Researcher Development Essentials

Core skills:

• Working with your supervisors- The members of your supervisory team are the most significant individuals influencing the development of your research. This session will give you an overview of what to expect from your supervisory team, and how to make the most of your supervisors’ time, knowledge and skills

• Handling difficult conversations with your supervisors- Difficult conversations can be a common matter in the workplace as well as when you are undertaking your doctoral research. How we handle and manage these situations is crucial to building an effective working relationship with others and reaching goals.

• Publishing Open Access- This virtual session will explain what it means to publish in open access, the types of publishers, and open access licensing options. Funds available to publish open access and publishers’ agreements through which authors can publish without paying any publishing fees will be presented. 

Milestones:

• Conducting a literature review: searching, reading and note-taking- Writing a literature review is an essential starting point of good research; this session offers practical strategies for searching, efficient reading and note-taking.

• Conducting a literature review: critiquing, structuring and writing- A thorough literature review allows you to position your work within the wider academic field and articulate the need and value of your research. This session will help you understand how to engage critically with your reading, identify a structure for your literature review and explore how to go about planning and writing.

• Maintaining momentum and focus after your upgrade- This course will help you clarify the process of the final stages of your research degree and help you take the next steps. As we move from being an active researcher to a producer of a thesis, it helps to understand the examination criteria, and the process of passing; we will discuss expectations, perspectives and pressures, and how to use them to help us make decisions and choose direction

Supporting your wellbeing:

• Finding your way out of a rut using Lego Serious Play- This course will focus on getting out of a rut in your research using Lego Serious Play, providing all participants with an equal amount of time to speak and share thoughts. You will be provided with a bag of Lego and will be building and sharing models.  

You can access the following brand new online courses on our Exeter Learning Environment page:

• Planning ahead: developing yourself and your skills
• Starting your thesis: preparing for your literature review
• Working with your supervisors
• Project managing your thesis
• Maintaining Momentum, Productivity and Wellbeing
• Preparing for your viva

Please check out our Researcher Development site- a suite of online resources, made by PGRs for PGRs, to support their training and development. 

Exeter Postgraduate Researcher Podcast, the new podcast from the Researcher Development and Research Culture Team, covers the skills and knowledge needed for postgraduate researchers' professional development. 

You can listen to our episodes here:

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R, D and the In-Betweens is a podcast about researchers, development…and everything in-between! In this podcast Kelly Preece (Researcher Development Manager) speaks to researchers and Higher Education professionals about being a researcher, working in a research environment and all that may entail. So far this has included episodes on research communication, writing up, being a BAME researcher, research ethics and much more! You can listen and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, Google Podcasts and Stitcher! 

If you are listening from an computer please click the links below, which also include full transcriptions of each episode.