Researcher Development Programme (RDP) course timetable
Thursday 25 January
| 09:30 |
The Two-Day writing retreat is designed to offer structured sessions of academic writing for PhD students who wish to come and work in a supportive environment, and discuss strategies for good working practices that accommodate neurodivergence. You do NOT need to have a confirmed diagnosis to attend this retreat. We start the first day with an introduction that discusses the kinds of challenges that Autism and ADHD can present in doctoral research, as well as strengths. This is followed by discussion sessions on finding adaptive ways to work when handling executive dysfunction, or issues with your environment. The rest of the first day is dedicated to writing, with short sessions to test out new ways to approach your work. The second day will be a dedicated writing retreat, with time in a comfortable environment to crack on with some writing! A full schedule for the two days will be sent out at least a week in advance. You will be writing alongside fellow graduate students. There will be a ‘quiet room’ and a ‘noisy room’ to accommodate various working styles/activities, and attendees are welcome to bring along any fidget objects etc. that would normally help them focus. We will also bring a selection of these to try out! If you have attended before you are very welcome to come again – feel free to skip the introductory talk or just go get settled in the ‘quiet room’ to start your work. |
| 14:00 |
This workshop is designed to help PhD students optimize their time and increase their productivity. In this workshop, we will explore a variety of time management strategies and tools to help you prioritize your tasks, meet deadlines, and achieve your academic goals. We will guide you through practical exercises that will help you identify your priorities, create realistic schedules, and manage your workload efficiently. We will also cover essential tools and techniques for managing your time effectively, such as the Pomodoro Technique, time-blocking, and goal setting. By the end of this workshop, you will have a comprehensive toolkit for managing your time more effectively, reducing stress, and enhancing your overall productivity. |
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Public Engagement: Drop-in Sessions
Finished
A series of 30-minute drop-in sessions to talk with a member of the Public Engagement team. We offer expert advice to support your public engagement work, engagement processes and activities. These include:
These sessions are not workshops or taught sessions. Based on your area of expertise and depending on your School affiliation, you can book a time with one of our public engagement professionals:
The team will be available every week, each mentor offering two sessions of 30 minutes in the day and time indicated above. We will release new slots in the same days and times a couple of months in advance. Please book for the day and time you would like to attend, and you will receive closer to the session the Teams link to meet with the mentor. The link will be sent by RDP Course Administrator. Please make sure that that e-mail does not go to your spam folder. |
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| 14:30 |
Public Engagement: Drop-in Sessions
Finished
A series of 30-minute drop-in sessions to talk with a member of the Public Engagement team. We offer expert advice to support your public engagement work, engagement processes and activities. These include:
These sessions are not workshops or taught sessions. Based on your area of expertise and depending on your School affiliation, you can book a time with one of our public engagement professionals:
The team will be available every week, each mentor offering two sessions of 30 minutes in the day and time indicated above. We will release new slots in the same days and times a couple of months in advance. Please book for the day and time you would like to attend, and you will receive closer to the session the Teams link to meet with the mentor. The link will be sent by RDP Course Administrator. Please make sure that that e-mail does not go to your spam folder. |
Friday 26 January
| 09:30 |
Team working and leadership are essential skills of the modern researcher as more projects are multidisciplinary collaborations. They are also high on the skills requirement list for most employers outside academia. However, the nature of higher education focuses on individual work so many researchers starting their career find that they have little experience or knowledge of how to work as a team member or contribute to leadership. In this workshop, we will explore fundamental aspects of team working, including why having people in your teams who think and behave differently to you is essential for a successful team. We will look at theories around teamwork, including work by Will Schutz, John Adair, and Bruce Tuckman, with a main focus on Belbin Team Roles, which is a globally recognised tool. At the end of this workshop, you will be able to understand:
Please note that this workshop does not include Belbin assessments or Belbin reports. |
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The Two-Day writing retreat is designed to offer structured sessions of academic writing for PhD students who wish to come and work in a supportive environment, and discuss strategies for good working practices that accommodate neurodivergence. You do NOT need to have a confirmed diagnosis to attend this retreat. We start the first day with an introduction that discusses the kinds of challenges that Autism and ADHD can present in doctoral research, as well as strengths. This is followed by discussion sessions on finding adaptive ways to work when handling executive dysfunction, or issues with your environment. The rest of the first day is dedicated to writing, with short sessions to test out new ways to approach your work. The second day will be a dedicated writing retreat, with time in a comfortable environment to crack on with some writing! A full schedule for the two days will be sent out at least a week in advance. You will be writing alongside fellow graduate students. There will be a ‘quiet room’ and a ‘noisy room’ to accommodate various working styles/activities, and attendees are welcome to bring along any fidget objects etc. that would normally help them focus. We will also bring a selection of these to try out! If you have attended before you are very welcome to come again – feel free to skip the introductory talk or just go get settled in the ‘quiet room’ to start your work. |
