Calling final year PhD students and PhD Supervisors
If you are a postgraduate student writing up your PhD, or an academic responsible for PhD supervision, ALD has a range of courses and events coming up in the next weeks that will be of interest to you.
Read below for further information about the new "PhD Thesis Bootcamp" we will be offering this summer with the Royal Literary Fund, and see details of the two "Doctoral Supervisor Workshops" for academics that will take place in May and will be led by Dr Steve Hutchinson.
To secure your place on these and other ALD courses, visit ALD’s PDMS online booking. Further details on these and other academic development opportunities can be found here in our regular monthly newsletter and on the ALD website.
ALD: Supporting Researcher
Development and Academic Leadership
A series of Research Futures workshops on Research Writing will be running throughout May.
For many researchers, starting to draft your text is one of the most challenging aspects of writing a PhD. How do you know whether you are ready to write? How do you overcome that sense of paralysis or overwhelm that often accompanies the early stages of the writing process? This set of three workshops is for research students who are in the initial stages of writing up their research. This may be for a first year report or for some other purpose. Students are recommended to take part in all three courses.
A series of workshops on Publishing Your Research will run in May and June. This set of three interlinked workshops provide comprehensive advice and knowledge on how to successfully publish your research findings.
Keeping on Top of your PhD: Personal Time Management Strategies will run again in July. This is a repeat of the very popular session outlining why good time management habits are a vital foundation on which to build personal success in delivering good work on time, both individually and within a team. Most time management advice provides a list of standard techniques that do not take into account the particular time management problems faced by different individuals, or the time management challenges created by working with others and responding to competing demands.
More workshops are being added all the time, keep checking back on PDMS, as well as our External Opportunities webpage, for opportunities across our networks.
Research Futures:
Research Staff Programme
The Publishing Your Research set of workshops will run in May and June. These workshops are designed for researchers who are considering publishing their research and have some familiarity with the process and terminology. Session topics are 'Research Strategy', 'Preparing your Document' and 'Citiation and Impact'.
More supervisor development sessions will run in May and other workshops are being added to our research staff programme so keep checking back onPDMS for new opportunities. Please also check out ourExternal Opportunitiespage. We tap into wide and varied networks to keep you updated with events, training and funding you can access for development outside Heriot-Watt.
Academic CPD - Supervisor Development Opportunities
ALD is offering the following courses for academic staff relating to Postgraduate Research Supervision:
17 May 2018 (09:15 – 12:15) Supervising Doctoral Students (for new supervisors) – facilitated by Dr Steve Hutchinson.
30 May 2018 (12:00 – 14:00) Supervise – supporting your supervisory practice (for new and experienced supervisors) – facilitators and speakers – Dr Steve Hutchinson, Prof Garry Pender and Prof Scott Arthur.
Further details on each of these sessions below: There are still places available and if you would like to book a place on any of these courses, you can do so via our online booking system, PDMS
Supervising Doctoral Students
17 May 2018 - 09:15 - 12:15
A doctorate is a journey towards academic independence. Doctoral students start and finish at different points, gaining different skills along the way; doctoral supervisors place different emphases on different points of the journey and have different interpretations of what supervision means. This workshop does not take a rules-and-regulations approach to supervision or attempt to instruct supervisors in one particular way of managing the complex supervisory relationship. Participants will consider the doctoral journey and the challenges that students face along the way and explore what support they might offer at which points. The workshop will introduce a number of ideas, case studies and conceptual frameworks to help participants’ thinking and practice in this area.
By the end of this session participants will have:
• Considered the roles and responsibilities that project supervisors may have.
• Explored reasonable expectations of the students.
• Considered some likely problems that they may encounter and formulated some possible solutions.
• Developed and enhanced useful supervisory skills.
PhD Thesis Bootcamp: Tuesday 31 July – Thursday 2 August 2018
A three-day intensive programme for PhD students currently writing their PhD thesis. The goal of this immersive writing programme is for participants to improve or finesse their academic writing. You will learn how to closely edit and craft your academic prose and will take away an edited piece of your own work. By the end of the course, participants should understand the benefits of applying the principles of narrative to structuring a thesis and an abstract. They will develop techniques for editing with special attention to line-by-line crafting.
