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The ‘your first three years’ programme for newly appointed research active staff provides training in topics relevant to academic practice, including:

• induction - an introduction to University structures, key people and support for researchers
• good practice in grant writing
• managing projects, project finances and staff
• training for teaching 
• training for supervising research and research degree students

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.

Tailored for a Post-Graduate only environment the training workshops cover the main areas of teaching and learning. The workshops can be taken individually or as part of the School's integrated Certificate in Learning and Teaching (CILT). CILT is HEA accredited and supports the development of an academic career. CILT is structured as two 30 credit medium-level modules, and the full certificate is an award bearing Certificate of the University of London.

This event is arranged and delivered by DPhil students from the Medical Sciences Divison as part of the Medical Sciences Skills Training Programme. DPhil students are invited to register for event and if they wish to present submit an abstract. Twelve students are then selected to present at the event. Students are also invited to submit posters and prizes are given for the best talks and posters. The event concludes with a keynote speech followed by a drinks and capnapes reception. The event is partially funded by the Divisional Skills Training Programme and support from sponsors secured by the students organising the event. Sponsors of the event are invited to attend and exhibit at the event. http://www.medsci.ox.ac.uk/dphilday

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.

A series of methodology taster sessions which provide a basic introduction to a methodology, its application with examples, its advantages and its limitations or drawbacks. The seminars will later be available on the web as podcasts, together with key readings and links to other relevant resources on the web, making this a valuable web repository on research methodologies.

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).

This conference showcases presentations and posters from UoP research students. We offer research students a valuable opportunity to practice presenting, listen to presenters, test their posters, view the work of other research students and, participate in the overall experience of a cross-discipline researcher conference.

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.