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| 10:00 |
The eight University of Cambridge Museums (UCM) and Botanic Garden represent the UK’s highest concentration of internationally important collections outside London. With more than five million works of art, artefacts, and specimens, the collections have supported nearly 300 years of investigation into the world around us. Today, we work to deepen understanding of our world, inspire new thinking, and address local and global challenges. How can researchers get involved with the work of the museums? Or make links to the varied collections? This training session will introduce participants to museums in general as well as work and collections of the UCM. Sarah-Jane Harknett co-ordinates evaluation projects across the University of Cambridge Museums. Alongside this role, she also heads up the Public Engagement programmes at the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. |
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This event is Online only. Why is YouTube popular? Because people love watching videos. A research video can be a great way to get your message across to your collaborators, your friends, and the wider world as well as being a condition of some funding bodies. But it isn't easy to do well - and this is where this course will make a difference. Come along and learn the skills needed to plan, shoot & edit high quality footage for research videos so that your video can stand out from the crowd. You just need yourself, a camera phone and your enthusiasm! You will have the opportunity for a one-to-one 30-minute session with the trainer where you can discuss your ideas and questions and get project specific help. The course will be led by Ryd Cook. Ryd is a multi award winning film director, actor and mentor. His fiction and documentary films have screened in film festivals around the world. He has 15+ years of experience, filming, editing and producing a range of films. He has also been teaching practical filmmaking for over 10 years for all ages. He currently works as a director, cameraperson, actor and mentor. |
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| 13:30 |
This event is Online only. Why is YouTube popular? Because people love watching videos. A research video can be a great way to get your message across to your collaborators, your friends, and the wider world as well as being a condition of some funding bodies. But it isn't easy to do well - and this is where this course will make a difference. Come along and learn the skills needed to plan, shoot & edit high quality footage for research videos so that your video can stand out from the crowd. You just need yourself, a camera phone and your enthusiasm! You will have the opportunity for a one-to-one 30-minute session with the trainer where you can discuss your ideas and questions and get project specific help. The course will be led by Ryd Cook. Ryd is a multi award winning film director, actor and mentor. His fiction and documentary films have screened in film festivals around the world. He has 15+ years of experience, filming, editing and producing a range of films. He has also been teaching practical filmmaking for over 10 years for all ages. He currently works as a director, cameraperson, actor and mentor. |
Monday 29 January
| 16:00 |
Public Engagement: Drop-in Sessions
Finished
A series of 30-minute drop-in sessions to talk with a member of the Public Engagement team. We offer expert advice to support your public engagement work, engagement processes and activities. These include:
These sessions are not workshops or taught sessions. Based on your area of expertise and depending on your School affiliation, you can book a time with one of our public engagement professionals:
The team will be available every week, each mentor offering two sessions of 30 minutes in the day and time indicated above. We will release new slots in the same days and times a couple of months in advance. Please book for the day and time you would like to attend, and you will receive closer to the session the Teams link to meet with the mentor. The link will be sent by RDP Course Administrator. Please make sure that that e-mail address does not go to your spam folder. |
| 16:30 |
Public Engagement: Drop-in Sessions
Finished
A series of 30-minute drop-in sessions to talk with a member of the Public Engagement team. We offer expert advice to support your public engagement work, engagement processes and activities. These include:
These sessions are not workshops or taught sessions. Based on your area of expertise and depending on your School affiliation, you can book a time with one of our public engagement professionals:
The team will be available every week, each mentor offering two sessions of 30 minutes in the day and time indicated above. We will release new slots in the same days and times a couple of months in advance. Please book for the day and time you would like to attend, and you will receive closer to the session the Teams link to meet with the mentor. The link will be sent by RDP Course Administrator. Please make sure that that e-mail address does not go to your spam folder. |
Wednesday 31 January
| 10:00 |
Do you feel like there are never enough hours in the day to complete your research project? Are you struggling to balance your work and personal life while still making progress towards your career goals? Look no further than this course on Effective Time and Project Management for Postgraduate Research Students. This course aims to equip you with the tools and techniques required to effectively manage your time and research projects. Through interactive lectures and practical exercises, you will learn how to prioritize tasks, manage your workload, and develop effective time management strategies that can be applied to any research project. With a focus on project management, this course will cover topics such as setting SMART goals, developing project timelines, and identifying and managing project risks. Additionally, you will learn how to identify time-wasters, manage interruptions, and optimize your work environment for maximum productivity. |
