Welcome to our new look Doctoral College newsletter! In this fortnight's issue of the Doctoral College Newsletter, you will find the following:

Spotlight on...

PGRs needed to test new complaints and appeals system

Delivery of Lab Materials

Call for Abstracts: School of Education Conference 2024: Why does Educational Research Matter?

Health Resilient Researcher PGR training session

Extension Deadline Reminder: 6 months before submission

Call for Submissions: Trans Contributions to Science

New Dates for PGR Hybrid Writing Retreat (Online and Face-to-face at Streatham Campus)

Research Showcase 2024- Monday 10-Friday 14 June- Save The Date!

PGR Study Space

Training and Development

Software Training

Opportunities

Research Studies

1-2-1 career appointments available

Wellbeing Support and Sessions

Enquiries

If you have a news story or an opportunity you would like to advertise in the next newsletter (18 March), please email ResearcherDevelopment@exeter.ac.uk by Wednesday 13 March.

Please refer to our style guide before submitting your item.

Join us on Tuesday 12 March for PGR Skills Development & Network building: Community & Communication to develop your communication and networking skills and to get to know some of your fellow Postgraduate Research Students (PGRs) in a welcoming and supportive environment.

Our guest speaker for this highly participative and interactive session is the new Dean of the Doctoral College, Professor Stacey Hynd, who is keen to meet you and will be sharing some of her own tips and tools for effective communication and community curating.

Refreshments (including cake and fruit) will be provided- you must inform us of any dietary requirements by Wednesday 6 March so we can arrange catering.

PGR students are needed to test the new online complaints and appeals system and give us feedback on how easy (or hard!) it is to use. You don’t need to have used the current complaints and appeals system before to participate.

Date: Monday 18 March
Time: 14:30-15:30pm
Location: Seminar Room 3, The Forum, Streatham Campus

The online form will be taken offline once we have reached the participant limit. You will be emailed via Outlook with a confirmation once your space has been allocated for the session.

Each student who attends the testing session will receive a £10 Amazon voucher.

Requirements: to ensure a smooth testing process, please bring your own laptop or tablet.

Your insights and feedback are vital in helping us create a more effective and user-friendly complaints and appeals system.

If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to contact Tammy East.

This is a reminder that any parcels containing lab materials, including chemicals, items requiring temperature control, and biological samples, must be sent directly to the appropriate building rather than through the Central Mailroom located in the Old Library, Streatham Campus. Please note that the Central Mailroom team is not equipped to handle such materials and reserves the right to refuse delivery. Your cooperation in following this procedure is greatly appreciated.

Please ensure that when you order through our T1 Finance system that the section ‘Delivery Point Type’ has the correct Faculty, for example below 1405 for HLS. Please also ensure that the ‘Delivery Point’ has the correct building selected for your delivery as indicated in screenshot below.

Date: Friday 14 June 2024
Time: 10.00am-15.00pm
Venue: Baron Court, St Luke’s Campus
Theme: Why does educational research matter? (Any discipline is welcome to submit an abstract providing the scope of the presentation follows an educational theme)

You can submit an abstract for either a:

• Poster (A3 portrait)
• Lightning Talk (5 mins)
• Research Presentation (15 mins) + Q&A (5 mins)
• Workshop (25 mins)

We welcome all researchers at any stage of their career.
Enquires to SoE-AERC@exeter.ac.uk

On Thursday 2 May, 11.00am-15.00pm, Dr Joyce Reed is running a workshop on Health Resilient Researcher, based on her manual, The Resilient Researcher, in which she draws on the biomedical evidence base, clinical experience and personal experience of balancing lifestyle and regaining whole health.

During this course you will discover new ways to view personal health and become a more resilient researcher.  Start to address the key cornerstones of a healthy lifestyle and help yourself to become significantly more productive as a researcher, whilst finding a more authentic version of you. Rather than learning (yet more) about health fads, you will learn practices and life hacks that will slot into your busy schedule and start you on a road to achieving whole health.

The course is run via Zoom; there is an optional follow-on session: Thursday 16 May 2024, 14.00-15.00pm via Zoom.

If you may require an extension to your programme, you will need to discuss with your supervisors and submit an extension request no less than 6 months before your expected end date (this deadline is available in MyPGR). Applications received less than 6 months before the expected end date will be considered exceptional and will require a case for an exception to be considered by the Dean of PGR.

You are encouraged to discuss extensions with your supervisor if you think this may apply to you. Further information, including the application form and guidance for supporting documentation, is available in the Doctoral College Handbook.

In connection with the 2024 theme of LGBTQIA+ History Month-  Medicine- #UnderTheScope, Cara Patel is currently collating stories of trans and gender non-conforming individuals working in STEM research for an upcoming zine. Whether you are a trans researcher and would like to share what you do, or are interested in sharing the story of a trans figure from history, all contributions welcome.

If you have a story to share or know someone who does, please reach out to trans.in.stem.zine@gmail.com. Let’s amplify the voices and experiences that contribute to the rich tapestry of diversity within the scientific community.

