffith.edu.au/centre/icer, and info on
TSSR is at http://www.griffith.edu.au/business-government/centre-tourism-sport-servicesresearch.
So, you have picked a good place to apply. You should take a look at the academic
staff and their research interests, because those are your potential PhD supervisors.
Supervisors. Your PhD is a self-contained research project which you carry out yourself, but
under supervision. Generally you have one principal supervisor and one or two associate
supervisors. The principal supervisor is responsible for helping you choose and design your
research topic, carry out your research and write it up, on time. Associate supervisors are
there as back-ups if the principal supervisor is away, and/or to provide specialist expertise,
e.g. in relation to a research method.
Contacting potential supervisors. You can lodge an official application without specifying
your proposed supervisors. It is very much more likely to be successful, however, if you have
had extended prior discussion with your proposed principal supervisor, before you apply. Part
of the official process is that the University has to identify a supervisor, and that supervisor
has to agree to the task. There are also various internal processes to rank applicants for
scholarships, and you need an enthusiastic supervisor to respond to requests at short notice.
Competition for supervisors. Experienced PhD supervisors with a good track record get a
large number of new PhD applications, and they are usually supervising several PhDs
already. So, they can only take on a new student when a previous one finishes up. Of course,
they pick students who have put the effort into developing a research project proposal that fits
well with the supervisor’s overall research interests. Typically it can take many months of
email exchanges with your proposed supervisor to pick a good project, before you lodge a
formal application. If your proposed principal supervisor is not able to take on more students,
they will try to find a colleague to supervise you. Only more senior staff who have already
supervised PhD’s to successful completion, however, can be principal supervisors.

Project proposal. Your official application must include a one-page outline of your proposed
research project. You can change your project, in consultation with your supervisor, once you
actually get here. But you still need a good proposal to help you get accepted. If you establish
good contact with your proposed supervisor, they will usually help you draft this proposal.
Enrolment cf scholarships. The official application process combines an application for
enrolment with an application for scholarships. Technically, however, these are separate
issues. Enrolment means that the University is prepared to accept you to study here.
Scholarships give you the money to do so. If you have your own funds, you can enrol without
scholarships. The criteria for enrolment are based only on your own academic record. That is,
there is a fixed threshold. Scholarships, however, are competitive. There is a fixed number of
scholarships, and they go to the top-ranked applicants.
Enrolment criteria. Generally, to be accepted into our PhD programme, you must have
completed either an Honours or a Masters degree which includes a research thesis component
equivalent to at least one semester’s full time study, and where the thesis was graded (i.e. not
simply pass/fail). That is the basic threshold. However, the University appreciates that there
are different systems in different countries, and sometimes other evidence of research
capability, such as publications or professional experience, can be used instead. In practice
this is rarely an issue, because the scholarships are a much more limiting criterion.
Language. If English is not your first language, then you have to meet language proficiency
criteria before you can be accepted. If your previous qualifications, including your Honours
or Masters thesis, were in English, then that may be enough. Otherwise, you generally need
high marks on an IELTS or TOEFL test. English requirements can be viewed at
www.griffith.edu.au/higher-degrees-research/how-to-apply/entry-requirements/internationalapplicants.
If your previous Honours or Masters thesis is in a non-English language, then we
may need a translation in order to assess your capability.
Previous qualifications. In applying for enrolment, you have to present your previous
qualifications in a way which is understandable within the Australian system. Some European
countries, for example, combine a Bachelors and Masters into a single extended degree.
Formally this assessment is up to the HDR Student Centre, but your potential supervisor may
be able to help you with presentation.
University rankings. The Australian Government maintains a list of all universities
worldwide, with equivalence rankings between their degrees and Australian degrees. Thus, a
Masters degree from some universities in some countries may only be ranked as a Bachelor’s
degree under the Australian system. This is part of the official application process, and
individual academics can’t advise you on this. In practice, it rarely seems to be an issue.
Publications. Your application will be much stronger if you already have some academic
publications, but this is not essential. Your application will be judged on what you have
achieved relative to age and opportunity. During your PhD, your supervisors will help you to
publish journal articles from your thesis work, in parallel to submitting your thesis.
