Getting your Research Published - PostGraduate Conferences

23 June 2011

By Peter Hale

I think PostGraduate conferences are useful at any stage of PhD studies. For the conference I presented at Exeter University there were students at all stages of their PhD attending and or presenting papers and posters. I think these are good for preparation for when a student gives their first Conference presentation. Also this is good for when a student has already presented at conference(s), but has a new paper to present. For me also I'm right at the end of my PhD and would not have time to wait for a Journal Paper to be peer reviewed, and don't have much time to travel as my efforts are going fully into completing my PhD. So this is a good way to get something published fairly quickly, in time to reference from my PhD.

When I attended a similar conference at University of the West of England, one of the presentations was about open research and publishing it. Open research is different from regular publishing as it involves continually publishing raw data and research approach and thoughts. But this did mention something called the Research Repository at University of the West of England. I think Southampton University has something similar. Maybe many or most Universities have something like this. I was able to upload my paper and presentation, and the staff checked the copyright to make sure I could publish. So I didn't have that worry. Also they ensured PDF files were published so I didn't have to worry that those without Office 2007 would be unable to access the published work.

So if your University has PostGraduate Conferences or there are regional ones they could be of interest, and maybe also your University has a Research Repository or something of that kind to enable you to publish to it.