Researcher Development Programme (RDP) course timetable

Do you achieve the desired results from your presentations?
This interactive, individualised workshop, which centres on your delivery of a five-minute presentation, will help you communicate your research engagingly and effectively. In addition to reviewing useful patterns and styles of presentation, you will have the chance to observe yourself in action, as we will record and watch together your five-minute presentation. This workshop is for postdocs who want to achieve the greatest impact while presenting their work and to improve their public-speaking skills in a safe and supportive environment.

Outcomes
- Improve on designing and delivering a successful presentation
- Consider how to understand and engage your audience
- Observe yourself presenting and further develop your style

Do you achieve the desired results from your presentations?
This interactive, individualised workshop, which centres on your delivery of a five-minute presentation, will help you communicate your research engagingly and effectively. In addition to reviewing useful patterns and styles of presentation, you will have the chance to observe yourself in action, as we will record and watch together your five-minute presentation. This workshop is for postdocs who want to achieve the greatest impact while presenting their work and to improve their public-speaking skills in a safe and supportive environment.

Outcomes
- Improve on designing and delivering a successful presentation
- Consider how to understand and engage your audience
- Observe yourself presenting and further develop your style

Do you achieve the desired results from your presentations?
This interactive, individualised workshop, which centres on your delivery of a five-minute presentation, will help you communicate your research engagingly and effectively. In addition to reviewing useful patterns and styles of presentation, you will have the chance to observe yourself in action, as we will record and watch together your five-minute presentation. This workshop is for postdocs who want to achieve the greatest impact while presenting their work and to improve their public-speaking skills in a safe and supportive environment.

Outcomes
- Improve on designing and delivering a successful presentation
- Consider how to understand and engage your audience
- Observe yourself presenting and further develop your style

Do you achieve the desired results from your presentations?
This interactive, individualised workshop, which centres on your delivery of a five-minute presentation, will help you communicate your research engagingly and effectively. In addition to reviewing useful patterns and styles of presentation, you will have the chance to observe yourself in action, as we will record and watch together your five-minute presentation. This workshop is for postdocs who want to achieve the greatest impact while presenting their work and to improve their public-speaking skills in a safe and supportive environment.

Outcomes
- Improve on designing and delivering a successful presentation
- Consider how to understand and engage your audience
- Observe yourself presenting and further develop your style

Do you achieve the desired results from your presentations?
This interactive, individualised workshop, which centres on your delivery of a five-minute presentation, will help you communicate your research engagingly and effectively. In addition to reviewing useful patterns and styles of presentation, you will have the chance to observe yourself in action, as we will record and watch together your five-minute presentation. This workshop is for postdocs who want to achieve the greatest impact while presenting their work and to improve their public-speaking skills in a safe and supportive environment.

Outcomes
- Improve on designing and delivering a successful presentation
- Consider how to understand and engage your audience
- Observe yourself presenting and further develop your style

Do you achieve the desired results from your presentations?
This interactive, individualised workshop, which centres on your delivery of a five-minute presentation, will help you communicate your research engagingly and effectively. In addition to reviewing useful patterns and styles of presentation, you will have the chance to observe yourself in action, as we will record and watch together your five-minute presentation. This workshop is for postdocs who want to achieve the greatest impact while presenting their work and to improve their public-speaking skills in a safe and supportive environment.

Outcomes
- Improve on designing and delivering a successful presentation
- Consider how to understand and engage your audience
- Observe yourself presenting and further develop your style

The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) is the most widely used personality instrument worldwide, based on over 50 years’ research and development.

It presents a framework for understanding how you operate, how others operate, and how you can use that understanding to get more from yourself and the relationships you have with others.

This workshop is led by a qualified MBTI practitioner and will involve taking the MBTI questionnaire, and self-assessment with group exercises so that participants:

• Understand the concept and theories behind the MBTI types and the process to obtain a personal profile
• Use the self-assessed and reported types to determine their best fit MBTI type (or as close as possible)
• Can use their MBTI knowledge in activities relating to real world applications such as communication and understanding differences

Topics:

• MBTI questionnaire
• MBTI history, background, and theory of type
• Self-assessment through the exploration of the four areas of MBTI
• Questionnaire scoring
• Finding best fit and exploring own type
• Ethics of MBTI
• Applications of MBTI
• MBTI dynamics
• Exploration of mental functions
• Q & A

Wanting to learn more about the peer-review system and gain a core skill every researcher should possess? This course is designed specifically for STEMM postdocs and researchers at an early stage of their career and with little or no experience of reviewing manuscripts for journals.

You will learn how to review research manuscripts quickly and effectively, what editors expect in a review, what to include in written comments to editors and authors and how long you should spend reviewing a manuscript. Following this course, you will know the practical methods for reviewing a manuscript swiftly and successfully.

Outcomes:
- Gain a score skill that every STEMM researcher should know
- Understand how the peer-review system works
- Develop a better understanding of how to write your own manuscript

Wanting to learn more about the peer-review system and gain a core skill every researcher should possess? This course is designed specifically for Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences (AHSS) postdocs and researchers at an early stage of their career with little or no experience of reviewing manuscripts for journals. Focus is on subjects covered by the Arts and Humanities Research Council and the Economic and Social Research Council.

