Welcome to this fortnight's issue of the Doctoral College Newsletter.

In the following sections you will find:

• Deadline Tuesday 14 November: Enter the GW4 Open Research Prize and Early Career Publishing Prize 2023
• Upgrade to RIME Symplectic Elements
• Exeter Faith Spaces Tour
• Spotlight on...
• Apply Now to represent your department with Exeter Students' Guild
• Training and Development
• PGR Study Space
• 1-2-1 Careers Appointments
• Opportunities
• Research Studies
• Wellbeing Support and Sessions
• Enquiries

If you have a news story or an opportunity you would like to advertise in the next newsletter (27 November), please email ResearcherDevelopment@exeter.ac.uk by Wednesday 22 November.

Please refer to our style guide before submitting your item.

The GW4 Open Research Prize is open to submissions from all researchers (including postgraduate research students and early career researchers), in all disciplines, across the GW4 Alliance universities of Bath, Bristol, Cardiff and Exeter.

A prize of £250 is available for entries who can best demonstrate open research practices in each of the following four categories:

1. Widening Reach Prize
2. Improving Quality Prize
3. Poster session Prize
4. GW4 Early Career Publishing Prize

For further information on how to enter the GW4 Open Research and GW4 Early Career Publishing Prizes, please visit the University of Bristol’s Open Research Prize webpages – or email open-research-prize@bristol.ac.uk – where you will also find detailed eligibility and submission criteria.

RIME Symplectic Elements is the system which enables you to deposit the final version of your thesis to our open access Doctoral thesis repository. We will be upgrading the system from the 20th November 2023. This much needed update will provide an enhanced set of user experiences and functionalities and ensure the continuing support and optimal performance of the system. 

To support the upgrade process, Symplectic Elements will be unavailable between 7AM on 20 November to midday on 27 November 2023. If you are eligible to upload your thesis before this time we recommend doing so by 16 November at the latest. If you become eligible to upload your final thesis while the system is closed, then the PGR admin team will be in touch with you directly.

For all guidance and information on Symplectic Elements please visit Sharepoint.

The Multifaith Chaplaincy Team are leading a free tour of the city’s faith spaces on Wednesday 15 November, 2pm to 6pm (meet at the Student Information Desk in The Forum).

We will be welcomed into four faith spaces to look round and learn about each other’s faiths and practices. The tour will end with refreshments and a chance to meet faith leaders who were not represented on the tour.

It is open to all students, staff and friends, whether they follow a faith or not.

Please visit Eventbrite for further information and to book your free ticket.

Jamie Pei of The Messy PhD will be delivering some of her hugely popular webinars this month for PGRs looking at ways to get you started on your postgraduate studies and finding different ways to get your work done. Take a look and sign up via the links below!

• Kickstart your PhD with joy, clarity and ease (Tuesday 22 November)
• Working less, accomplishing more: Alternative practices for getting work done (Wednesday 28 November)

The PGR Coffee, Cake and Conversation events, which take place in-person on a monthly basis, are an opportunity to meet fellow PhD students in person and share coffee, cake and conversation. Each event will be centred around a different theme.

The next sessions will be about your professional development and using the Researcher Development Framework. Book your space via iTrent- please check that you are booking onto the correct date as we have separate dates for Penryn and Streatham:

• Tuesday 28 November, 11.30am-13pm, Daphne Du Maurier Masters Suite 1+2, Penryn Campus
• Tuesday 12 December, 09.45am-11.15am, Forum Seminar Room 3, Streatham Campus

As there are limited spaces, if you have signed up and are no longer able to attend please cancel your place via iTrent. You must inform us of any dietary requirements by Friday 24th November (for Penryn session) and Friday 8th December (for Streatham session).

Applications are now open for PGR Academic Reps for 2024- deadline is Friday 8 December. We’re looking for at least one PGR representative per department to join the team and ensure the voices of your research group are heard. Improve your academic experience and work with your Department and the Students’ Guild to address the concerns of fellow research students and create positive change!

This is a part-time voluntary role from January to December 2024. The time commitment for this role is flexible to your specific circumstances, and there is no weekly minimum requirement. Find out more and apply now on the Guild website.

Please contact voice@exeterguild.com with any queries (If you are registered to Cornwall campuses, please contact the Students' Union via studentvoice@thesu.org.uk for details on how to apply to become a rep).

