Human Factors in Innovation and Enterprise

Whether you are considering collaborating on dynamic projects with small business; want to work better with an industrial partner or you are considering commercialising your research, this programme will develop the people management skills and self-awareness that help you to manage the Human Factor challenges.

Workshop content includes:

• Build a successful organisational culture
• How to be productive and manage workload
• Develop business analysis and influencing skills
• Understand professional interpersonal relations
• Improve your resilience when managing change
• Manage stress and make good decisions

'Human Factors in Innovation & Enterprise' has been developed particularly with EPSRC-funded PhD students in mind.

It is designed for first and second year PhD students whose funding is drawn from a Doctoral Training Grant or who are incorporated in a Centre for Doctoral Training, and who are working in areas of relevance to the government’s industrial strategy (see further information on the industrial strategy here) within the Schools of the Physical Sciences and Technology. Its focus is on building capability in entrepreneurial skills and interaction with industry and innovators.

Using the National Productivity Investment Fund training grant, we are able to offer 20 fee-free places on this course to current EPSRC-funded students, but we will also consider funding places for non-EPSRC-funded students if we can accommodate the additional numbers.

Number of sessions: 7

Following this programme you will:

• Have a better understanding of your transferable skills when working with others
• Have improved people management skills to create effective and positive working cultures in support of innovation and enterprise activities

Working in coaching pairs and using an online Resilient Leadership assessment and challenge tool, you will assess, evidence and log your professional development throughout the programme.

The six interactive workshop will include visits from Cambridge Entrepreneurs, who will share their stories of the Human Factors of commercialising research.

The programme culminates in a one day team activity, where you will apply all that you have learned to solve the challenges of a London based Engineering start up.

'The programme helped me reconfigure my personal objectives in both academia and professional engineering practice.'

'This training gave me more confidence to approach various stakeholders and explore opportunities for commercialisation. Due to improved awareness, I can better understand the market forces and how to best approach the right people and promote my research.'

'The programme showed me how I was lacking in essential interpersonal/teamwork skills and gave me some tools to fix these. I hadn’t realised the importance of motivation and leadership, and although I’m not there yet, this course showed me where I need to get to.'

'The explicit framework that the programme gave me for approaching my research and decisions. Some of the tools we covered were things I already did instinctively but having the framework to use in a more deliberate way will enable me to use the tools more systematically and effectively in both my research and future career.'