Development and Training

Development and training for our researchers, from research students through early career research staff to more senior academic staff, is an important focus for the University. As a research student you will have access to many of the events and activities provided for academic staff - these cover topics such as research ethics, sources of funding, entrepreneurship in a research context, literature and citation searching, managing references, using social media for research and networking and impact - but we also offer events and support tailored particularly to your needs.

Induction and training to meet your particular subject needs are provided by the local School and/or Academic Department or Faculty and you will find information about this within the School webpages. University induction and training and development opportunities addressing general and transferable research skills are also provided by the University.

For 2011/12, we will again be running two Researcher Development Days following their successful introduction in 2010/11 with some adaptation to take account of feedback from those who attended. These bring together a substantial range of sessions into a one day conference format. The first of these will be held in November 2011 with a further event taking place in April 2012. The programme comprises individually bookable sessions addressing skills needed to be a successful researcher such as working effectively with your supervisor, bibliographic skills and writing for academic purposes, several plenary sessions including one addressing how research varies across disciplines, plus networking opportunities throughout the day.

We are also holding a one-day research symposium in June 2012, again following on from a successful first event in 2011, to give research students an opportunity to present their work, via posters for those in their first and second years and presentations for those in the third or fourth year, and to gain peer feedback and support. 

Many research students undertake some teaching for their School or Department during their studies. This is excellent experience as well as providing some income. Training for those who teach is particularly important and we offer two mechanisms to support this:

• a mentoring scheme whereby you have the opportunity to observe an experienced, well-regarded teacher as well as being observed yourself;
• attendance on the Introduction to Teaching in Higher Education module on our MA in Academic Practice.

We also provide a set of online research skills training modules which are designed to provide support at a time of your own choosing. They include video clips, simulations, informational text and quizzes. Group sessions to introduce these to research students will take place in October 2011 and March 2012. The topics covered are:

• Getting published in the Arts
• Getting published in the Sciences
• Ethics 1 - Good Research Practice
• Ethics 2 - Working with Human Subjects
• Project Management in the Research Context
• Intellectual Property in the Research Context
• Career planning in the Sciences
• Career planning in the Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences
• Managing your research supervisor or principal investigator
• Selecting a conference, presenting and networking
• Research Methods in the Arts and Humanities
• Research Methods in Social Sciences
• Research Methods in Sciences
• Research Methods in Literature Review
• Entrepreneurship in the Research Context: Entrepreneurial Motivation
• Entrepreneurship in the Research Context: Opportunity Recognition, Creation and Evaluation
• Entrepreneurship in the Research Context: Entrepreneurial Resources