Welcome to this edition of Doctoral College Newsletter; here are just some of the highlights this week:

• In our Reminders section, find out more about Images of Research- for ECRs and PGRs- which is now open for entries
• In our News section, there is an important announcement on stipend payment in August
• Exeter Students' Guild are looking for a PGR Officer; this is a part-time paid role and an excellent opportunity to support your fellow PGRs. Find out more in the Opportunities section

To find out more about these, and everything else at the University for PGRs, jump to the relevant sections using our linked contents list:

News

Events

Opportunities

Reminders

Community

Careers Support and Sessions

Wellbeing Support and Sessions

Enquiries

The newsletter is taking a break for August; the next newsletter will go out on Tuesday 1 September 2025. Please submit copy for the next newsletter by Wednesday 27 August.

There are still plenty of ways to share your news and events on PGR Community Hub on Viva Engage, or on our new Bluesky account.

Please refer to our style guide before submitting your item.

The place to look for training and development opportunities at the University and beyond is our Postgraduate Researcher Training and Development Bulletin. The next bulletin will be sent out in September.

We want to draw your attention to a change in your August scholarship payment (for students that receive stipend payments).

While you may have previously received your monthly stipend on a Thursday, please note that for August only, the payment will reach your bank account on Friday 1 August. This adjustment is due to the University’s financial year-end processes.

We’re sending this courtesy notice to give you time to plan your budget accordingly.

If you have a concern about the change of this date, then please reach out to the Student Funding Team through the Student Information Desk.

Summer can often feel quieter and more isolating, and sometimes it’s harder to focus. To support each other through the season, Ksenia Lavrenteva and Hayley Redman have started a “Walking and Working” group for July and August.

Every Friday at 10:00, they’ll meet and walk together to a peaceful place to work (e.g. Double Locks), where you can spend the day writing without phones or distractions and share lunch before heading back.

It’s a chance to be productive and connect with others in a relaxed and supportive setting.

All PGRs welcome!

If you have any queries, please get in touch with Ksenia or Hayley.

Date: Friday 25 July

Time: 10.45-16.30

Venue: Knightley Board Room, Knightley Building, Streatham Campus

Join us for a day of networking and talks about fascinating career paths in forensics with presentations by experts from a range of forensic disciplines covering their career history, the day to day of their role and a case study, with the opportunity to ask questions and network afterwards. Small bites will be provided for lunch, as well as tea and coffee during breaks. All faculties are welcome.

Spaces are limited so please register your interest here and we will be in touch with further information. If you have any questions, please contact Grace Smithers or Tereza Nesnidalova.

We look forward to seeing you there!

You are invited to this one-day conference on Thursday 11 September from 9.30-18.00 in the Xfi Building on the University of Exeter Streatham Campus.

Hosted by the new Centre for Environmental Intelligence (CEI), the EI Centre for Doctoral Training (CDT) and the EI Research Network, the event brings together the growing EI community at Exeter and beyond.

Join students, staff, and external partners to explore exciting EI research, celebrate progress, and look ahead to 2025/2026. The day includes short talks, digital posters, panel discussions, and networking opportunities—perfect for sharing work, gaining feedback, and sparking collaborations. 

The conference is open to all interested in Environmental Intelligence across the University and wider research community.

Please sign up via EventBrite to secure your place. In the form, please indicate if/how you would like to present your work. Some limited financial support is available for Penryn colleagues travelling to Exeter for the event- please apply for this on the EventBrite form.

Please email ei-network@exeter.ac.uk if you have any questions.

The Exeter Students’ Guild are looking for PGR students with the passion to support the student experience at Exeter and build research culture as the senior student representatives for our PGR student community. As one of our PGR Officers, you will work with other students in your faculty and the wider postgraduate community, alongside our Full-Time Officers and senior staff at the Guild and University, to ensure that the Students’ Guild is effective in its representation of postgraduate research students, and to promote solutions that will encourage positive change to the postgraduate experience.

This part-time paid opportunity is for the 2025/26 academic year and is open to PGR students registered at Exeter campuses. Find out more and apply on Handshake.

Deadline: 08.00 on Monday 28 July

Our Images of Research competition provides Early Career Researchers with the opportunity to gain valuable experience communicating their research to a non-specialist audience. Due to popular demand, we are pleased to announce that this year, we will also be opening the competition to our postgraduate researchers too!  

