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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.

A number of Research Staff Societies have been set up by research staff at the University of Edinburgh. These have been started by motivated research staff in several Schools and Research Institutes. The Researcher Development Programme has worked closely with the societies providing help and support. This society development was recognised by being shortlisted for the Times Higher Awards 2008.

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.

Building Impact into Social Science Research was funded by vitae innovate fund applied for and successfully awarded to Professor Richard Thorpe and Dr Paul Ellwood. The event was supported by the Staff and Departmental Development Unit at Leeds. Much of the following text formed part of a proposal to Vitae written by Paul Ellwood and Richard Thorpe, with summary and context written by Jenn Chubb at the University of York. This Vitae Innovate funded project enabled the development of a module to be integrated into postgraduate training programmes – it contained both concepts and practical tools aimed at helping students understand and connect with aspects related to the impact of social science research. The Innovate fund supported a two day Leeds University Business School course entitled Building Impact into Social Science Research followed by a two day Social Science- wide White Rose residential event at Bodington Hall with input from academics reporting on the impact of their research and interactive group work activities. Building Impact into Social Science Research aimed to provide an introduction to this increasingly important aspect of a researcher’s life. Through a mixture of presentations, specialist speakers and practical exercises, the workshop provided a grounding in the emerging UK policy environment, appropriate research design and practical engagement mechanisms with research stakeholders.

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.

Three-day business plan competition for researchers to produce a business plan for an imaginary start-up company, engineering-based.

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 BESTS is a chance for research students and staff to broaden their experiences and networks of contacts by fully funding a visit, of up to two months duration, to a host organisation anywhere in the world. The host organisation can be a university, business, government department, charity, non-governmental organisation, etc. In fact almost any organisation can be visited, provided it will give researchers the chance to broaden and deepen their understanding of what it means to be a researcher and the skills and attitudes they will need to make a success of their career in whatever sector they choose to move into. Competitive funding exists for at least 10 BESTS per annum.

Programme of workshops available to research staff, mapped to Loughborough Skills Statements and Concordat Principles