college of the university.) Very zealous universities (like
London) will debar as examiners people who have worked or
published with you, and may even rule out people who have
worked alongside your supervisor in the past or co-published
with her. The key principle underlying all these requirements is
maintaining academic independence. By working with you
over several years your supervisors will inevitably have accu-
mulated dozens of links and personal obligations to you, which
must to some degree distort their objectivity. Separate examin-
ers, not bound to you by personal ties, are supposed to be
capable of giving dispassionate judgements about the quality of
your work and how it fits with the doctoral standards prevail-
ing in your discipline. The external examiner is there to ensure
that institutional loyalties do not colour the internal exam-
iner’s judgements, and that your university sticks to the
standards prevailing in the wider discipline in your country.
Some European countries have systems of PhD examining
which combine aspects of the American and the British models;
they use a large committee or ‘collegium’ of six to ten examin-
ers, including several of your supervisors, plus senior members
of your own department who have not supervised you, plus an
external examiner from another university. In the European
Union the external is now often drawn from a university in
another EU country.
In both the British and the European models you should
always try to have a hand in who gets to be appointed as sepa-
rate examiners (those people who will sit in judgement on the
thesis but are not already your supervisors). In theory examin-
ers are always appointed by a faculty board or committee of
your university, on the advice of your supervisor. In practice, it
is usually so difficult to get people to examine PhDs, especially
external examiners, that university administrators rely heavily
on the names that your supervisor suggests. It is not a good idea
to simply assume that your supervisor has this aspect all in
hand and so give her a free hand in nominating examiners, for
various reasons. You will always know a great deal more about
your thesis, its strengths and weaknesses, than your supervisor.
And it will be you and not your supervisor who has to sit
through the oral exam (where there is one), and to handle the
examiners at a personal level. Sometimes your supervisor may
THE END-GAME◆ 213