Here are some of the courses coming up in the next few weeks (if you are working off-campus, you will need to log into the University VPN to access these links):

• NEW- An Introduction to the Core Issues in Research Integrity (Wednesday 15 November, 10am-11am via Microsoft Teams)
• NEW- Writing conference abstracts (Monday 20 November, 13pm-14.30pm via Microsoft Teams)
• NEW- An introduction to research ethics review (Wednesday 22 November, 13pm-14.30pm via Microsoft Teams)
• NEW- Kickstart your PhD with joy, clarity and ease (Wednesday 22 November, 10am-12pm via Microsoft Teams)
• NEW- Working less, accomplishing more: Alternative practices for getting work done (Tuesday 28 November, 10am-11.30am via Microsoft Teams)
• NEW- PGR Coffee, Cake and Conversation (Tuesday 28 November, 11am-13pm in Daphne Du Maurier Masters Suite 1+2, Penryn Campus)
• NEW- Maintaining momentum and focus after your upgrade (Monday 4 December, 10am-11.30am via Microsoft Teams)
• NEW- Preparing for your viva (Tuesday 5 December, 10am-11.30am via Microsoft Teams)
• NEW- Applying for non-academic jobs (Thursday 7 December, 13:00-14:30 via Microsoft Teams)
• NEW- PGR Coffee, Cake and Conversation (Tuesday 12 December, 09.45am-11.30am in Forum Seminar Room 3, Streatham Campus)

Check out our full list of upcoming courses here.

We use PGR iTrent as our booking system for training. Please note that PGR iTrent is separate from staff iTrent; we advise bookmarking this page so that you know you are using the correct links.

You can find presentation slides and recordings of some of our previous courses on ELE. Further resources are also available on researcher-development.co.uk.

You will need to use a Virtual Private Network (VPN) to access iTrent if you are working off campus or not on the University network. You can access information about how to use VPN on the University’s webpages.

Register by Friday 17 November: Introduction to Julia 3-Part Workshop (24 November, 1 and 5 December), Digital Humanities, Streatham. 

The Coding for Reproducible Research are running a 3-part workshop on Introduction to Julia (Part 1 on 24 November 10.30am-12.30pm; Part 2 on 1 December 10.30am-12.30pm and Part 3 on 5 December 10.30am-12.30pm). All sessions will take place in Digital Humanities, Streatham. Registration is on a first-come-first-serve basis and deadline is Friday 17 November. Register here. Please note that this is an in-person only workshop.

Wednesday 29 November: "Introduction to Bioimage Analysis in ImageJ" workshop at St Luke's

Are you using imaging in your scientific research? Would you like to do more with your images?
Join us for a hands-on workshop, and learn how to extract quantitative data from images. The workshop takes place on Wednesday 29 November, 2.13 South Cloisters, St Luke's Campus, 1-5pm
Places will be limited, so please sign up in advance by completing the following form. No image analysis experience required.
Computers will be provided, but there will also be space to accommodate laptops if you'd prefer to bring your own (if so, please download Fiji in advance).
ImageJ/Fiji is a freely available program for the analysis of scientific images. It is widely used, enormously versatile, extremely powerful, and a lot of fun!

NEW- Register by Tuesday 5 December: Introduction to Version Control and Git 2-Part Workshop (Tuesday 12 and 19 December, 1-4pm)

The Coding for Reproducible Research are running a 2-part workshop on Introduction to Version Control and Git (Part 1 on 12 December, 13-16pm; Part 2 on 19 December, 13pm-16pm). All sessions will take place in Old Library Training Room 4, Streatham, with some limited spaces to join virtually. Registration is on a first-come-first-serve basis and deadline is Tuesday 5 December. Register here.

1-2-1 careers appointments with our dedicated PGR careers coach, Kenneth Howgill, are available to book on Wednesdays and Thursdays. Kenneth is a qualified and experienced career coach, lecturer and learning and development professional with over 20 years’ experience within the corporate sector, universities, further and adult education. He has held management roles in the public, corporate and not for profit sectors, leading professional development, coaching programmes, and recruiting graduates. Kenneth is a member of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development and a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. He is a member of the European Mentoring and Coaching Council and holds a business degree, a master's in music and a professional career coaching qualification.

All appointments are 50 minutes long. You can book via MS Bookings; please contact researcherdevelopment@exeter.ac.uk if there are any technical difficulties.

Registration Open: Generation Delta In-Person Workshop on Tuesday 5th December.

Registration has opened for a 1-day in-person workshop on retention and progression of Home PGR (postgraduate/doctoral) students who identify as Black, Asian or minority ethnic women. The workshop will take place at the University of Leeds Cloth Hall Court on Tuesday 5th December 2023 (they will reimburse transport expenses up to £100 per attendee). Spaces are allocated on a first-come-first-served basis.

