Skills development is an important part of your role as a postgraduate researcher and is something that you should work on throughout your research degree. Successful and timely completion of your research degree will depend on developing a mixture of subject-specific skills, intellectual skills, such as critical thinking, and more generic skills, like communication and enterprise.
Many of these skills will also be important in your future life, whatever career or life choices you make. Our Annual skills training and development programme aims to equip you with the necessary skills to undertake high-quality research and to go on to successful careers when you graduate. The programme of courses is under constant review and development but include courses and opportunities such as:
Scriptoria thesis-writingThis one-day course is run by an external company Scriptoria and will cover writing skills such as; Principles of scientific writing, Writing clearly & improving your style, Presenting figures & tables correctly, Editing & proof reading your own work
Statistics: Theory and Practical Sessions
Help and support on Statistics will come in three ways. We will have Statistics teaching sessions in the Spring term (January to March) which will cover topics starting from basic descriptive statistics to advanced modelling such as logistic regression and survival analysis. These sessions will demonstrate how statistics are presented in scientific papers as well as decide what statistical analyses to use to achieve your research aims. These will be followed by practical sessions in the Summer term (April to June) which will show you how to apply statistical techniques learned in the theory sessions on datasets. We will also be offering one-to-one consultancy sessions where you can discuss any aspect of the statistical analysis plan for your research project. These sessions will be available throughout the year.
Statistical support
The College Graduate School provide a statistical support service, which is designed solely to help you think about the statistical aspects of your study design and appropriate statistical tests and analyses to perform on your data. You will be provided with advice on a one-to-one basis on directions in which you can take forward your data collection and analysis.
Graduate School Festival of Graduate Research
The Festival provides postgraduate researchers across the College with the opportunity to showcase your research and to network. This annual event is normally in the Spring term around Easter time. If you are in your final year, you will be asked to present a poster and will also have the opportunity to make an oral presentation. Other highlights will be the session on ‘my career in research’ with early career researchers presenting their work and an overview of their career path to date.
Public engagement and Outreach
Public engagement and Outreach is increasingly becoming an important part of every scientist’s career. There are plenty of opportunities within the College to contribute to these activities and in doing so develop your communication skills by working with people of all ages and backgrounds. There are opportunities to volunteer for as little as 10 minutes or up to 2 hours on Applicant Visit Days, University Open and Community Days, and Outreach and Widening Participation events to showcase the research being carried out in the College and the benefits it has on education and the wider society. Plenty of help is available to help you produce resources and activities including bespoke training to assist you in developing a workshop based around your research or scientific interests.
Online Self-enrolling courses
PGR students are also able to access a suite of self-enrolling online courses from e-Learning support to IT, Research and Study skills.