16 July 2025

CaRST eNewsletter

Science Communication Courses for Researchers

Do you need some help designing your scientific poster? Would you like to learn to draw scientific graphics and figures in Adobe Illustrator? Are you interested in creating your own captivating scientific video? Are you a researcher feeling like you're lost at sea when it comes to AI?

CaRST has partnered with science communication agency Animate your Science to bring you 4 incredible courses around these four themes!

• How to Design an Award-Winning Scientific Poster
• Learn to Draw in Adobe Illustrator: By Scientists for Scientists
• Lights, Camera, Impact: How to Produce Captivating Science Videos
• AI for Researchers: Unlocking New Potentials and Avoiding Pitfalls

CaRST is sponsoring licences for a limited number of researchers to enrol in these courses. These are online, self-paced courses and eligible for CaRST credit. Selected students will be enrolled into the courses from August and have 12 months of access. To register your interest, please complete and submit the online expression of interest form.

Please note students will only be selected for a single course during each round, and due to limited capacity students in their second and third year of HDR will be prioritised during the selection process.

Take Charge of Your Career Workshop - apply now!

Want to develop transferable skills and build a personal roadmap to accelerate your career? The Take Charge of Your Career Workshop will give you the tools, guidance and confidence to shape your career in academia or beyond. 

Workshop duration: 9.30am - 1.30pm on the 3rd and 4th of September 2025
Delivery method: Interactive Zoom meeting
CaRST Credits: Eligible for 8 credits in Domain B

Places are strictly limited to 25 participants. Due to overlap in content, priority will be given to students who have not previously completed the Career Control for Researchers program and who are in their third or final year of their HDR.

To express your interest, please complete and submit the online Expression of Interest form by COB 13th of August, 2025. You will be advised by 15^th August 2025 if you are successful in gaining a place in the program.

Training & Development Events

Before registering for CaRST events, please review our no-show policy.

Increase your Employability with Cultural Intelligence

When: 17 July 2025, 10:00am - 11:30am
Credits: 1.5 credits, Domain D
Delivery mode: In person

Working with people from diverse cultural backgrounds has become the norm for most of us - and whilst rewarding, it can also be challenging. As a researcher, demonstrating Cultural Intelligence (CQ) is vital, whether you're working abroad, collaborating with international colleagues, or engaging with culturally diverse research participants. Join an interactive workshop with Annette Wheatley, Cultural Intelligence Programs Coordinator (Employability, Careers and Student Academic Skills team), to explore how CQ can enhance your employability. Register here.

Good Feedback: Asking for it; getting it; and responding to it

When: 22 July 2025, 1:30pm - 3:30pm
Credits: 2 credits, Domain B
Delivery mode: Zoom webinar

Many graduate students cite getting and dealing with feedback from their supervisors as one of the most frustrating areas of candidature. You can wait for ages and when it comes it’s not what you wanted. Feedback is essential to help you make progress and improve the quality of you outputs. But if you just say “give me feedback” you are leaving it completely up to chance. So what can you do to ensure you get the feedback you need? This workshop will look at asking more specific questions and being clear about the type of feedback you want. Register here.

Entrepreneurship for HDRs

When: 23 July 2025, 10:00am - 1:00pm
Credits: 3 credits, Domain D
Delivery mode: In person

Entrepreneurship is a vital skill for HDRs. It is the bridge that helps ideas travel successfully from Academia to Industry to make the world a better place. In this session, join Tom Hendrick from Talent Academy (a multi-award winning pitch consultancy, and pitch mentor with ThincLab) to learn resourcefulness frameworks to turn an idea into a minimum viable product efficiently and how to analyse a potential market to strategise how to introduce your idea to the world. Register here.

Conducting Research Interviews

When: 24 July 2025, 1:30pm - 3:00pm
Credits: 1.5 credits, Domain A
Delivery mode: In person

Research interviews are a fantastic way to build a rich, nuanced data set that may not be available through other research methods. In this workshop you’ll be given tips and techniques to structure your interview, engage respectfully with your interviewees to get the best outcomes, and manage and analyse your data. You’ll also have a chance to practice your interview skills with your fellow students. This multidisciplinary workshop is suitable for all HDR students who are planning to use interviews as a research methodology. Register here.

