Cafe Scientifique - Next week!

The next Café Scientifique event for PhD students and postdoctoral researchers from all disciplines is being held on Thursday 9th December. It will be a chance for researchers to get together and meet each other in a relaxed setting. This is an informal and fun evening event involving free wine & pizza, three short presentations from researchers and some other activities such as a quiz and/or creative challenges!
The speakers at this event are Carol Rivas, from the Institute of Health Sciences Education, Allan Pang from the School of Biological & Chemical Sciences, and Kathryn Cassidy from the School of Geography.
The evening will start at 6pm at Mucci, Library Square on the Mile End campus. For further information and to book a place please contact Dr Jo Cordy (j.m.cordy@qmul.ac.uk).

National GRADschools 2011

The dates for the Vitae National GRADschools 2011 have just been announced. They are:

GRADschool 1: Windermere, 1 - 4 March

GRADschool 2: Bournemouth, 14 - 17 June

GRADschool 3: Windermere, 11 - 14 October

More information on GRADschools can be found here, but basically they are residential courses for PhD students, that aim to do the following:

'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.'

The courses are aimed at PhD students in their second year or above. If you are research council funded you will be eligible for a funded place on a GRADschool subject to availability. If you are a non-research council funded researcher you may apply for a national GRADschool but you or your department/school will need to cover the cost of your place and you will need to provide invoice details.

More details about the 2011 courses, and how to book, can be found here.

Having been on one of these courses myself during my PhD, I can't recommend them highly enough and I would strongly urge anyone to attend one. If you are interested, you should book as soon as possible, as the places are open to any PhD students in the country and they will get taken fast!

The Digital Researcher

On 14th Feb 2011, The British Library and Vitae are running a free one-day course for postgraduate research students and research staff to help them make the most of new technologies in their research.

On the day participants will have the opportunity to gain an understanding of:

* the role that online networks can play in supporting research and researchers' careers
* how to manage your online profile (positively)
* how to build networks to support your research and career
* the range of different tools that are available to support you and your research

The event will be held at the British Library, and more information, including how to book, is available here.

Leadership in action - free non-residential course!

The Vitae London hub are running a 3-day Leadership in Action course at the London School of Economics from 15th-17th December for research students and staff. This is a non-residential course, and is completely free to attend.

The course will allow you to explore and develop your leadership skills. You will have the opportunity to look at relevant theory, practice your leadership style and receive feedback.

This course offers you the opportunity to:

- explore leadership both in theory and in practice
- work with a team of experienced facilitators from a range of career backgrounds, who will ensure you get the most out of the 3 days
- meet researchers from a variety of disciplines, backgrounds and career stages
- develop your understanding of leadership theory and how to apply it in practice
- receive feedback on your leadership style and how you can develop it
- take a few days out from your research both physically and mentally, and have some space in which to consider yourself and your next steps.

If you are interested, there is more information here, and you can book a place by e-mailing londonhub@vitae.ac.uk. There are only 36 places, and they are being filled on a first-come-first-served basis, so make sure you get in quick if you do want to go!

Cafe Scientifique - 4th November

Café Scientifique evening for PhD and post-doctoral researchers in all disciplines!

The second Café Scientifique event for PhD students and postdoctoral researchers from all disciplines is being held on Thursday 4^th November. It will be a chance for researchers to get together and meet each other in a relaxed setting. This is an informal and fun evening event involving free wine & pizza, three short presentations from researchers and some other activities such as a quiz and/or creative challenges! The presentations at this event will be from Manuela Graf (ICMS), Giammarco Campanella (School of Mathematical Sciences) and Zimei Rong (School of Engineering & Materials Science). The evening will start at 6pm at Mucci, Library Square on the Mile End campus. For further information and to book a place please contact Dr Tracy Bussoli (t.j.bussoli@qmul.ac.uk).

Courses at the School of Advanced Study

The School of Advanced Study (SAS), which is part of the University of London and based in Senate House, runs a programme of research skills training workshops which are open to researchers from other institutions working in the humanities & social sciences. These workshops cover a variety of research skills and methodologies. A pdf of the handbook detailing the workshops can be found here.

There are also some discipline-specific workhops in English, Modern Languages, History, Law and Music, many of which are open to students from outside SAS. The details of these are also in the handbook above.

A new academic year!

For any new research students reading this - Welcome to Queen Mary! And for everyone else, I hope you had a great summer whether you stayed here or headed off to more exotic locations!

The programme of Learning Institute workshops for the 2010-11 year is about to start. You should receive a wallplanner listing all the courses soon, and they can also be seen on the google calendar in the sidebar of this blog. This year we have made a bit of a change to the course booking system, to try and ensure that there are spaces on the workshops for people who want to attend. Booking is now open for courses up until Christmas, but for courses in Jan, Feb & March booking won't open until 13th December, and for courses from April - June booking won't open until 1st March 2011. On the booking site there will be a reminder of this, and an invitation to contact me if you have a very good reason for needing to book a course more than a few months in advance.

