Picking up the pieces: supervisors and doctoral “orphans” Gina Wisker Centre for Learning and Teaching, University of Brighton, Brighton, UK, and Gillian Robinson Faculty of Education, Anglia Ruskin University, Chelmsford, UK Abstract Purpose – The purpose of this article is to present findings from the authors’ research into how supervisors of doctoral students cope with change in supervisory relationships where a supervisor takes on a student previously supervised by another, or has to hand over a student to another supervisor’s care, and to identify recommendations for applying these findings to supervisory practice. Design/methodology/approach – The research used interviews to gather and analyse perceptions and practices from experienced supervisors, and aimed to identify good practice to support supervisors in enabling transitions to enhance student success. This work is underpinned by work on conceptual threshold-crossing, students working at sufficiently critical, creative and conceptual levels to achieve doctorates; well-being and emotional resilience, particularly in doctoral studies. It makes links between knowledge construction, resilience and well-being, from the perspective of the supervisors, since it focuses on the experience of supervisors engaging with and supporting students. Findings – The research identifies supervisors’ anxiety at, and ways of managing the difficulties of, either losing or acquiring students. It highlights effective strategies for taking on students midway into their research to enable successful supervision. Originality/value – This research offers new knowledge about supervisor perceptions of, experiences with and good practice suggestions for, supporting transitions for doctoral students who change supervisor. Keywords Doctoral education, Supervision, Wellbeing and resilience, Diversity, Change supervisor, Students, Academic staff Paper type Research paper Background and introduction Our earlier work into conceptual threshold crossings among doctoral students (Wisker et al., 2011) and into the well-being and emotional resilience of education doctoral students (Morris and Wisker, 2011) emphasised a link between ontology (being in the world) and epistemology (ways of constructing knowledge). This indicated that students’ well-being and their identities as academics were affected by and affected their learning journeys as doctoral candidates, their researcher development, and that their sense of being in the world was fundamentally intertwined with the ways they perceived knowledge construction and articulation to take place, or not. There is, however, more generally, a dearth of research on the personal, emotional and affective elements of supervision of doctoral candidates and of the doctoral journey itself, its accompanying intellectual development and construction and production of knowledge (Stevens-Long and Barner, 2006). Little has been written which explores the relationships between such affective experiences and the learning, personal, professional relations with the supervisor, and progress in the disciplinary and The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at www.emeraldinsight.com/2048-8696.htm Picking up the pieces 139 Received 3 January 2013 Revised 11 February 2013 13 February 2013 Accepted 15 February 2013 International Journal for Researcher Development Vol. 3 No. 2, 2012 pp. 139-153 q Emerald Group Publishing Limited 2048-8696 DOI 10.1108/17597511311316982