The Australian Research Funding Landscape

When: 31 July 2025, 12:00pm - 1:00pm
Credits: 1 credit, Domain C
Delivery mode: Zoom webinar

This webinar provides an overview of the Australian research funding landscape, including the large competitive grant schemes, smaller grants, prizes & awards, as well as industry funded research opportunities. The webinar will also provide early career researchers with tips and tricks to find appropriate funding sources to support their research. Register here.

Working with your Supervisor (Faculty of SET)

When: 4 August 2025, 10:00am - 12:00pm
Credits: 2 credits, Domain D
Delivery mode: In person

This version of the Working with Your Supervisor workshop is intended for the Faculty of SET. Additional in-person workshops for the other Faculties will be held later this year. Follow the registration link below for more information.

The relationship you have with your supervisor is crucial in determining your PhD experience. They are your primary source of guidance as you undertake an individual research project and even the best student/supervisor relationships can experience periods of strain through the ups and downs of research. Undertaking a PhD is also very different from other types of study so it can be difficult to know what to expect from the supervisory relationship. In this workshop you will learn what you can do to establish a positive working relationship with your supervisor and ultimately get the most out of your HDR experience. Register here.

Thinking Resiliently as a Researcher

When: 6 August 2025, 10:30am - 11:30am
Credits: 1 credit, Domain B
Delivery mode: Zoom Webinar

Unhelpful thought patterns impact on psychological wellbeing and may impede research progression. This workshop explores negative thought patterns and highlights skills to think resiliently and positively, including: recognising cognitive processes and identifying imposter syndrome; practicing perspective taking, and reactions to issues and building self-confidence and motivation. Combined you will create a framework for thinking positively, confidently and resiliently throughout the research degree and beyond. Register here.

Building a Postgrad Brain: Zotero and Reference Management

When: 7 August 2025, 1:30pm - 3:30pm
Credits: 2 credits, Domain A
Delivery mode: Zoom Webinar

It can be difficult to keep track of your citations as a HDR student, whether digitally or on paper. This workshop focuses on how you can keep track of your evidence for your thesis by using the referencing management system Zotero. The workshop will provide advice on how to maximise your note taking capabilities by using the software’s PDF annotator and report generation functionality. The workshop will also cover various methods for keeping track of paper files of your citations, and how you can integrate them into Zotero. The workshop will then cover how to effectively integrate sources into your thesis by using key academic phrases.  Register here.

Other Training & Events

Unix Shell and Command Line Basics

The Unix environment is incredibly powerful but quite daunting to the newcomer. Command line confidence unlocks powerful computing resources beyond the desktop, including virtual machines and High Performance Computing. This training will help demystify Unix as you get to work running programs and writing scripts on the command line. You can record this session for 3 credits in Domain A for CaRST. 22 July 2025 9:30am-12:30pm. Register here.

Understanding Predatory Publishing

Lurking within the vast research landscape are what are known as predatory publishers – publishers (or conference organisers) who engage in unprofessional or unethical practices. They will often target researchers with direct invitations to contribute. Identifying predatory publishers is important as publishing your work with them can damage your research impact and professional reputation. This workshop will help you to understand how to assess a journal or conference to identify whether it is legitimate, or might be predatory. You can record this session for 1 credit in Domain D for CaRST. 22 July 2025 11:00am-12:00pm. Register here.

Annual Review Info Session for Students

With the Annual Review Form now open the AGRS invites you to join an information session on how to complete your Annual Review. Following the information portion of the session, there will be an opportunity for you to ask questions about the process and how to complete the form. 29 July 2025 12:00am-1:00pm. Register here.
Please note that information sessions are not eligible for CaRST credit.

Excel for Researchers

Learn to use one of the most widespread data wrangling tools, Microsoft Excel, to import, sort, filter, protect, transform, summarise, merge, and visualise research data. While aimed at novice Excel users, most attendees will walk away with new tricks to work more efficiently with their research data. You can record this session for 6 credits in Domain A for CaRST. 29-30 July 2025 9:30am-12:30pm. Register here.

