Higher education (HE) in the UK is undergoing extensive changes. One key change is the increasing prominence of postgraduate education. Higher demands on employees create the desire for more qualifications and greater skills. This increasingly consumer-oriented focus to postgraduate education has created a need for information about quality and standards, as well as growth in formal institutional arrangements for quality assurance. In the autumn of 2002 the post of "Postgraduate Coordinator--Project Officer" was created at the University of Bristol, to review the range of services and support provided by the University for its postgraduate students and potential applicants, recognizing the diversity of the postgraduate student body and the differing needs of the range of students. This would, in addition, provide a foundation for the development of a University Graduate Strategy, with results also feeding into other policy areas. Systematic institution-wide surveys can be valuable for gathering opinions in large, diverse and devolved Higher Education Institutes. Questionnaires are a means of gathering feedback from a diverse student body, such as postgraduates. A questionnaire was designed and piloted. An e-mail was sent to all of the postgraduates registered at the University to circulate the questionnaire. Of the 5,280 postgraduates emailed (including nearly 200 'writing-up' postgraduates), 809 (fifteen per cent) responded. Approximately forty-three per cent of these were received on day one. The response rate dropped significantly after this, and fell to a trickle by the end of the two weeks. Focus groups were used in order to gain more in-depth feedback. The participants were recruited via email. Ten participants attended two sessions. These participants were all full-time students, representing the Social Sciences, Engineering and Science faculties at the University. They were from both the UK and overseas, and were studying for a range of qualifaught and res and professional doctorates. Four part-time students, representing the Arts, Medicine and Social Sciences faculties, could not attend the sessions but provided feedback. These sessions proved very successful, and gave useful feedback on academic support and teaching issues, library and computing services, language support, study skills for international students and postgraduate student representation. The following were included in the recommendations: (1) Development of a postgraduate web page to satisfy the information needs of all current postgraduate students; (2) Improvements to induction procedures for new postgraduates; and (3) Increased postgraduate student representation within the Students' Union.