You will learn how to review research manuscripts quickly and effectively, what editors expect in a review, what to include in written comments to editors and authors and how long you should spend reviewing a manuscript. Following this course, which explores the results from a survey of 60 editors of AHSS journals, you will know the practical methods for reviewing a manuscript swiftly and successfully.

Outcomes:
- Gain a core skill that every AHSS researcher should have
- Understand how the peer-review system works
- Develop a better understanding of how to write your own manuscripts

Increasingly, successful researchers are expected to be leaders and lead others. The purpose of this event is to introduce participants to leadership, by introducing the 4 elements of leadership and a set of tools to help them lead. To deepen the learning, each participant will have the opportunity to apply an element and tool to lead a small multi-disciplinary group in an overarching activity, and receive feedback by the group on their leadership.

If you’re feeling lost and uncertain about writing your first-year report – or if you want to become a more effective writer – this course has two objectives in its overall aim of helping you to improve your ability to write about your research:

1) To help you understand:

• the requirements of the first-year report;
• the writing process;
• your work patterns as a writer.

2) To help you progress your writing by working through the techniques of:

• writing warm-ups, to quell your internal editor so that you write more freely;
• writing in layers, to help you develop an overall structure to your thesis, so that writing feels less daunting and you take a step towards ending procrastination.

The relationship you build with your PI is important for your future career development, and you stand to gain from shaping a mutually beneficial rapport. This workshop helps postdocs develop the skill of managing up, the deliberate effort to bring understanding and cooperation to a professional relationship. You will see how to consider your PI’s perspectives and motivations, and how embedding your career goals into your PI’s goals, your team’s goals, and the institution’s goals will positively influence your own progress. Come to this workshop to understand how to actively build strong, meaningful professional relationships.

Outcomes:

• Identify what is important to you in a professional relationship
• Learn real steps toward building mutually beneficial working relationships
• Extend your awareness of your place in building strong relationships with those who oversee you

Feedback:

“[This workshop] increased my awareness of the concept of and the need for managing up - this was something I had been missing. Considering that not everyone has a supervisor that initiates a discussion of how you will manage working styles and communications, it is especially necessary to fill that gap.”

“It was a very useful and novel (for me) session that gave a good overview of the concept of managing up, which I was unfortunately somewhat oblivious to previously.”

“It was helpful to think about how my supervisor works and the importance of communicating expectations.”

Do you supervise PhD students? Though not official supervisors, many postdocs are involved in the process of supervising PhD students. You face the challenging task of fostering creativity, delivering feedback, and managing a supervisor-student relationship. This workshop explores the principles of good supervision, the art of delivering critical feedback for best results, and the teacher/learner roles of the supervisor-supervisee relationship. It is aimed at postdocs looking to develop their skills in effective and inspired pedagogy.

Outcomes:

• Understand the teacher/learner roles central to the supervision of PhD students
• Explore good practice for delivering feedback
• Learn techniques for fostering creativity in students

Feedback:

“I got to know the procedure, approaches, common problems and solutions to the problems of PhD supervision, and [to understand that] supervision is a balancing act.”

“The framework introduced to describe different aspects of supervising a research student was really useful.”

A one day master class in communication from two external trainers who have previously been employed as hostage negotiators and detectives in the Metropolitan Police Force. Participants will gain a practical insight into how professional communicators communicate, and how it can be applied in everyday life.

At the end of the session participants will:

• Know how to persuade and influence effectively
• Understand how to have greater impact when communicating
• Have practiced the fundamental tools of professional communicators

Topics:

• Levels of communication
• Trust
• Stages of active listening
• Non-judgemental language
• Achieving win/win
• Building rapport
• Dos and don’ts

Do you lack confidence in your communication with the media?
Do you wonder how to ensure that your public engagement is planned into your research proposal?
This workshop will be looking at a variety of communication methods and practical media skills to use effectively to disseminate research findings. There will be simulated interviews within a safe situation followed by advice giving to enable you to develop techniques to explain the research to wide audience. This will give an initial experience of interacting with the media.

Outcomes:
- Recognise how various media can be an effective tool to disseminate research findings and increase impact
- Explain what journalists need to gain from contact with researchers
- Experience of using techniques during an interview

This course complements the supervising training and information your Department will provide. It is a course that consists of: an online module, which introduces practices and principles of undergraduate supervision at Cambridge, and a face-to-face workshop in which you will explore challenges and approaches to supervising.

By the end of this course you will know:

• the purpose of supervisions at Cambridge
• how to deal with common supervision scenarios
• how to provide effective feedback
• the practicalities of starting to supervise

Topics covered:

• Introduction to supervising (including what supervisions are, format, preparing for them)
• Background information for those who need it (British education system, Cambridge undergraduate system)
• Role of a supervisor
• Dealing with different supervision scenarios
• Departmental information
• Summary of what you have learnt
• Practical tips and advice
• Resources for ongoing support and information

Times are changing.

