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Students are drawn to doctorates for both the intellectual journey and the aspirational destination. However, many contemporary doctoral students and graduates are feeling like battlers, in that victory does not assure a career. In this context, the weapons of choice are a clear vision, identity, and strategic choices. The aim of this chapter is to inform students, their supervisors, and university executive leaders how to achieve heightened graduate employability. As such, it has been written for four audiences: (1) PhD students, who want academic careers, and (2) those who want careers beyond universities; (3) PhD supervisors; and (4) university executive leaders. The key takeaways are practical recommendations for each of these four groups. The content is informed by an Australian national research study into postgraduate student experience, which included 319 postgraduate students as research participants. The first chapter author was one of two principal researchers leading the study, and the second chapter author was the project manager and researcher. The authors have added their reflections and personal experiences as supervisor and PhD student respectively.

The paper aims to disseminate solutions to common problems in student evaluation processes. It proposes that student evaluation can be applied to quality assurance and improving learning and teaching. The paper presents solutions in the areas of: presenting outcomes as performance indicators, constructing appropriate surveys, improving response rates, reporting student feedback to students and student engagement as a feature of university quality assurance.

The research approach of this paper is comparative case study, allowing in-depth exploration of multiple perspectives and practices at seven Australian universities. Process and outcome data were rigorously collected, analysed, compared and contrasted.

The paper provides empirical evidence for student evaluation as an instrument of learning and teaching data analysis for quality improvement. It suggests that collecting data about student engagement and the student experience will yield more useful data about student learning. Furthermore, findings indicate that students benefit from more authentic inclusion in the evaluation process and outcomes.

Because of the chosen research approach, the research results may lack generalisability. Therefore, researchers are encouraged to test the proposed propositions further and apply to their own university contexts.

The paper includes recommendations at the institution- and sector-wide levels to effectively use student evaluation as a university performance indicator and as a tool of change.

This paper fulfils an identified need to examine student evaluation processes across institutions and focuses on the role of student evaluation in quality assurance.

This article offers an insight into the experiences of female officers working within the post‐Soviet Ukrainian militia, based on data collected from nearly 500 serving officers in Kyiv, interviews with staff and students at the National Academy of Internal Affairs and with senior members of the Ukrainian Ministry of Interior. It presents data showing that women officers are significantly more dissatisfied with their role, have a poorer relationship with their line managers and perceive that they receive a more authoritarian and directive style of management than their male counterparts. It goes on to propose a three‐tier model of reform designed to address gender discrimination in the Ukrainian militia.