At the workshop there will be senior academics as well as current doctoral students and early career researchers talking about what progression within a PGR programme involves, ways to address racial discrimination during PGR study, and institutional support and engagement opportunities for PGR students. More information here. Register here.

Tuesday 12 December: Workshop for Exeter Food network members

Interested in engaging with the arts in your research on food?

Exeter Food—in collaboration with Arts & Culture (University of Exeter), Creative Arc, and the Co-Production Oracle—is organising a workshop for Exeter Food network members who would like to work more closely with creative practitioners (from any artform) but are not sure where to start. We will share case studies to provide inspiration; introduce you to useful people at the University who can help shape your ideas; talk about pathways to funding; and provide a short workshop to give you a taste of this work in practice.

Date: 15:00-17:00 pm Tuesday 12 December
Location: Via Teams
Register via this form

This is the first of two sessions; it will be followed by a half-day in-person workshop at a date to be determined.

Survey from Nurture-U testing different types of mental health support

Nurture-U is recruiting for students from University of Exeter, University of Southampton and University of Newcastle to take part in 3 research trials, testing different types of mental health support. You can follow this link to see if you are eligible: the system decides which 1 of the 3 trials is best suited to you.
1. In the Reducing Worry study, you will test a new, self-guided app. 
2. The Internet CBT study compares self-guided (completely self-motivated) and guided (via regular contact with our therapists) therapy. We want to improve the services available to students with anxiety and depression by directing students to the right treatment.
3. The Bounce Back study tests a workbook, which we developed with students. It is supported by one of our therapists, aiming to help you build resilience skills so you can better face the challenges that come with university.

Psychology study about social interactions

Participate in this two-part psychology study for a chance to get an Amazon voucher and money.

First, you will complete a 5-min online survey with a chance to win a £10 Amazon voucher. Then at the end of the survey, if you are interested, you can choose to sign up for the in-person lab session. If you meet our screening criteria, we will email you within three days to appoint a timeslot for the lab session at the Washington Singer Building (EX4 4QG). You will receive £7-£10 bank transfer by participating in the lab session.

Here is a link for more information about the study and the online survey. Please contact Zhiqi Zhang for further enquiries.

Every Mind Matters
Having good mental health helps us relax more, achieve more and enjoy our lives more. The NHS have expert advice and practical tips to help you look after your mental health and wellbeing. See their website here.

Spectrum.Life
Spectrum.Life provides a confidential telephone, video, and live chat counselling service to help with stress, anxiety, depression, relationship issues, bereavement and more.

Wellbeing Centre
If you would like to speak to Zoe Hughes, PGR Support Advisor for Welfare, Zoe can be contacted at: welfare.pgr@exeter.ac.uk or tel: 01392 726207. Further wellbeing information, tools and support can be found on our wellbeing webpages.

Free Mindfulness Sessions for Wellbeing

Mindfulness is a powerful practice of training our attention and an evidence-based way to tackle anxiety, stress and low mood. If you’re interested in exploring more, there is a variety of free internal options available for all colleagues.

Sessions from the internal Mood Disorders Centre mindfulness team include: an eight-week MBCT-L course (2hrs weekly), an eight-week ‘deeper mindfulness’ course for those who’ve completed the MBCT-L course and bespoke ‘healthy mind’ sessions for whole teams, which can be delivered in-person or online.

You may also be interested in trying mindful meditation in 30 min online sessions each Thursday lunchtime. This is a secular practice run by the Chaplaincy.

Information about these sessions, how to sign up and their benefits can be found on our mindfulness webpage.

Details on how you can contact the PGR support team, either via email, telephone or face to face via our hubs (located on all campuses) is available on our contact us webpage.

Remember you can come along and meet the team or to ask any enquiries you might have at either of our helpdesk hubs below at any of our campuses:

The Streatham PGR Hub is open from 10.00am – 3.00pm Monday to Friday. The Streatham Hub is situated in the Old Library Ground Floor next to the Quiet Study Space and Bill Douglas Centre.

The St Luke’s PGR Hub is open from 10.00am – 3.00pm Monday to Thursday. Students wishing to access the hub should go to the Info at St Luke’s desk and request PGR support, the PGR team will then be called to see you.

The Penryn PGR Support Office is open from 10.00am – 2.00pm Monday to Friday and is based in the Postgraduate Suite in Daphne Du Maurier building 3 (next to the SU and opposite the Stannary).

For enquiries surrounding training and development, please contact the team on ResearcherDevelopment@exeter.ac.uk.

To view previous versions of the newsletter, see here.