This case study gives an account of work in progress to grow a learning community of graduate research students that explicitly addresses the systemic complexity of a contemporary university, and provides strategies to overcome some limitations of traditional individual supervision, while retaining its main strengths. Faced with the experience of a shift in organisational culture away from a community of scholars towards the corporate university, and increasing demand for graduate research supervision, some members of a school in a health sciences faculty drew on systems thinking and action learning principles to find ways of supporting graduate research students to complete their theses well and on time. The group devised a research learning circle which started to meet monthly during 2002, with five graduate research students and an academic facilitator. The learning circle was rich in theory and practice of action learning, action research and facilitation. Having surpassed expectations during its first year, the research learning circle has continued and grown.

Research learning circles and individual supervision are the two main sub-systems at school level in a graduate research education system. Research learning circles focus on the process of doing research, rather than the knowledge content of individual projects. Mutual help, dialogue, interpersonal support, and trust are key elements in the learning circle process. Currently, three research learning circles support 17 graduate research students. Informal evaluation indicates that students find research learning circles a valuable part of their learning experience.

Keywords:: research supervision, learning circles, learning community