Postgraduate Research Experience Survey 2008 - Results

Some of you might remember filling in the Postgraduate Research Experience Survey (PRES) sometime in April or May of last year. Maybe you've been wondering what happened to all the information that you provided, or maybe you just forgot about it immediately, but either way - the results have now been analysed, written up, presented at committee meetings, and a variety of changes and new initiatives are being put into place as a result of the comments you made.

A summary of the results, recommendations and actions taken can be downloaded here.

I apologise for the length of time it has taken to get this information to you, but as you will probably know my predecessor, Cara Owens, left QM soon after PRES 2008 ran and I wasn't appointed until the autumn, so there was a long delay before the results were analysed.

Despite that, I hope you can see that the information you gave was very useful to the college and the Graduate Schools, and has led to some significant changes being made. If you have any comments about anything in the report, or would like more detailed information about any of the results, please let me know.

PRES 2009 will be starting in March this year, and I will be sending more information out about that nearer the time. Last year's survey had a response rate of around 20%, but it would be great if we could get a much higher percentage this year and ensure that the views of all PhD students are being considered in decisions that are made about the college.

New careers website for Arts & Humanities PhD students

Beyond the PhD is a website designed for arts & humanities PhD students who are starting to think about where life after their PhD will take them. It was developed by people with arts & humanities PhDs together with career professionals, and it brings together a huge range of personal experiences from people from different backgrounds, ages and stages of life who have been through a PhD in an arts and humanities discipline and made the transition into a variety of work beyond it. The site consists of audio & video clips of people talking about their experiences, together with videos of group discussions on a variety of topics and articles relevant to PhD researchers.

I think this could be a very useful resource for PhD students, even non arts & humanities, who are thinking about career options and want to find out more about what's out there. The fact that this site contains such personal perspectives on finding your niche after the PhD makes it all the more interesting.

I have put a link to this site in the Links section of the sidebar, to make it easy to find.

Researchers in Residence

Some of you might remember that I sent an e-mail round a while ago about the Researchers in Residence scheme, which gives PhD students and post-docs (currently only those funded by UK research councils or Wellcome Trust) an opportunity to spend a few hours in a local school sharing your research and experience. This is a really exciting chance to step outside the world of academia and develop your communication skills in a completely different environment.

Unfortunately I wasn't able to arrange for the organiser to come to QM and run a training session here, but there is another session at Imperial on 16th March, if anyone is interested in going along to that and finding out more.

Also, if anyone is already on the scheme, I would be very interested in hearing about your experiences, and perhaps you would be able to write a short article about it to post on this blog? Please let me know!

Upcoming courses

The following ESD courses for research students are coming up in the next few days, and still have places available:

20/1, 2pm-5pm, Writing your Thesis

21/1 (2pm-5pm) and 29/1 (10am-1pm), Mathematical Writing

27/1, 10am-4pm, Managing research projects from start to finish

28/1, 2pm-5pm, Organising time for researchers

If you want to book on any of these courses you can do so through the ESD booking link on the side-bar. Get in touch with me if you want any more information or if you have trouble booking.

Intrapreneurship - more than a typo!

The term entrepreneurship, generally used to refer to the creation of new ventures and businesses, is familiar to everyone. Research environments often create entrepreneurs - for example, those who find a commercial application of their research and go on to form spin-out companies - and students are encouraged to develop entrepreneurial skills through schemes such as the Pitch your Idea competition, described a couple of posts back.

Intrapreneurship however, is a much less well-known term, and in fact my blogger spell-check is telling me it isn't even a real word. It was used by Macrae in 1982, and intrapreneurs have been described as "those who take hands-on responsibility for creating innovation of any kind within an organisation" (Pinchot, 1985). The essential difference between entre- and intrapreneurship is that intrapreneurship is about using your skills to create change within your own organisation, rather than taking them outside the organisation.

So......why is this important? Well, I'm really pointing this out to try and make you think about what ideas and skills you might have that could help create change here at Queen Mary. What difference could you make to your own research environment? One of the main issues that came out of the results from the 2008 Postgraduate Research Experience Survey at QM (PRES, and I will talk more about these results in a later post) was that PhD students were generally unsatisfied with the opportunities available for them to meet other researchers and to get involved in their department or the wider research community. Perhaps this means that the departments, Graduate Schools or ESD need to organise more events, and better publicise the ones they do offer. This is probably true. But it also provides an opportunity for PhD students and post-docs to think about ways in which they could organise their own clubs, social events, seminar series etc..... After all, you're the people that know best what it is that you need. Obviously being "intrapreneurial" is about more than having an idea - it's about transforming it into a reality - but if you do have an idea of something you think could be done, then talk to people about how you might make it happen! Talk to your supervisor, your colleagues, your department, me. Ask people if there might be funds available for organising an event. You never know what you might find!


