8 October 2025

CaRST eNewsletter

A BIG congratulations to Ané Kritzinger!

After winning the University of Adelaide 3MT competition, PhD candidate Ané Kritzinger advanced to the Asia-Pacific competition to compete against 55 presenters from the Asia-Pacific region in the semi-final showcase. Ané has now advanced to the Asia-Pacific 3MT Final, making it into the top 8! Well done Ané.

Show your support and register to attend the Final on 15 October!

CaRST Employability Series

Are you looking at preparing your next steps beyond your HDR? Wondering where your research degree can take you? Need practical advice about applying for jobs? CaRST is presenting a range of career focused workshops and panels to make your HDR work!

Head to CaRST Online and select 'Do' → 'Find Upcoming Activities' for more information and to book your spot!

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 June 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.

Training & Development Events

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

Understanding Skills

When: 9 October 2025, 11:00am - 12:00pm
Credits: 1 credit, Domain B
Delivery mode: Zoom Webinar

Are you aware of the skills you are developing throughout your research degree and how they relate to employability in both academic and non-academic environments? Do you know how to articulate your skills and how they will be a benefit to employers? This webinar focusses on building skills awareness and how to let employers know about your skill set. Register here.

Responding to selection criteria

When: 14 October 2025, 11:00am - 12:00pm
Credits: 1 credit, Domain B
Delivery mode: Zoom Webinar

Does the idea of responding to selection criteria daunt you? Are you aware of what to look for in selection criteria so that you can highlight your skills and abilities? This webinar provides an overview of how to develop effective responses to selection criteria, including understanding selection criteria and different response methods, recognising key requirements, writing a focused response. Register here.

Juggling Skills for Researchers

When: 15 October 2025, 10:00am - 11:00am
Credits: 1 credit, Domain B
Delivery mode: Zoom Webinar

Rarely does anyone do one activity in isolation and your research degree is no exception. Your research program comprises a number of activities that may compete for your attention while you are also juggling other commitments, such as family or work. This webinar focusses on enabling you to develop strategies to help you manage the multiple demands of your research degree and life in general. Register here.

Question Time: Handling questions at a conference presentation

When: 16 October 2025, 12:00pm - 1:30pm
Credits: 1.5 credit, Domain D
Delivery mode: Zoom Webinar

No matter how well you prepare for your presentation, the part that freaks out most researchers is question time. What if there are no questions? What do I do if I don’t know the answer? Fortunately, you can prepare for question time. You can predict and get ready for most of the obvious questions. And you can learn strategies to deal with the others. Register here.

Stress survival kit

When: 21 October 2025, 1:30pm - 2:30pm
Credits: 1 credit, Domain B
Delivery mode: Zoom Webinar

Do you find that stress derails your research progression? This webinar explores what stress is, the unique stressors researchers face, and how it can be managed effectively. With a focus on developing daily stress protection strategies, it will provide practical approaches to maintaining psychological wellbeing, and navigating particularly challenging times. Register here.

Pitch Perfection

When: 22 October 2025, 11:00am - 12:00pm
Credits: 1 credit, Domain D
Delivery mode: Zoom Webinar

A pitch is about engaging, enticing and moving people to action. Learn the 3 important elements you must communicate in every pitch and how to think on your feet. Register here.

Congratulations on your grant… now what?

When: 23 October 2025, 1:00pm - 2:30pm
Credits: 1.5 credits, Domain C
Delivery mode: Zoom Webinar

This webinar focuses on the post-award grant management process, and will help researchers to understand their responsibilities and the timelines involved after successfully being awarded a grant. Register here.

An editor’s toolkit: Grammar for cohesive, clear, and concise writing

When: 28 October 2025, 1:30pm - 3:30pm
Credits: 2 credits, Domain D
Delivery mode: Zoom Webinar

Academic writing is a problem-solving activity. You have ideas to convey and constraints on the way you convey them – those constraints being cohesion, clarity, and conciseness. But the academic writing problem can be solved when you understand the grammatical devices at your disposal and how to use them. This workshop presents an editor’s toolkit for communicating ideas successfully from writer to reader. It will be particularly useful for editing your academic writing. Bring a Word file with a ~5,000-word piece of your writing and a short section of your most troublesome sentences. Register here.

Planning your next career steps

When: 29 October 2025, 10:00am - 12:00pm
Credits: 2 credits, Domain B
Delivery mode: Zoom Webinar

How do you plan and prepare for your next career steps after finishing your PhD? And how do you decide which career path is right for you - academia, government, industry or some other pathway? This interactive workshop will give you tools and strategies for tackling these questions based on your own interests, strengths and preferences. If you are unsure about preparing for life after the PhD, this event will help you start sharpening your focus and building the confidence to pursue a path best suited to your skills and priorities. Register here.

7 Secrets to a Healthy Mind

When: 30 October 2025, 1:30pm - 3:30pm
Credits: 2 credits, Domain B
Delivery mode: In person

7 Secrets to a Healthy Mind is a dynamic 2-hour psychological skills workshop designed to enhance mental health, build emotional resilience, and support sustainable peak performance. Participants will learn practical strategies for managing stress, reducing unhelpful perfectionism, and developing emotional self-management, self-compassion, and gratitude. Register here.

Creating career opportunities

When: 4 November 2025, 11:00am - 12:00pm
Credits: 1 credit, Domain B
Delivery mode: Zoom Webinar

Are you aware of the hidden job market and how to access it? Do you know how to identify and create potential future career opportunities? This webinar will help you understand activities you can undertake during your degree to help set you for future career success, including: sourcing information on career opportunities, accessing the hidden job market and linking with employers. Register here.

How to Navigate an Academic Career

When: 5 November 2025, 11:00am - 12:00pm
Credits: 1 credit, Domain B
Delivery mode: Zoom Webinar

Are you wondering about the different career options available to you in academia, and how to navigate these pathways? This lecture offers an introduction to university-based careers and insights into the structures, dynamics and terminology you will encounter in the sector. It aims to provide clarity about career tracks and key issues to consider when it comes to developing your profile and track record to suit academic pathways. Register here.

Other Training & Events

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. 16 October 2025, 11:00am - 12:00pm. Register here.

Learn to program: Python

Python has deservedly become a popular language for scientific computing and among researchers, but getting started can be challenging, especially if you have never programmed before. That's where this introductory live coding workshop comes in, where we will use Jupyter notebooks to write programs and produce results. You can record this session for 6 credits in Domain A for CaRST. 16 October 2025 and 17 October 9:30 AM - 12:30 PM. Register here.

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. 24 October 2025 9:30 AM - 12:30 PM. Register here.

Introduction to Systematic Searching for ABLE

This workshop will provide an introduction to systematic searching and literature reviews for ABLE disciplines, focusing on how approaches to searching and reviewing research can be modified for non-health areas. You can record this session for 1 credit in Domain A for CaRST. 27 October 2025 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM. 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. You can record this session for 6 credits in Domain A for CaRST. 30 October and 31 October 2025 9:30 AM - 12:30 PM. Register here.

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.

Data Manipulation and Visualisation in Python

Do you have a good knowledge of the basic concepts and techniques in Python and want to level up? In this workshop, you will learn how to use popular packages to manipulate, explore and get insights from your data, and how to visualise the results. You can record this session for 6 credits in Domain A for CaRST. 5 November and 6 November 2025 9:30 AM - 12:30 PM. Register here.

So why not make professional development and CaRST a regular topic in your meetings!

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.