Scholarships. There are two different types of scholarship, one for living costs and the other
for tuition fees. Tuition fees apply only to international applicants. If you are an Australian
citizen, you only need to apply for a living-cost scholarship. If you are an international

applicant, you need to apply for both. Scholarships for tuition fees are usually in shorter
supply than scholarships for living costs, so the competition is fiercer.
Living-cost scholarships. There are several different sources of living cost scholarships. For
Australian citizens, there are APAs, Australian Postgraduate Awards; and APAIs, Australian
Postgraduate Award (Industry). These are administered through the universities, and you can
apply for them through the official Griffith University application form. At Griffith, there are
also GUPRS, Griffith University Postgraduate Research Stipends, which are funded by the
University. These are available both to Australian and international applicants, and are
similar in amount to the APAs. To apply for APA, APAI or GUPRS, your application is part
of the standard Griffith University PhD application process.
External scholarships. The third source is that a number of countries now provide PhD
funding for their own citizens to study in Australia, under various international exchange
arrangements. If you are applying for PhD enrolment using an external scholarship, Griffith
treats that as equivalent to self-funded. That is, you need to show in your application that you
have those funds. Your potential supervisor will also want to know exactly what such
scholarships are worth, to make sure you will have enough money to live on.
Tuition fee scholarships. There are three different sources, similar to those for living cost
scholarships. The Australian Government provides a limited number of IPRS, International
Postgraduate Research Scholarships, which cover tuition fees for three years at any
Australian university. Griffith University itself provides a number of tuition fee scholarships,
from various internal sources which differ from year to year. All of these scholarships,
including IPRS, are managed via the HDR Student Centre, and you apply for them using the
same official application form. The third source is that a few countries have special
programmes to fund their citizens to undertake a PhD in Australia, including payment of
tuition fees.
Top-up scholarships. The various living scholarships are slightly different in amount. They
are tax free, and they are just enough to live on in order to carry out a PhD. A number of
research groups within Griffith, including our own, offer top-up scholarships which bring
internal Griffith University scholarships up to the level of the APA(I). We do this so as to
make sure that students can focus fully on their studies. You apply for top-ups separately,
once you have already started. They are dependent on budget available.
Working during your PhD. Unlike the US system, where it is commonplace for PhD
students to have a job at the same time as their course of study, the Australian system requires
students to focus on their research. Therefore, we are generally not in favour of students
holding jobs at the same time as their PhD. It is, however, possible for PhD students to
undertake work at Griffith as research assistants, tutors or lecturers. Many students do exactly
this. There is never any guarantee, however, that any such work will be available. There are
also limits on the maximum number of hours allowable.
Visa. If you apply successfully from overseas, Griffith University will provide you with the
documents needed to get a student visa, which commonly lasts for four years. These visas
contain more stringent conditions on the number of hours you are allowed to work, than the
scholarship conditions. In practice, as long as you get both living-cost and tuition-fee
scholarships, and especially if you also get a top-up scholarship, these restrictions are not
significant.

Schools and Groups. Griffith University is structured into four large academic Groups:
Science, Health, Business, and Arts/Law. Teaching is carried out through Schools, and each
School must belong to one of the Groups. Research is carried out partly through Schools and
partly through Research Centres and Institutes. Some of these are within a single School or
Group, and some interdisciplinary Research Centres cross between Groups. This is a slightly
confusing arrangement, because PhD students enrol through Schools, but their supervisors
belong to Research Centres or Institutes, and students are also attached to the same Centre or
Institute as their principal supervisor.
Ecotourism options. At Griffith, there is a School of Environment within the Science Group,
and the International Centre for Ecotourism Research is affiliated with the School of
Environment and the Science Group. Members of other Groups are also members of ICER
for the purposes of carrying out research, but they are attached to other Schools for the
purposes of PhD supervision. The main one is the Department of Tourism, Hospitality, Sport
and Leisure (HSL) in the Business Group (which, confusingly, is known as the Griffith
Business School (GBS), though it corresponds to a Group in functional terms). There is a
Centre for Tourism, Sport and Services Research (TSSR) affiliated with HSL in GBS. The
acronyms are confusing, sorry! That’s why you need a supervisor to help you through them!
