Student Guide to the GPR

Overview of the GPR Process

Students will receive an email from their Graduate Program, providing them with guidance on completing their annual Graduate Progress Review (GPR). We recommend that students, upon receiving this request, connect with their academic supervisory committee to discuss their GPR and their progress prior to initiating and completing the GPR form.

The GPR process will follow the following steps:

Student receives an email to initiate their GPR
Student completes the GPR
After the student completes their section, their academic supervisor will be asked to complete their review and portion.
1. If the student also has a co-supervisor, they will also be asked to complete it as well.
2. Some programs require committee members to also complete their portions (see below for list of programs requiring this).
After the academic supervisor (and co-supervisor/committee members, if required) completes their portion, it will go to the program's Graduate Program Chair (GPC) for final review.
Once the GPC completes their section, the student, the Graduate Program Assistant, academic supervisor/academic co-supervisor will all receive the final report.
See outcomes (below) for action items, depending on the student's outcome of this process.
Questions or concerns regarding the final report should be directed to the student's academic supervisory committee.

Notifications/Emails to Students

Students will receive the email from their graduate program to complete the GPR form. Upon completion of the form, they will receive a copy of their submissions along with information about next steps. Students also have the option of saving a copy of thier submissions once they complete the form as well.

Students will also receive an email with the final report, after the program's Graduate Program Chair completes their section. We recommend that students save the email as a pdf for their own files and records.

GPR Assessment Outcomes (Fall 2026 onward)

Exceeds Expectations: superior academic performance that surpasses goals determined by the supervisory committee. No further steps are required.
Meets Expectations: solid academic performance that meets goals determined by the supervisory committee. No further steps are required.
Satisfactory with Concerns: academic performance that nearly fulfills goals determined by the supervisory committee but requires action to ensure continued progress. A plan addressing concerns should be developed with your supervisory committee.
Unsatisfactory: academic performance that does not fulfill goals determined by the supervisory committee and requires review by the graduate program. This outcome triggers GGR 1.8.2.

Prepare in Advance

In the process of completing the GPR form, you will be asked to provide specific information, and some of it may include character limits. We recommend that you have the following placed into a word document prior to starting so you can copy and paste the information into the correct form fields.

Academic supervisor(s) full names and SFU email addresses
1. If you have an academic co-supervisor not from SFU that does not have an SFU email address, add them in the academic co-supervisor field only
2. Names and email address for academic supervisory committee members in the following units:
  1. Biological Sciences (MSc, MET, MPM, PhD)
  2. Chemistry (MSc, PhD)
  3. Earth Sciences (MSc, PhD )
  4. Health Sciences (MSc, PhD)
  5. Mathematics (MSc, PhD)
  6. Molecular Biology and Biochemistry (MSc, PhD)
  7. Political Science (PhD)
  8. Sustainable Energy Engineering (MASc, PhD)
3. Note: non-SFU email addresses are ok for these members (SFU email addresses, if they have them, are preferred)
4. If you are not in these units, you will not need this information
Completed training dates and certificate numbers if you have an approved ethics certificate, animal care certificate, biosafety or radiation training (along with the date the biosafety training was completed)
Narrative about professional development, conferences, publications, service and community engagement in the last year (up to 4000 characters). You may wish to use headings for each of the areas and share the information in a bullet point list.
Narrative about progress over the last year (up to 4000) characters. Please provide an honest assessment of your progress over the last year, outlining the milestones, research progress, or tasks you completed. Please also indicate challenges you faced in making progress, if any.
Any additional feedback that you’d like to share with your academic supervisor, committee or Graduate Program Chair (up to 4000 characters).

Tips for completing the GPR

We recommend that you also review the Tips below prior to completing the GPR to make the process go more smoothly. You may wish to keep this page open while completing the GPR in case you wish to refer to this information.

Required fields are marked with an asterisk (*)
Check that the entered information is correct upon entering it, before progressing through the GPR
Academic supervisor email addresses must be SFU

Ready to complete your GPR?