The programme will involve both one-to-one writing consultations with the course facilitators and a ‘free-writing session’. The latter will enable you to develop techniques for getting words on the page and using creative practice to develop your ideas.
NB: The Bootcamp is designed to be relevant across all academic disciplines (i.e. it is not discipline-specific). It is not specifically for non-native English speakers, but rather all PhD students wishing to develop their writing skills.
Pre-work – workshop participants are required to provide a writing sample from their thesis, or literature review, or from a recent paper/article/report (500 to 1000 words max).
These should be submitted by 25 June 2018, plus a sentence or two in response to the following two questions:
1) What do you feel are your major writing problems?
2) What do you hope to take away from this workshop?
Also, and this is optional, participants might also supply a sample, 1 or 2 pages, of writing by someone whose work they admire.
Workshop content
Day 1: Narrative and writerly craft 10:00 – 17:00
Finding the story in your thesis – the role of narrative in shaping your thesis. The craft of editing and how this can make flat writing into excellent writing (including paragraph structure; linking/signposts; sentence work; rhythm, finessing language.)
Day 2: Crafting and editing your writing 10:00 – 17:00
Techniques for editing participants’ own work. The focus will be on applying editorial skills to a work in progress, and in providing effective editorial feedback to others. Techniques for paraphrasing and summarising – these will be applied to the task of producing compelling abstracts (for conference proposals or journal abstracts).
Day 3: One-to one consultations and free writing sessions 10:00 – 17:00
Getting words on the page. There will be a session on free-writing with prompts and techniques to help those grappling with the blank page, with struggling to get started, or having difficulty with a particular area of their work. One-to-one consultations will be conducted all day and participants will be encouraged to work with each other to build effective editorial partnerships.
Course Participants
The course is limited to 16 places for PhD students in the last 18 months of their degree.
The course is open to all academic disciplines at Heriot-Watt University.
Cherise Saywell is a novelist and short-story writer with a background in academic research. She was the Royal Literary Fund (RLF) Fellow at Stirling University from 2014 to 2016 where she gave one-to-one consultations on academic writing to undergraduates and postgraduates. She is now an RLF Consultant Fellow and has facilitated writing interventions at Dundee University, Stirling University and the University of Glasgow. Cherise uses practical and accessible techniques to teach the craft of effective writing, with a particular emphasis on editing skills.
Doug Johnstone is the author of eight novels and a dozen short stories. He was the Royal Literary Fund Fellow at Queen Margaret University 2014-16, where he has also worked as a Consultant Fellow, running workshops for PhD students and staff on Writing with Clarity and Writing Strategies for Development. He has a PhD in Nuclear Physics and a Diploma in Journalism, and he continues to work as an arts journalist and creative writing tutor.
Consultation on 2018 HR Excellence in Research Submission
ALD is leading on Heriot-Watt's 2018 submission for the HR Excellence in Research Award. The University has held the European Commission’s HR Excellence in Research Award since 2010. Holding the Awards indicates that the University follows the seven Principles of the ‘Concordat to Support the Career Development of Researchers’, which among others ensures: open, transparent, merit-based recruitment of researchers; support of researchers and their career development; recognises retention of high potential researchers; and enables researchers to be adaptable and mobile in the global research environment.
As part of the process for developing our action plan for the next two years, ALD is organising a consultation event to gather views from key stakeholders. The event will take place in May, with further details being made available on our website over the next few weeks.
We’re pleased to announce that registration is now open for the 4th Scottish Biomedical Postdoctoral Researcher Conference (SBPRC 2018) which will be held at Appleton Tower in Edinburgh on Friday 1 June, 2018. Our website can now be found atSBPRC2018 eventbrite
We can also announce that the scientific keynote address will be given by Prof. John Hayes, from Dundee Medical School who will be telling us about his ongoing research into the transcription factor Nrf2 and its potential as a therapeutic target. Further careers speakers will be announced via our website in the upcoming weeks.