More dates have been added for the PGR Writing Retreats; see a full list of upcoming sessions below. At these retreat, you have blocks of writing time. During these sessions, we recommend turning off phones and email. At the end of each writing block, you will be encouraged to reflect on the progress of your writing goals and make notes that will help with getting back into writing after the break. Please contact Jo Sutherst if you have any queries:

PGR Online Writing Retreat (Online and Face-to-face at St. Luke’s Campus) Tuesday 19 March 2024

19 March 2024, 9am – 12noon
Spaces limited to 35 face-to-face, online unlimited
BAR/128 - 128 /Baring Court
Last sign up is Monday 18 March 2024- sign up here.

Teams link to join online.
 

NEW- PGR Hybrid Writing Retreat (Online and Face-to-face at Streatham Campus) Wednesday 15 May 2024

15 May 2024, 10am – 4pm
Spaces limited to 35 face-to-face, online unlimited
ONE/TR01 - Pearson Teaching Room /Building:One
Last sign up is Tuesday 14 May 2024- sign up here.

Teams link to join online.

 

NEW- PGR Online Writing Retreat (Online and Face-to-face at Penryn Campus) Tuesday 18 June 2024
18 June 2024, 10am – 4pm
Spaces limited to 30 face-to-face, online unlimited
B018E-161 - PL Seminar 03
Last sign up is Monday 17 June 2024- sign up here.

Teams link to join online.

 

NEW- PGR Hybrid Writing Retreat (Online and Face-to-face at Streatham Campus) Wednesday 19 June 2024

19 June 2024, 10am – 4pm
OLD/134 - 134 /Old Library
Spaces limited to 35 face-to-face, online unlimited
Last sign up is 18th June 2024- sign up here.

Teams link to join online.

 

This year's Research Showcase will take place Monday 10 June- Friday 14 June 2024. There are two competitions to take part in- Poster Competition and Three Minute Thesis. The updated website will go live on Monday 18 March, when applications open.

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, or for further information, please contact Jo Sutherst.

The PGR Study Space core facilitated hours are:

Monday 10:00am-12:00pm
Wednesday 10:00am-12:00pm
Friday 10:00am-12:00pm

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

Here are some of our upcoming courses (if you are working off-campus, you will need to log into the University VPN to access these links):

• LinkedIn for Researchers: Developing and Using Your Profile (Thursday 7 March, 10.00-11.30am via Microsoft Teams)
• Conducting a literature review Part 1- searching, reading and note-taking (Tuesday 12 March, 10.00-11.30am via Microsoft Teams)
• NEW- PGR Skills Development & Network building: Community & Communication (Tuesday 12 March, 11.00am-12:30pm in Old Library Training Room 4)
• Applying for academic jobs (Thursday 14 March, 10.00-11.30am via Microsoft Teams)
• Finding your way out of a rut with Lego Serious Play (Tuesday 19 March, 13.00-14.30pm in Old Library Training Room 2)
• Conducting a literature review Part 2- critiquing, structuring and writing (Wednesday 20 March, 10.00-11.30am via Microsoft Teams)
• NEW- Data Visualisation- How to Effectively Communicate with your Data (Thursday 21 March, 09.30am- 16.30pm in Old Library Training Room 2)
• NEW- Applying for non-academic jobs (Thursday 21 March, 10.00-11.30am via Microsoft Teams)
• NEW- Preparing for your viva (Monday 24 March, 10.30am-12.00pm via Microsoft Teams)
• NEW- Presentation Skills for Researchers (Tuesday 9 April, 10.00-11.30am via Microsoft Teams)

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.

The Coding for Reproducible Research are running a series of software training sessions. Please register your interest via the registration form (the deadline is one week before the start of the course, or earlier if the course is over-subscribed). The Coding for Reproducible Research team will email you to confirm whether you have a place.

• Working with data in R, 1-4pm, 12 & 19 March, Training Room 4, Old Library, Streatham Campus
• Introduction to Python, 10am-1pm, 2 & 9 April, Training Room 4, Old Library, Streatham Campus
  Computational Thinking, 1-4pm, 12 & 19 April, Training Room 4, Old Library, Streatham Campus
• Software Development Best Practice, 10am-1pm, 16 & 23 April, Training Room 4, Old Library, Streatham Campus
• Advanced Regression Analysis, 10am-1pm, 26 April, Training Room 4, Old Library, Streatham Campus

This one day meeting in London, on Saturday 11 May 2024, is a valuable opportunity for postgraduate doctoral students to present their work to a general audience with a small prize offered for the best presentation. It is also a very worthwhile day for all postgraduate students and academics, providing the opportunity to see presentations across a range of disciplines.

For queries, please email awardsqueries@bfwg.org.uk.

Deadline: 9am on Tuesday 2 April

 

Are you interested in your own fitness status and want to get personalised interval training protocols? We are looking for healthy people, recreationally active, aged 18-60 to participate in a study aiming to optimize prescription for interval training at the Public Health and Sports Sciences department, St Luke's campus.

The study involves 5 lab visits, which include performing 2 exercise tests and 3 training sessions on a stationary bike, and fingertip blood samples will be collected during the process. We will provide information about your fitness status in the form of a report, and travel expenses will be paid for your inconvenience.

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
Sprectrum.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 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.

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.

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. 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.