British Library days for new PhD students

The National Postgraduate Open Days are specially tailored days of talks, workshops and networking opportunities at the British Library, focusing on your research subject. Each day includes a general introduction to relevant research sources, curator talks and workshops, and details on how to get a Reader Pass. To ensure the days are accessible to research postgraduates from across the UK, students from outside London may apply for a limited number of £30 travel bursaries.

The days are extremely popular, so early booking is advised. The days are free to attend and lunch is provided.

Open Days are currently offered in History, English Literature and Social Sciences.

For more information and to book a place visit the website.

Making the most of the internet

ResearchGate is a social and professional network tailored to academics, scientists and researchers with over one million active members.

The site lets you engage and interact with fellow researchers, build an online presence and keep up-to-date with happenings in your field.

A recent blog post on the site describes the best ways for graduates to make use of the internet with regards to starting a career in research/academia. Hopefully you will find it useful!

Cafe Scientifique - 17th March

The next Café Scientifique event for PhD students and postdoctoral researchers from all disciplines is being held on Thursday 17th March. 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 Hannah Wright (Biological & Chemical Sciences), Keith Jones (Electronic Engineering & Computer Science) and Katie Lidster (ICMS).

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).

Cafe Scientifique - 3rd February

The next Café Scientifique event for PhD students and postdoctoral researchers from all disciplines is being held on Thursday 3rd February. 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 Mark Stevenson (Biological & Chemical Sciences), Peter Kirby-Harris (Politics) and Emily Collins (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).

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).

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).

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.

Science on-line

If you're interested in finding out about how the web is affecting the work of researchers, science communicators, journalists, students, etc, or how you can make the best use of the growing number of online tools, then you should think about heading along to the Science Online London conference on 22nd August at the Royal Institution (a great venue for a meeting - I was there yesterday - especially if you get time to look round their museum).

Registration for the conference will open soon and places are limited, so keep an eye on the website to see what's going on.

On a related topic, the conference is sponsored by Nature Network, which has some very interesting and useful forums, blogs, local and international networks etc. Definitely worth a look!

Are you working on Human Centred Technology?

The University of Sussex is proud to announce the 11th Human-Centred Technology Postgraduate Workshop, and invites postgraduate students to participate in this year’s event in Brighton, England.

HCT is generally concerned with interactions between people and technologies, particularly in everyday contexts. Themes include, but are not limited to,

* Affective Computing
* Human-Computer Interaction
* User-Centred Design
* Pervasive Computing
* Social Networking
* Virtual Worlds
* Video Games
* Music
* Tangible and Embodied Interfaces
* Computer Supported Collaborative/Cooperative Work
* E-Learning

Delegates from previous years have remarked on the excellent opportunities for networking with other postgraduate students researching in the diverse and exciting area of human-centred technology, as well as the applied workshop activities to help improve research skills in practical ways. Additionally delegates have the opportunity to present their research during short poster and demo sessions. This is an ideal opportunity to get friendly and constructive feedback on your own work from peer researchers in the field.

Details of how to apply to be part of this conference can be found here.