Elizabeth Cook is a doctoral researcher on the programme PhD in Higher Education: Research, Evaluation and Enhancement at Lancaster University, and a Senior Analyst at Edith Cowan University in Perth, Australia.  Having begun her PhD in October 2019, Elizabeth talks about her early experiences in the PhD programme and provides tips for students in the programme. Elizabeth discusses her recently completed research – a critical discourse study that explored the effectiveness of collaboration between higher education providers and the Australian’s Department of Education, Skills and Employment during a current reform project aimed at redeveloping the Australian Higher Education Data Collection. Elizabeth focuses on her topic; research goals, design and methodology; challenges faced and overcome; and how her research findings can contribute to higher education policy development and reform.  Elizabeth can be contacted about her research via [email protected] or https://www.linkedin.com/in/elizcook/. Talking to her is Olga Rotar, doctoral researcher and a member of CHERE@LU.