Collaboration for Arts, Humanities and Social Science PhDs is more than the icing on the research cake: it now lies at the heart of the research paradigm for the 21st Century. The AHRC, for example, is increasingly funding collaborative and interdisciplinary research.

More and more, projects will not solely operate under the traditional model of a single researcher, but draw upon a range of partners from disciplines, institutions and sectors required to answer bigger and more far-reaching questions.

To build a successful research career within or outside the academy, you will need to connect with (and impress!) a broad network of professional colleagues. Employers value, perhaps above all, communication and interpersonal skills. This is your opportunity to develop these skills.

What will the course cover?

This 2-day course will explore the building blocks of the collaborative style of research:

Inclusive communication, Cultural awareness, Robust planning, Negotiation and the ability to work effectively with others.

Whether your collaboration is with another academic in your department, or partners from different subjects, sectors and countries, it will help you to develop winning strategies for connecting and working with others.

The course will be attended by up to 40 PhDs and will be led by a team of experienced facilitators who will work with you throughout the 2 days to support your learning. This event takes a ‘learning by doing' approach. There will be presentations on collaboration theory, but for the most part, you will be actively participating in the sessions and activities.

Are you able to ask for things you need and want?
The career of a postdoc researcher is demanding and it involves forging careful relationships with a variety of individuals, from PI's to fellow researchers and peers to postgraduate students. Are you capable of asking for help from others when you need it? Do you too often give up your own priorities to respond to others' needs? This course is designed to help you develop an assertive mind-set to communicate your needs in an honest, clear and respectful way.

Outcomes:
- Understand the difference between assertive, aggressive and passive thinking/behaviour
- Know what assertiveness looks and sounds like
- Develop skills in communicating assertively in day-to-day conversations

Times are changing.

Collaboration for Arts, Humanities and Social Science PhDs is more than the icing on the research cake: it now lies at the heart of the research paradigm for the 21st Century. The AHRC, for example, is increasingly funding collaborative and interdisciplinary research.

More and more, projects will not solely operate under the traditional model of a single researcher, but draw upon a range of partners from disciplines, institutions and sectors required to answer bigger and more far-reaching questions.

To build a successful research career within or outside the academy, you will need to connect with (and impress!) a broad network of professional colleagues. Employers value, perhaps above all, communication and interpersonal skills. This is your opportunity to develop these skills.

What will the course cover?

This 2-day course will explore the building blocks of the collaborative style of research:

Inclusive communication, Cultural awareness, Robust planning, Negotiation and the ability to work effectively with others.

Whether your collaboration is with another academic in your department, or partners from different subjects, sectors and countries, it will help you to develop winning strategies for connecting and working with others.

The course will be attended by up to 40 PhDs and will be led by a team of experienced facilitators who will work with you throughout the 2 days to support your learning. This event takes a ‘learning by doing' approach. There will be presentations on collaboration theory, but for the most part, you will be actively participating in the sessions and activities.

Are you in a formal leadership role, or have you taken on leadership positions informally? This workshop will help you to consider the variety of situations and contexts you find yourself leading in and guide you in understanding your leadership skills and abilities so that you can improve them and deploy them thoughtfully. We will look at a variety of meanings and views of leadership, discover the 4 elements of leadership, consider various leadership styles, and reflect on leadership within and out of research environment.

We would encourage you to take this workshop as a very brief introduction to leadership before attending Leadership 2: Next Steps for Postdocs.

Outcomes

• Recognise own current skills and strengths in relation to developing further as a leader.
• Review a range of definitions of, and styles of, leadership.
• Apply to your own context.

Feedback from Michaelmas 2016:

“I found it interesting to define what leadership means and to understand the different styles there are.”

“It was a very interesting and different training which was very good to attend so as to know the skills to develop.”

This course is designed for first-year PhD students to help you increase your effectiveness and meet the challenges of your PhD. We cover several different aspects of personal effectiveness in this one-day workshop, with practical solutions to get you started on your journey.

Outcomes:

• Start planning the first year of your PhD
• Be equipped to manage your relationship with your supervisor
• Understand how to work effectively with others

This course complements the supervising training and information your Department will provide. It is a course that consists of: an online module, which introduces practices and principles of undergraduate supervision at Cambridge, and a face-to-face workshop in which you will explore challenges and approaches to supervising.

By the end of this course you will know:

• the purpose of supervisions at Cambridge
• how to deal with common supervision scenarios
• how to provide effective feedback
• the practicalities of starting to supervise

Topics covered:

• Introduction to supervising (including what supervisions are, format, preparing for them)
• Background information for those who need it (British education system, Cambridge undergraduate system)
• Role of a supervisor
• Dealing with different supervision scenarios
• Departmental information
• Summary of what you have learnt
• Practical tips and advice
• Resources for ongoing support and information

This course is designed for first-year PhD students to help you increase your effectiveness and meet the challenges of your PhD. We cover several different aspects of personal effectiveness in this one-day workshop, with practical solutions to get you started on your journey.

Outcomes:

• Start planning the first year of your PhD
• Be equipped to manage your relationship with your supervisor
• Understand how to work effectively with others