Throughout the year there will also be various events and competitions you might want to get involved with, both inside QM and outside. I will post information about those on this blog, and also on the Learning Institute PhD pages.

Please get in touch if you have any thoughts, comments, concerns or suggestions about anything to do with your experience at QM!

The Learning Institute

On 1st September 2010, Educational and Staff Development became known as The Learning Institute. This reflects the fact that we not only work with staff across the college, but also with postgraduate and undergraduate students too.

The new Learning Institute (LI) website describes all the services we offer, and also includes pages aimed at PhD students, with information about training opportunities, events, personal development planning and more.

In the near future we will be setting up an area of the site (the Learning Network) especially for research students, which will contain blogs and discussion forums on any topics you would like to talk about. This blog will be moving over to that site soon.

If you have some time, please take a look at the PhD pages on the LI site and let me know whether you think anything needs adding or changing (my contact details can be found on the LI site). I would like the pages to be a useful resource for research students, so any input would be gratefully received!

When the Learning Network is up and running, I will also be inviting research students to contribute to the blog, on any topics they feel are relevant, so if you have any ideas please let me know.

Improve your teaching skills and earn £18 an hour at Queen Mary!

The Queen Mary Careers Team is looking to recruit a PhD student to help manage the seasonal demand (Autumn Term in the first instance) for CV feedback from undergraduate students at Queen Mary.

This is a great opportunity to develop your teaching and facilitation skills, earn some cash, and improve your CV writing skills at the same time!

If you are interested, see the QM Careers blog for further information.

Cafe Scientifique - Next week!

Next Wednesday (16th June) the first Cafe Scientifique event for PhD students and postdocs at QM is happening! This will hopefully be the first of a series of these events, designed to create a relaxed, informal atmosphere where researchers can enjoy free food and wine, chat to each other, hear talks from other researchers and take part in some fun activities such as pub-style quizzes.

These events are for researchers from all disciplines, and next week we will have ten minute talks from Helene Muller (Biological & Chemical Sciences), Tom Sebrell (History) and John Broad (Institute of Cell & Molecular Science). I am always on the lookout for volunteers to talk at future events too, so if you would like to talk about your research, or a related topic, in ten minutes to a very friendly, non-specialist audience, please get in touch!

The evening will start at 6pm at Bar Med, Library Square on the Mile End campus. Please come along - it should be a lot of fun!

To book a place (so we have an idea of numbers for catering) please e-mail Kevin Byron (k.c.byron@qmul.ac.uk).

Biotechnology YES - 2010

Biotechnology YES is an innovative programme and competition aimed at raising awareness of commercialisation of bioscience research. It is co-organised by the Biotechnology & Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) and the University of Nottingham Institute for Enterprise & Innovation (UNIEI). YES entrants form imaginary companies and bid for funding to commercialise their hypothetical ideas. Through 3-day workshops taking place across the UK this autumn, participants receive training from entrepreneurs, patent lawyers and industry representatives in the business skills necessary to recognise, protect and harness the commercial potential of scientific research outputs.

The culmination of the competition is the preparation and presentation, by each team, of a hypothetical business plan for a new start-up company. The competition is therefore fully in line with the government’s objective of encouraging economic impact and the competition is endorsed by a number of bio-based industries through their sponsorship. In addition, the winning team of the national Biotechnology YES competition will receive a prize of £1000.

Since its launch fifteen years ago, Biotechnology YES has provided entrepreneurial business training for around 3000 researchers from across the UK. A recent independent review of the scheme has highlighted that many former participants found YES to be very influential in developing their careers, with several starting their own companies and many more becoming business professionals within the bioscience sector.

More information can be found at the website. The closing date for entries is June 18th.

This is a really great opportunity for anyone working in the biosciences who is interested in finding out about commercialisation of biotechnology. While I was a PhD students at Leeds I took part in the 2002 (or 2003 maybe) competition. My team attended a local workshop in Edinburgh, where we spent a hectic but amazing few days attending presentations from business and biotech experts, and staying up until all hours putting together our business plan and presentation. We didn't make it through to the final unfortunately, but I learned so much from those few days, both about commercialisation of biotechnology research and about myself and what I am capable of. All in all it was an amazing experience, and one of the most memorable parts of my PhD.

"The Engaging Researcher"

Are you interested in engaging the public in your research but not sure where to start?

Have you done some public engagement activity but would like to improve your knowledge and skills?

Do you have significant experience of achieving mutually beneficial public engagement activity but want to improve your practice?