This free one-day conference is designed to highlight the scientific achievements of early career researchers in all areas of biomedical sciences at Scottish universities and institutes. To this end, all research presentations aside from the Scientific Keynote Address will be given by early career researchers. The conference also aims to facilitate networking and new collaborations among early career researchers as well as help them plan their career paths.
We hope that you will appreciate this chance to share your own research, there will be many spaces for poster presentations and selected abstracts will also be invited to present their research as a 15 minute talk. The deadline for those of you wishing to submit an abstract is 1 May 2018.
Hope to see you there!
Applications are now open for a brand new cutting-edge entrepreneurial support scheme. The £4m Unlocking Ambition Challenge is delivered by key stakeholders from Scotland’s entrepreneurial ecosystem as part of the Scotland CAN DO initiative, backed by the First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon. The Royal Society of Edinburgh (RSE) will lead the academic stream of the inaugural programme, with support from Scottish Enterprise, based on the highly successful Enterprise Fellowship Programme that the RSE has been running for 20 years. Together they will invest in 20 early-stage high-potential entrepreneurs with innovative projects, with the aim of forming start-up businesses in Scotland in the new RSE Unlocking Ambition Enterprise Fellowship Programme.
Up to 20 successful applicants will receive an RSE Unlocking Ambition Enterprise Fellowship operating over a period of a year with a host of bespoke benefits, including total grant funding of up to £900,000 (up to £45,000 grant per Fellow - £25,000 maintenance grant and up to £20,000 business development fund); a total of over £150,000 for a comprehensive and cutting-edge training programme personally tailored to develop business skills delivered to the highest of international standards; a dedicated mentor for each Fellow, and access to professional, financial and entrepreneurial networks.
This is an invitation to entrepreneurs, academics and researchers from Scotland, the UK and from right across the world to submit ideas which have the potential to be transformative. You don’t have to be in Scotland or be Scottish – you can be anywhere in the world to apply. You are also not required to have an existing connection to the RSE. The only condition is that you agree to relocate or establish your business here in Scotland.
The RSE Unlocking Ambition Enterprise Fellowship Programme presents the ideal start-up opportunity by supporting promising ideas with the necessary skillsets to build them into successful companies. If this is you, then please apply by the deadline of 17:00 on Wednesday 2 May, 2018. Visit the RSE website for more information and to apply. If you have a question please contactunlockingambition@therse.org.uk
The research event
This is the Association’s annual event to support and provide active networking opportunities for UK MPhil and PhD students engaged in fashion and/or textiles and fashion and textile related research. You are eligible to attend from enrolment to one year on following completion.
The next event will be held on Wednesday 9 May 2018 at De Montfort University, Leicester.
Each participant will be allocated 10 minutes for a presentation to introduce your research and facilitate discussion.
It’s a great opportunity to network and develop research synergies.
This is a free event contributing to the FTC Association’s support for emerging researchers.A light lunch and refreshments will be provided.The Association will reimburse travel expenses up to £50 for students enrolled at universities that are members of the Association. Please keep your receipts.A claim form to submit to the Association will be available on the day.
If you would like to participate please complete this form, rename to include your name in the attachment e.g. B.Brilliant Event Application and email to marlene.little@bcu.ac.uk, to book your place at this free event. Please use Arial 10 point.
18 places are available - there will be a waiting list if the Event is oversubscribed.
The programme and abstracts, map and further details will be emailed to participants on Wednesday 2 May 2018 to facilitate networking contacts.
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I give permission for the following information to be uploaded to the FTC website.
Name
Title of Research
University
Key words (4)
Abstract (150 - 200 words)
Methodology (60 - 70 words)
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Scottish Crucible is 10 years old in 2018!
Throughout the year, we will be highlighting impacts taking part in the Scottish Crucible programme has had on the research and careers of our Alumni Network.
Visit the Scottish Crucible website to read individual reflections submitted by a different set of Alumni each month
ALD contact details If you’d like to contact us, please email or telephone as shown below or pop into our Admin Office - LBB G.02. We look forward to hearing from you!
