Assessment standards as applied in postgraduate (especially doctoral) research proposals, dissertations and written and oral examinations were the subject of discussion at a recent meeting of the Community of Practice for Postgraduate Education and Scholarship (CoP PGES) of Universities South Africa (USAf). Central to the group’s deliberations on 25 July was the need to standardise implementation of the Doctoral Standard across universities and the potential adoption of viva voce as a key doctoral assessment model.