Complete the form now (add link when ready)

Page One: General Information

Question 6: A leave of absence is official, approved time off from SFU. Enter here information about the total numbers of approved leave of absence you’ve taken.

Question 7: Students take leave for a variety of reasons. Please enter here information about the approved leave you’ve taken for reasons such as medical, compassionate, parental leave or time away for required miliary service.

Question 8: Please enter here information about the approved leave you’ve taken for personal or professional reasons.

Unsure if the leave of absence(s) you took counts towards your time to completion?

Review the information about Leaves of Absences

Questions 10-11: For Tri-Agency Award recipients

Each year, SFU is required to send an update to the Tri-Agencies (SSHRC, NSERC, CIHR) on student performance. The GPR can be used for this purpose. If you decide not to use the GPR to verify your eligibility, our Graduate Awards staff will reach out to you to provide an alternate way for this report to be completed.

See: Tri-agency Research Training Award Holder's Guide

Question 14: Be sure to include your academic supervisor’s SFU email address. The GPR can only proceed with SFU email addresses. If you have an academic co-supervisor who is not from SFU, please provide their information in the academic co-supervisor text box.

Question 18: Students in these programs are required to include additional contact information for their committee members.

If you're not a student in these programs, select no.

Page Two: Progress on Your Program Requirements

Questions about your Program Requirements Progress: please provide an honest assessment of your progress.

Your options will be:

Completed
In progress
Not started
Not required/applicable

You are required to provide a response to each question, so please be sure to choose “Not required / not applicable” for anything that you don’t have to complete for your own program

Questions about your AI use: It’s important to be transparent about the use of AI tools in research. Your academic supervisor and/or committee needs to know about how you plan to use AI in all stages of your research

How you'll use AI: Please note that there is a requirement that academic supervisors/committees approve all use of AI.

Questions about IP, ethics and safety training

You will need to have any dates of completed training, any certificate or approval numbers ready in advance. If you have completed or are required to complete training, you'll need to enter specifics here.

We include questions about many types of these requirements. If you have completed any additional Safety or Ethics training not listed, you have up to 4000 characters to provide additional information.

Sample questions to show level of detail:

Page Three: Scholarly Activity

Many of the questions in this section are open text boxes, with a limit of up to 4000 characters. Headings and bullet points might be one way to organize your information.

We recommend you prepare these in a word document in advance so you do not exceed the character limit, you're including all the relevant information within that limit, and it is easier to copy and paste.

The first question is regarding your scholarly activities.

Questions regarding your academic supervisory committee meetings

Students are required to meet with their supervisors regularly and with their supervisory committees at least once a year. These questions allow for tracking of this requirement.

Questions regarding your progress and self-assessment

You are limited to 4000 characters to describe your assessment of your progress over the past year, outlining your milestones, research progress, or tasks you've completed. We recommend preparing this in advance and using headings with bullet points.

Please provide an honest assessment of the extent to which you’ve been aware of expectations and met or exceeded those expectations over the past year.

Question regarding your plans for the coming year and completion timeline.

You are limited to 4000 characters to share your outstanding milestones or tasks needed to completed you degree. Responses should include what tasks are outstanding and timeline of steps needed to complete them.

We recommend preparing this in advance and using headings with bullet points and as specific as possible.

Question regarding your additional feedback

You are limited to 4000 characters to share anything else regarding your experience as a student not included in this report.

Anything you include in here will be read and reviewed by your academic supervisory committee members. If you would prefer to provide addtiional feedback outside this form, you will be instructed with an alternative.

Optional: Saved Responses

After you submit your responses, you will be asked if you'd like to have a summary of your responses sent to you via email. If you select yes, you will get these responses in an email as well as an email from our office, including your responses as well as additional information.

If you select no, you will still get the email from our office that includes your responses as well as additional information.

Faculty of Graduate Studies