Opportunities to carry out research in Japan

Every year the Canon Foundation grants up to 15 fellowships to European and Japanese researchers. European fellowship holders pursue a period of research in Japan (between 3 and 12 months). These fellowships are open to researchers of any discipline who have gained a PhD or a Master's degree within the last ten years.

More details and application forms are available here, and the closing date is 15th September 2009.

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!

Leadership in action - free course!

Vitae are running a 3-day leadership skills course at the end of July in the Lake District. Places are free for PhD students from anywhere in the country, and will be allocated on a first-come-first-served basis. Click on the link for more information and booking details.

This sounds like an excellent course for anyone wishing to develop their leadership skills and style, gain confidence and identify how leadership skills can benefit them now and in the future. It is also a great opportunity to meet other researchers and spend a few days in a beautiful part of the country!

Social Science Work Experience Programme

If you're a PhD student from any social science discipline, and are looking to get some work experience, you might want to look at the Social Science Work Experience Programme. Vacancies for summer placements are being advertised now, and you can find more information here.

"Real Life of a PhD Student" Blog

Haris Aziz is a mathematics PhD student at the University of Warwick. In his blog he writes about his experiences as a researcher, including posts on careers, conferences, teaching, writing and many other topics relevant to life as a PhD student. Definitely worth a look to pick up advice, tips and a sense of "I'm not the only one who feels like that"!

Pitch Your Idea 2009 - Photos at last!

The Pitch Your Idea business plan competition final was over a month ago now, on April 8th, but I've finally got photos from it to post here, to give everyone an idea of what the event was like.

Nine finalists pitched their business plans to a panel of six judges whose expertise covered finance, IP, biotechnology and entrepreneurship. Following their pitch, each finalist was grilled for about 15 minutes by the panel - an experience that was described as being nerve-wracking, but much more positive than Dragon's Den! After a long deliberation (that felt even longer to those of us waiting outside) the judges finally settled on a winner - Becky Stewart from Electronic Engineering for her "AudioBlitz" idea. Melissa George from the Physics department and Martin Morrell, also from Electronic Engineering, were awarded runner-up prizes.

Everybody really enjoyed the day, and the feedback from both the judges and the finalists was very positive. The judges were extremely impressed with standards of the ideas and pitches, and the finalists all said how much they appreciated not only the judges questions and advice, but also the confidence and communication skills they had developed through the competition.

Pitch your Idea will be running again next year, probably starting in January 2010, so watch this space if you are interested! A web area will be set up to publicise next year's event, and photos, videos and interviews from this year will be available on that site.

Graduate School Survival Guide

Here is a useful list of suggestions of how to get the most out of your PhD. It doesn't look very pretty, but if you read it you'll find a lot of very useful tips on managing the relationship with your supervisor, getting the most out of what you read, making continual progress and more. Much of it is (or should be!) common sense, but that certainly doesn't mean it's not worth reminding yourself of this advice every so often!

A few examples:

Prepare for your meetings (with your supervisor)- come to each meeting with:

* List of topics to discuss
* Plan for what you hope to get out of the meeting
* Summary of what you have done since your last meeting
* List of any upcoming deadlines
* Notes from your previous meeting

Continually update your:

* Problem statement
* Goals
* Approach (or a list of possible approaches)
* One-minute version of your research (aka the elevator ride summary)
* Five-minute version of your research

Confront your fears and weaknesses

* If you are afraid of public speaking, volunteer to give lots of talks.
* If you are afraid your ideas are stupid, discuss them with someone.
* If you are afraid of writing, write something about your research every day.