All Office of Postdoctoral Affairs courses

Would you like to get some more teaching experience? The Open University (the UK’s largest distance-learning University) would like to offer Cambridge postdocs the opportunity to gain experience tutoring on their courses. They can offer:

• Flexible teaching opportunities to suit your workload and preferences
• The chance to support students from a diverse range of backgrounds
• Training and support to teach through a variety of media, which is becoming increasingly valued on the academic job market.

Come along and find out more about what is on offer, and how you can get involved. Jane Jones, Associate Dean at the Open University, will lead the session, which will include input from former Cambridge postdocs who have taken up this experience.

Postdocs are invited to an interactive and engaging discussion with the Director of the Centre for Entrepreneurial Learning. This is a rare opportunity to have a conversation with someone who has successfully navigated the worlds of academia and industry.

An official welcome from the Office of Postdoctoral Affairs (OPdA), there will be a brief interactive presentations from the Careers Service and Personal and Professional Development (PPD) whose principal role is to support the University's research staff.

An official welcome from the Office of Postdoctoral Affairs (OPdA). This event consists of two sessions so as to give postdocs an opportunity of attending either a morning OR an afternoon session as best suits. Both sessions will include brief interactive presentations from the OPdA, Careers Service and Personal and Professional Development (PPD) whose principal role is to support the University's research staff.

Introductory forum on Impact, specifically user engagement, focused on enhancing awareness of media relations, public engagement and policy engagement.

Have you ever faced any issues related to authorship within your research group or making a submission to a journal?

• Who gets to be an author?
• How do you start a conversation on authorship with your research team?
• What approaches can be used to resolve an authorship problem?
• How are mistakes handled in a published paper?
• In what circumstances will a paper be retracted from a journal?

Using case studies and group discussion, this course will explore best practice from how authorship of a paper is decided to managing the challenges that can arise when working with publishers or editors. Discussions will include ‘grey areas’, common issues and pitfalls, and you will be given the opportunity to share your experiences and perspectives.

This talk will take place on Friday 27th September at 13:00 in room AG03b Exams hall, Student Services Centre

Topics covered:

• Mission and values of the University
• Principles informing governance at Cambridge
• Overview of governance bodies
• Senior University offices and officers
• Key governance bodies: Regent House, Council, General Board, Board of Scrutiny
• Key governance resources: Statutes and Ordinances, Reporter, Governance hub

If you have recently started peer reviewing, or are ready to get involved, the OSC invites you to this unmissable session, where you will pick up tips and best practices from PLOS, publishers of the world's largest multi-disciplinary peer-reviewed journal.

This session provides valuable career advice to science postdocs from the speaker's own experience, expressed with a good deal of humour.

Postdoctoral Researchers are typically employed on relatively short-term contracts, and are funded by so-called 'soft money' to carry out a specific project for a PI. This creates an immediate tension. The specific project will have research objectives and deliverables that must be met to satisfy whoever is funding the work, and the PI will be assessed on whether these goals have been met. However, a postdoctoral researcher will often have their own research interests and also career objectives. A really successful postdoctoral project is one in which everyone's goals are met. The talk will cover a little about Dr Flewitt's own experience of this process from the perspective of both sides and try and draw out some general thoughts for discussion.