What is confirmation?

Confirmation is the first Progress Review Milestone. This involves preparing a written document and presenting it to a panel of experts in your field who assess your capability to complete the degree within the specified candidature time limit.

You will be questioned on the content of your presentation and have an opportunity to gain valuable feedback. The purpose of the confirmation process is to improve the your chances of successfully completing the degree by:

• assessing the likelihood of a quality thesis being completed within the candidature time limit
• identifying any difficulties early and remedying them.

Additional benefits of confirmation are that it:

• provides reassurance that your research direction is sound
• encourages writing early in candidature so that there's less of a 'mountain to climb' at the end
• provides a chance to develop your presentation skills.

The confirmation process is not meant to be intimidating - the whole purpose is to improve the your chances of success. A major reason why some graduate researchers do not finish their degree is that they never actually start (i.e. they get to the end of their candidature time with an incomplete literature review and no clear research question). Confirmation requires you to focus on a clear definition of your research question at a very early stage and to plan the rest of the project (including the writing of thesis) on that basis.

Preparing for confirmation

Confirmation is one of three Progress Review Milestones that occur throughout candidature. For a full-time doctoral candidate, confirmation occurs at ~9 months into your candidature. Please review the Progress Review Milestone Guidelines for more information about the process. Your faculty or school may also have specific information and requirements, including document templates, and presentation guidelines.

Please note that all mandatory inductions and training must be completed before confirmation – for more information see the 'your required training' section of the training and development web page.

Training to help you prepare for confirmation is available. You can do this in two ways:

• Workshop - register for an upcoming session of Preparing for Confirmation of Candidature via the workshops and webinars page.
• Online - you should complete the confirmation, presentation skills and time management modules available through the PhD Xtra research student training CloudDeakin site.

Doctor of Psychology students

The Doctor of Psychology program has a specific confirmation process - further information is available from the School of Psychology