Which Centre and School? What all this means in practice is that if you want to be
supervised by a member of ICER, you generally need to enrol via the School of Environment
in the Science Group. If you want to be supervised by someone in the Business Group, even
if that academic is also a member of ICER, then you generally need to enrol via HSL and
TSSR. That decision would generally be part of the discussion with your proposed supervisor
before you apply. In particular, depending on your proposed project, the chance of getting
scholarships may differ between Groups. ICER and TSSR work together closely, so
generally, if you make contact with TSSR but want to do a PhD more relevant to staff in
ICER, they will let us know; and vice versa. We will check mainly what your previous
academic discipline has been, and what your current interests are.
First steps. If you are reading this, it probably means you have already made contact with a
potential supervisor in ecotourism. So, the first thing we need to know is what qualifications
you already have. You should email us a CV or resume, and a copy of your university
transcript or transcripts. For the official application process, you will need certified copies of
these documents. For discussions with supervisors, however, photocopies or scanned copies
are fine. Basically, we are just checking whether or not you are likely to get scholarships. We
also want to see what experience and training you have already. In particular, we want to
know whether you are an ecologist, a geographer, a lawyer, a social scientist, etc, because
that generally determines what kind of PhD project you can do.
Timing. Whilst PhD applications are accepted at any time of the year, there is one main
scholarship round at Griffith University each year, with a closing date at the beginning of
October. The official date is available from the HDR Student Centre
(www.griffith.edu.au/higher-degrees-research/research-scholarships). Occasionally there are
also mid-year scholarships, but these are much fewer in number and we never know whether
or not any will be available. So you should plan around the October round. There are
numerous administrative requirements, such as checking English language competence, prior
qualifications and so on. All of these must be completed before your application can be
considered. So you should lodge your application at least a month or two before the deadline,

so that the University has the opportunity to check these administrative requirements and, if
need be, to obtain further information. If you lodge your application at the last moment, then
if any of these procedural requirements are not met, your application will not be considered.
Note re multi-university PhDs. Universities in some countries offer multi-university PhDs,
where you can enrol simultaneously in more than one university, and receive your PhD
jointly from several universities. Griffith University does not currently offer this system. It is
possible for Griffith University academics to act as associate supervisors for students enrolled
in other universities, but this is informal. Generally, if you want to get a PhD from Griffith,
and especially if you want to apply for scholarships, you have to make your application fully
and solely through Griffith, and your supervision will be entirely via Griffith.
International fieldwork. It is, however, perfectly possible for you to be enrolled and funded
through Griffith, but carry out your fieldwork in another country, including your own country
of origin. ICER is very much an international centre, and we have PhD students from all over
the world. We encourage you to consider what special knowledge you have about your own
country, including local language, culture, politics and practice, and how this can be used
towards a PhD. We find that often, our students have an enormous body of cultural and
professional knowledge that they don’t recognise or value, because they think that “everyone
knows that”. Often, this expertise and experience is almost enough in itself to write a PhD.
Fieldwork budgets. If you are accepted into our PhD program, then your School and your
supervisor’s Centre will consider how best to fund your fieldwork, as part of the detailed
design of your project. For example, if you want to work in your own country, we would
arrange for you to spend perhaps 12 months at Griffith preparing all the theoretical parts of
your work, then six months back in your own country collecting data specific to your PhD
project, then 18 months back at Griffith writing it up. You can apply through your School of
enrolment for a fieldwork budget, currently up to $9000 in ENV/ICER, though this changes.
Grants and sponsors. If your project is particularly costly, then we may encourage and help
you to apply for external grants, so you have a two-level project, a base level funded by the
University and an add-on component funded by a grant. We also have sponsorship
arrangements with many tourism operators worldwide, and routinely obtain in-kind
sponsorships for our PhD students.
Questions? Please email us, and we will do our best to answer.