Subscribe by RSSDatabase of practice

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.

As part of the Medical Sciences Divisional Skills Training Programme graduate students and postdoctoral researchers are invited to explore moving away from academia and consider the opportunities open to them for a career based in Medical Writing and Medical Communications. Beginning with an introductory session comprising of presentations and a networking lunch with potential employers. Then a more focussed two workshop.

Research staff and students have access to specialist careers guidance, information and training services provided by the Centre for Career Development in collaboration with the Graduate School and Professional Development.

An institutional programme provided by departments, faculties and the University for postgraduate researchers. Complimented by an online tool 'MyPGR' containing a JSS-linked Development Needs Analysis, Record of Supervision Meetings, Skills Record and Personal Development Planner.

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.

Developing research funding applications is a multi-stage process including; refining the question and methods, finding collaborators, identifying appropriate funding sources, knowing what makes a successful application and who to get advice from, costing the bid and writing the application form. This project seeks to address some of these stages. The specific objectives are: 1. To create a series of short video clips/ audio recordings featuring staff from Department of Health Sciences, covering: • Features of successful applications. These will spotlight on senior staff who are panel members for some of the major health research funding bodies. • Staff experiences of applying for external funding. These will contain reflections of staff who have applied for research funding, both successful and unsuccessful. These resources will be stored on the Health Sciences Staff Intranet (on a web page dedicated to the project) with links from both research and teaching related pages. An online survey will give people who access the resource an opportunity to feedback their views on its usefulness. 2. To establish a Learning Set of early to mid career research staff to facilitate the development of skills in writing research funding applications. Early to mid career researchers will present research ideas to the learning set for discussion or commenting on applications in progress. The group would meet once a month and maintain an email list of members that could be contacted for advice when needed. The project team will be supported by two senior members of staff (Karen Bloor and Karen Spilsbury) and has been approved by Head of Department (Professor Christine Godfrey) and Chair of Departmental Research Committee (Professor Nicky Cullum).

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.

A new post (August 2009) offering careers guidance and information to research staff and fellows across the School of Arts & Humanities and the School of the Humanities and Social Sciences at Cambridge University (= 39 Faculties and Departments, c. 450 potential clients). Staffed by a careers adviser (0.5 FTE) and PA (0.4 FTE).

This is a series of networking events for postgraduate researchers from the department of Law/College of Social Sciences. The event takes the form of a a fortnightly lunch time gathering. The aim is to inform attendees about other students' work. Attendees will be asked to bring problems they are facing to allow other attendees to offer suggestions through brainstorming. One or two, 5-minute presentations about research will be offered,to help attendees to develop their presentation and communication skills.