Macrae, N. (1982) Intrapreneurial Now, The Economist, April 17
Pinchot, G. (1985) Intrapreneuring: why you don't have to leave the corporation to become an entrepreneur, Harper & Row, New York

UK GRADschools

Information and booking now available for 2009 GRADschools

GRAD schools are three-day residential courses for PhD students run by Vitae. They are open to all PhD researchers in their 2nd year or above, although free places are only available to students with research-council funding. During the three days students take part in all kinds of activities designed to help them reflect on their skills and develop new ones. Much more information is available from the link above.

The website states that 'Our vision is to create an inspirational, challenging and experiential learning environment in which all participants will learn something new about themselves and take away skills, tools or information which will motivate them to complete their studies, further realise their potential, and enable them to make more informed choices about their future careers.'

This may sound a bit vague and "fluffy", but having been on one myself I can safely say that the courses do exactly what they say. While I was very sceptical at first about what a few days of "team-building" activities could possibly do for me, I came away with renewed enthusiasm for my research and also the knowledge that my PhD was helping me to develop a wide range of skills that I previously hadn't been aware of. I actually think my experience at the school helped lead me to my current job here, as it was such a sort of eureka-moment for me (wow - I am actually good at some things that don't involve being tied to a lab bench!) that I really want to help other people in similar situations. On top of all of that, I also made some lasting friendships with PhD students from other institutions that I would never otherwise have met.

If you like the sound of this but aren't eligible for a free place on a GRADschool, or don't fancy the residential aspect, then I will be running a non-residential 3-day skills school at Queen Mary in the summer. The dates are 22nd-24th June. Booking is already open through the ESD course site (see the link on the side-bar), but I will provide more information and reminders nearer the time.

Pitch Your Idea - Business plan training & competition

The 2009 ‘Pitch Your Idea’ business plan competition and training programme is open to all PhDs and postdocs across the College.

This competition is a great chance for you to gain an insight into the business world and to see if you can turn your ideas into a winning business. Everyone is welcome to participate, regardless of discipline and all you need to have is an idea. Your idea can be anything from your research to a hobby or interest you enjoy. Finalists from last year’s competition started with ideas that ranged from developing computer software that could follow drumbeats, to setting up a martial arts club in the local community.

Whatever your idea, in the competition you will gain valuable training and advice from business professionals on how to develop a short business plan. The competition begins with three workshops (3 hours each) held in January and February 2009. Areas covered will include intellectual property, marketing and sales, routes to market, securing finances and writing business plans. Following these workshops you will have a chance to practise ‘pitching’ your idea and getting some invaluable feedback from professionals. Two advice and networking lunches are scheduled for February-March to allow you to finalise the details of your business idea, by seeking advice from experts and some of last years finalists.

After the training stage is over you will be asked to submit a short business plan, and finalists will be chosen based on these. If you are one of the finalists you will have the opportunity to ‘Pitch Your Idea’ to an expert panel of judges at the finale in April, and be in with a chance to win the top prize of £1500 towards conference travel.

Places on the competition are still available, but the deadline for applying for a place is January 14th 2009. If you would like any more information, please do not hesitate to contact me, or to book a place on the competition just send me an e-mail with your details, and a brief description of your idea. Remember, it doesn’t have to be fully formed at this stage – the training programme will help you develop it into a business plan.

Welcome to the Queen Mary PhD blog!

I've set up this blog in the hope that it will be a good way of letting people know about upcoming courses and events, and also a place where I can draw your attention to useful/interesting articles and information relevant to PhD researchers. I might even write a few things myself, if the mood takes me! I would also be very interested to include any contributions from Queen Mary PhD students, so if you find anything you think should be on here, or would like to write a post about any part of your research experience please let me know.

My intention is to update the blog at least once a week, and hopefully whenever I find new stuff to put on it. I'm new to the whole blogging thing though, so please bear with me if it's a bit patchy to start with! Any comments, feedback, advice will be gratefully received!