The competition has received hundreds of entries over the years and showcases the breadth of research undertaken at the university through a fantastic array of images and short, jargon-free descriptions. You can view past entries and the winners, as well as gain some inspiration for entering this year’s competition, in our Images of Research booklets.

Entries will be displayed online from the Autumn and winners promoted through social media.  

Deadline for submission: Monday 8 September 

Any form of recording whether via Teams or external tools like Fellow and other AI notetakers is NOT permitted. If you have any accessibility needs and do require a recording of the session, please contact Researcher Development in advance and we will arrange this with the trainer. 

Keep your eyes on your emails as the PGR Training and Development Programme for 2025 will launch on Wednesday 1 October. We have some exciting new workshops coming up as well as repeats of some of our most popular sessions. The programme is based around the new Vitae RDF framework so you will benefit from the most up-to-date knowledge and guidance for your development as a postgraduate researcher.

The Exeter Wellbeing Network is a social group for staff and PGRs, hosting a variety of events to help colleagues based at Streatham, St. Luke's or online to connect with one another. Recurring events include StaffCraft, Volleyball, Walk and Talk and Fika; find the full list on our webpage.

You can also contact us at wellbeing-network@exeter.ac.uk.

If you are looking for information about activities at Penryn, Falmouth and Truro, please visit the Cornwall Wellbeing Network webpage.

 

The PGR Community Hub is a collaborative online space for Postgraduate Researchers at the University of Exeter. Posts can be uploaded by PGRs, The Exeter Students' Guild or The Falmouth and Exeter Students' Union, alongside teams that support PGRs such as the Researcher Development and Research Culture Team. Please use this space to discuss ideas, share best practice, ask questions and keep up to date with the latest activities, events and opportunities. Here you can have your voice heard and shape our community and research culture.

Please do not use this channel to advertise/search for rooms to rent; the University has its own Viva Engage channel where you can do this.

Join fellow PGRs in this online space, led by PGRs for PGRs to focus individually on whatever tasks you would like to work on. You can join the PGR Study Space Microsoft Teams Group here.

The PGR Study Space facilitated hours are as and when facilitators are available.

There are unfacilitated sessions outside of these hours so you can fit it around your working patterns.

Parent and Family Support (PAFs) is a community of university wide student parents that currently has 100 registered members from the University of Exeter, with individuals choosing to attend inclusive events that best fit their schedules and family responsibilities. The group has expanded to support a wider community, as well as ‘mature-mature’ students with or without children, and postdoctoral researchers, at the University of Exeter who were drawn to our inclusive community.

During a successful first term, our staff choir has evolved and now enjoys singing a range of both classical and contemporary songs, with only the occasional sea shanty 😉 Do consider dropping in for a mid-week singalong and enjoy the mood-boosting effects of group singing while having fun, all under the expert guidance of local artist and musician, Charlotte Cripwell.

Every Wednesday, 13.00 – 14.00, Stella Turk Seminar room, Penryn Campus.

Brought to you by the Cornwall Wellbeing Network- enquiries to Natasha Hammond or Andrew Pye.

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. Please contact researcherdevelopment@exeter.ac.uk if there are any technical difficulties.

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. The Spectrum Life web portal offers wellbeing courses, mindfulness, healthy eating resources and online fitness classes to help you to stay well.

Wellbeing Centre
If you would like to speak to PGR Education Welfare Team for Welfare, they 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.

The Nurture-U team are offering FREE resources and therapies to help with confidence and stress while doing your PhD.
We have:
1. An online toolkit, to help you track your mood over time and manage your busy lives
2. An innovative app to build confidence,
3. Online therapy, with a therapist or self-guided, and
4. A resilience workbook, with support from a therapist.
All these options have been proven to work, we’re just researching who responds best to what type of support. You can hopefully improve your wellbeing, earn shopping vouchers, and help other students in the future by contributing to research!

Any questions, please email nurture-u@exeter.ac.uk. You can also follow us on Instagram.

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.

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 10.00 – 15.00 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 10.00 – 15.00 on a Monday and a 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 10.00 – 14.00 Monday to Friday. It 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

You can view previous versions of the newsletter here.