Introduction to LabArchives Electronic Research Notebook

LabArchives is an electronic research notebook that can be useful when needing to store, organise and collaborate around digital material and research data. LabArchives has Android and iOS apps that allow you to upload data and access your notebooks on the go and in the field. This webinar is for new users getting started, or current users seeking a refresher on how to create notebooks, add and manage data, sharing and access controls, collaboration tools, and export options. You can record this session for 1 credit in Domain C for CaRST. 31 July 2025 11:00am-12:00pm. Register here.

Getting started with HPC using Slurm

High-performance computing allows you to accomplish your analysis faster by using many parallel CPUs and huge amounts of memory simultaneously. This online training provides a hands-on introduction to running software on HPC infrastructure using Slurm. Note: This course assumes basic familiarity with the Bash command line environment found on GNU/Linux and other Unix-like environments. To come up to speed, consider taking the Unix Shell and Command Line Basics course. You can record this session for 6 credits in Domain A for CaRST. 7-8 August 2025 9:30am-12:30pm. Register here.

Open Access publishing

This webinar will cover the updated University Open Access Policy, the different types of Open Access (OA) publishing currently available and what options are available for publishing your own work Open Access, OA licensing and copyright, and things to look out for in Open Access publishing agreements. You can record this session for 1 credit in Domain D for CaRST. 7 August 2025 11:00am-12:00pm. Register here.

Publishing open access via Read and Publish

University of Adelaide researchers now have access to 19 Read & Publish agreements. The agreements provide researchers with the opportunity to publish their research open access without needing to pay individual article processing charges. This session will cover: benefits of publishing via Read & Publish; what publishers are included; steps involved in publishing; an opportunity to ask questions. Further information on each of the agreements is available on the Library’s Read & Publish webpage. You can record this session for 0.5 credits in Domain D for CaRST. 12 August 2025 11:00am-11:30am. Register here.

Beyond Basics: Conditionals and Visualisation in Excel

This hands-on workshop will cover some advanced features of Excel, such as how to apply some conditional analysis to glean greater insights from your data. It will also cover how to enhance your charts for inclusion into a manuscript, thesis or report by adding some statistical elements. You can record this session for 3 credits in Domain A for CaRST. 13 August 2025 9:30am-12:30pm. Register here.

Florey Postgraduate Research conference

The Florey Postgraduate Research Conference is a major highlight in the Faculty's calendar. This is a great opportunity for you as a student to network with your peers, researchers and academics from across the university. This year, the conference will feature an additional Postgraduate Careers Expo component aimed at providing advice, guidance, opportunity and support for all current students.

Date: Wednesday 20 August
Time: 9.00am - 4:40pm
Venue: Adelaide Convention Centre

Participating in this event provides opportunities to win prizes, showcase your research, build your academic profile, take part in the interactive professional development session, network with colleagues and identify potential collaborative opportunities, gain invaluable advice from potential employers about career options and direction and gain Career and Research Skills Training (CaRST) accreditation.

Keen to see what to expect? Here’s a little taste of last year’s conference.

For more information and to submit an abstract, please visit the Florey Conference website.

The 2025 online Annual Review of Progress is now live!

The 2025 Annual Review is due by no later than 30 September 2025. We ask that you check your candidature record in MyAdelaide to see whether you are required to complete this milestone.

To inspire timely completion of the Annual Review, the Adelaide Graduate Research School (AGRS) is offering prizes from Just Bliss Chocolates: https://www.justbliss.com.au/ for the 1st, 50th, 100th, 200th, 300th, 400th and 500th annual reviews completed and submitted to the AGRS. An additional 3 students, randomly selected from amongst those completing their reviews prior to 30 September 2025, will also receive prizes.

Comprehensive information about the Annual Review can be found on the Adelaide Graduate Research School website, including our frequently asked questions. 

About CaRST

Located within the Adelaide Graduate Research School, CaRST is a specialised training and development program for HDR students at The University of Adelaide. For further information on CaRST visit the CaRST website.