Dr Paul Spencer

Organisation

Bristol Doctoral College, University of Bristol 

Job title

PGR Environment Development Manager 

Paul is an experienced researcher development professional recently appointed to a new role in the Bristol Doctoral College to oversee a portfolio of strategic initiatives to grow and enhance the support for the postgraduate researcher community at the University of Bristol.  Key responsibilities are the sharing of practice among the many nationally funded centres of doctoral training hosted at Bristol, establishment of a dedicated physical PGR hub, increased support for Graduate Teaching Assistants, enhancement of the Personal and Professional Development offering, and management of the communications and engagement with the PGR community.

Paul has built up extensive experience in the past 13 years leading the researcher development provision at UWE Bristol for the community of PGRs, early career researchers and supervisors of research. He has pioneered different approaches from residential courses to live webcasting of interactive development sessions and has written about many of these things on his blog; http://thedigitaldoctorate.com 

Paul has been active in the Vitae (and UKGRAD before that) network both regionally and nationally since 2003 and has collaborated with colleagues across the UK to successfully design and deliver high quality researcher development initiatives involving a wide range of stakeholders.

Prior to entering the researcher development field Paul worked as a postdoctoral researcher investigating oral biofilms and their role in producing malodour in the mouth and has a PhD in oral microbiology.