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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.

This is a brief summary of the organisational model that we have adopted in order to work more closely with Schools, Faculties and Departments and 'partner' with them in understanding and providing for the needs of their particular staff in a ‘bespoke’ way where appropriate. This positions us better to target our resource towards meeting real needs, while striving for enhanced alignment between UCL’s research strategy and individual aspirations. This new model also enables us to work more closely in partnership with other key people deployed at a Faculty or Department level, such as Research Facilitators, Research Leaders, HR Consultants, Faculty Managers etc.

Ketso is an interactive, hands-on toolkit for bringing meetings and workshops to life. It is compact and portable, simple to use and accessible to everyone. Ketso extends people's ability to run effective and enjoyable workshops - virtually anywhere and in any setting. It encourages people to be creative and share in productive dialogue, while also generating real results that can be put into action. Ketso provides a set of tabletop tools that can be used to capture and display people's ideas. It consists of colourful 'branches', 'leaves' and other materials, which can be placed on a felt workspace and easily moved around in response to changing discussion. Ketso is robust and portable, and comes in a handy carrying bag, making it easy to transport to and from events. Ketso provides a series of free resources to help you run effective workshops and engagement processes - such as workshop plans and training videos in planning and running a workshop.

Open competition to fund projects relating to research staff development

Make Some Noise is an annual series of linked training, practise and awareness raising events linked by competitions, all of which aim to develop strong communication and public engagement skills. it is also a means of celebrating the excellent research work taking place in the Faculty of Engineering.

We use several communication channels for informing and enthusing Research Staff about the Faculty Researcher Development programme and other opportunities, including Twitter and e-bulletins.

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.

A one-day conference provided for postgraduate research students in Science & Technology to gain experience of presenting their research in an environment of peer support. Students are invited to submit an abstract and either give a 10-minute oral presentation or produce a poster on their research project. During the Poster Session on the day, students are divided into groups of 6 to discuss each other’s posters and decide on the winning poster for their group. The presenter of each winning poster is then be invited to give a 5-minute presentation in Darwin Lecture Theatre summarising their poster and an overall winner is decided upon, again by the research students. This event has been running annually since 2004. Prizes are awarded to the best overall oral and poster presentations. There is the Paul Harris Award for Outstanding Science.