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Using the Skills Training Programme courses, the Medical Sciences Division seeks to equip Graduate Research Students and Research Staff members with a comprehensive set of skills ensuring each researcher realises his/her maximum potential and thereby lay the foundations for a successful career in the sciences.

The Social Media sessions demonstrated a successful integration of a student-led initiative within a formal graduate training provision. The initiative underlined the importance of engaging PhD students in their own learning and training needs, in both sharing expertise with peers and in contributing to their own professional development. In doing so, it demonstrated to other postgraduate researchers how they might utilise their own areas of expertise to develop further student-led initiatives.

The Jubilee Graduate Centre (JGC) has been exclusively developed for postgraduate students and early career researchers. It works closely with Schools on the Jubilee Campus to develop Faculty-specific training and careers events for PGRs/ECRs focusing on transferable skills, and which reflect the requirements of the Funding Councils.

The MPLS Division at Oxford provides a programme of skills training courses for its doctoral research students and postdoctoral researchers, based upon the Joint Skills Statement. The programme is reviewed on an ongoing basis, so that each year’s programme is relevant and up to date. For 2009-10 an overarching framework of personal effectiveness courses has been established, with the aim of supporting researchers in their development from the early stages of their doctoral studies through to the first permanent appointment, be this inside or outside academia. In addition to the existing website, a new skills handbook has been produced which will provide comprehensive information about the programme for new students and research staff.

Schools and Research Institutes across the Faculty of Engineering and Physical Sciences are invited to bid for funds to host inter-disciplinary conferences organised and presented by postgraduate researchers and research staff; skills training in presentation, poster design and event management is offered to support the organisers and participants.

This is a training workshop which developes skills for assessing and solving complex problems. A problem solving matrix is used to highlight possible solutions and then narrow down the number of choices to obtain the optimum solution to the problem.

The Researcher Development Programme delivers a range of themed sessions and supervisor-led activities designed to support researchers' skills development, increase their personal effectiveness and provide advice on planning and managing their careers.