This one-day event in Manchester on 6th July is aimed at researchers with any level of experience of public engagement. The day will include presentations from key-note speakers and the chance to attend several short workshops based around different areas of public engagement. You will also have an opportunity to start to develop a public engagement project together with exhibitors who will be present on the day, and apply for funding of £1000 to get the activity off the ground.

This event is run by Vitae, and is free to attend. More details and booking information can be found here.

Leadership in Action - Residential Course

From 8-11th June Vitae are running a residential Leadership course for PhD students in Bournemouth. This event was also run last year and was very successful, so if you're interested in attending book soon! Places are free, you just need to pay for your own transport.

More details can be found here. It sounds like a fantastic opportunity (and also a chance to spend a few days by the sea!).

New issue of GradBritain

The Spring issue of GradBritain is now available to download. This quarterly magazine is published by Vitae and is written for and by PhD students. The latest issue has articles on funding your PhD, the link between research students and the NUS, overcoming "second-year blues" and much more. It also contains details of how to contribute to forthcoming issues of the magazine.

Upcoming external events

Digital researcher: Managing your networks and building your profile

The British Library and Vitae are running a one day event on 15 March 2010 exploring the use of Web 2.0 in research, networks and building researchers own profiles. This is being held at the British Library and is free for all postgraduate researchers and research staff. It will include presentations and interactive sessions on subjects such as microblogging, RSS feeds, social networking and social citation sharing.
More information and booking can be found on the Vitae site.

Careers in focus: Careers in academia

This one-day event is being held in Manchester on the 30th March. It is free for all postgraduate researchers, but a refundable deposit of £25 is required to secure a place.

The day will provide participants with an insight into some of the areas that make up a career in academia.

Participants have the opportunity to:

• meet with current academics from a range of disciplines to hear about their experiences of an academic career and ask the questions you've always wanted to, but weren't sure who to ask
• explore how to market yourself for a career in academia, both within your department, and at interview
• look at how to write effective grant/paper applications
• discover what life is like as a postdoctoral researcher
• work with fellow researchers and share experiences with other participants

More details and booking on the Vitae site.

Managing your Research Career - useful videos

On the University Affairs website (a Canadian site) there is a set of videos in which Jo Van Every, a PhD in sociology from the University of Essex and former program officer with the Standard Research Grants program at SSHRC, gives tips on prioritizing research tasks, planning a long-term program of research, developing a publication strategy, building a support network for research, and carving out time to do research in a busy, multi-focused position.

Junk the Jargon - The Final!

The final of the Junk the Jargon competition was last Wednesday, 27th Jan (apologies for the delay in posting this!), and I was really pleased with how well the whole event went. The ten finalists, who had three minutes each to entertain the audience by talking about their research, all did an amazing job, and on top of that we had a packed and appreciative audience, a panel of very experienced expert judges and generally a great atmosphere.



The winner was Claire Sarell from the School of Biological & Chemical Sciences, who entertained the audience with her talk "What causes Alzheimer's disease?". Runners-up were Katie Lidster, who used cuddly mouse models to illustrate her presentation on "How do mice with green eyes contribute to MS research?", and Rebecca Burgell who also used very inventive props in her delightfully titled talk "CODE BROWN/CODE RED!!! Causes of constipation".

More information about the event can be found on the QM news site, and a video of the event can be seen here.

Events coming up at the British Library

I have posted before about the Postgraduate Training Days that the British Library run, but I just wanted to draw your attention to two that are coming up at the beginning of February.

1st Feb: English (19th Century - Present Day)

9th Feb: History (Medieval - 18th Century)

If your research is in either of these areas you can attend these days for free. The aims of them are:


* To introduce you to the range of research materials available in the British Library
*To offer special curator sessions and workshops in a range of topics
*To show you how to access the catalogues, and carry out bibliographic research on your topic
*To introduce you to specialist curators at the Library
*To give you an opportunity to network with postgraduate students from other universities across the UK
*The day will contribute to national subject-specific and generic research skills training

More details and booking can be found here.

Help teachers bring real science into schools!

This is a new project designed to help secondary science teachers bring contemporary science and real scientific data into their classes through collaboration with researchers. The project gives researchers the opportunity to communicate their science to a public audience and could lead to longer-term associations between the researchers' institution and schools.

Each researcher would work with one or two individual teachers and interact with them via a website. The aim would be to work with the teachers to develop a classroom resource using the researcher's data.

Anticipated time commitments would be 1 hour/week for 12 weeks.

Participating researchers would be required to provide:

A short written account of their research
A sample data set that could be used by students
A short video biography explaining their career path (if possible)
Science Learning Centres are initially looking for researchers to become involved in the pilot programme in spring 2010. Researchers who would like to know more or who are interested in taking part should email the external contact at freshscience@slcs.ac.uk.

REMINDER - Junk the Jargon - Win £500 for 3 minutes' work!