| 12:00 |
Public Engagement: Drop-in Sessions
Finished
A series of 30-minute drop-in sessions to talk with a member of the Public Engagement team. We offer expert advice to support your public engagement work, engagement processes and activities. These include:
These sessions are not workshops or taught sessions. Based on your area of expertise and depending on your School affiliation, you can book a time with one of our public engagement professionals:
The team will be available every week, each mentor offering two sessions of 30 minutes in the day and time indicated above. We will release new slots in the same days and times a couple of months in advance. Please book for the day and time you would like to attend, and you will receive closer to the session the Teams link to meet with the mentor. The link will be sent by RDP Course Administrator. Please make sure that that e-mail address does not go to your spam folder. |
| 12:30 |
Public Engagement: Drop-in Sessions
Finished
A series of 30-minute drop-in sessions to talk with a member of the Public Engagement team. We offer expert advice to support your public engagement work, engagement processes and activities. These include:
These sessions are not workshops or taught sessions. Based on your area of expertise and depending on your School affiliation, you can book a time with one of our public engagement professionals:
The team will be available every week, each mentor offering two sessions of 30 minutes in the day and time indicated above. We will release new slots in the same days and times a couple of months in advance. Please book for the day and time you would like to attend, and you will receive closer to the session the Teams link to meet with the mentor. The link will be sent by RDP Course Administrator. Please make sure that that e-mail address does not go to your spam folder. |
Thursday 1 February
| 10:00 |
We love a plan! In our Introduction to Public Engagement course, we introduced you to planning using a logic model. In this practical session, we’ll use this tool in exercises that will allow you to think about why you want to engage, the outcomes and impact you want to achieve, who you want to engage with and how to reach them. We’ll look at how to run your project efficiently and how you might evaluate to learn and evidence your success. We’ll also consider the places you run events in, the resources you might need, tips on event planning and how you can make your engagement more inclusive. You don’t need to come with a plan, we’ll start with hypothetical challenges to spark thoughts and ideas and share learning together. The course will be run by members of the Public Engagement team - Lucinda Spokes, Diogo Gomes and Claudia Antolini. As part of this course, we will provide information on how we support public engagement across the University. |
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This course seeks to help students develop their critical reading skills, and to deploy tactics and strategies that can accelerate the process of literature-based research without sacrificing detail and depth necessary for a doctoral thesis. |
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| 14:00 |
Public Engagement: Drop-in Sessions
Finished
A series of 30-minute drop-in sessions to talk with a member of the Public Engagement team. We offer expert advice to support your public engagement work, engagement processes and activities. These include:
These sessions are not workshops or taught sessions. Based on your area of expertise and depending on your School affiliation, you can book a time with one of our public engagement professionals:
The team will be available every week, each mentor offering two sessions of 30 minutes in the day and time indicated above. We will release new slots in the same days and times a couple of months in advance. Please book for the day and time you would like to attend, and you will receive closer to the session the Teams link to meet with the mentor. The link will be sent by RDP Course Administrator. Please make sure that that e-mail does not go to your spam folder. |
| 14:30 |
Public Engagement: Drop-in Sessions
Finished
A series of 30-minute drop-in sessions to talk with a member of the Public Engagement team. We offer expert advice to support your public engagement work, engagement processes and activities. These include:
These sessions are not workshops or taught sessions. Based on your area of expertise and depending on your School affiliation, you can book a time with one of our public engagement professionals:
The team will be available every week, each mentor offering two sessions of 30 minutes in the day and time indicated above. We will release new slots in the same days and times a couple of months in advance. Please book for the day and time you would like to attend, and you will receive closer to the session the Teams link to meet with the mentor. The link will be sent by RDP Course Administrator. Please make sure that that e-mail does not go to your spam folder. |
Friday 2 February
| 10:00 |
This event is Online only. Why is YouTube popular? Because people love watching videos. A research video can be a great way to get your message across to your collaborators, your friends, and the wider world as well as being a condition of some funding bodies. But it isn't easy to do well - and this is where this course will make a difference. Come along and learn the skills needed to plan, shoot & edit high quality footage for research videos so that your video can stand out from the crowd. You just need yourself, a camera phone and your enthusiasm! You will have the opportunity for a one-to-one 30-minute session with the trainer where you can discuss your ideas and questions and get project specific help. The course will be led by Ryd Cook. Ryd is a multi award winning film director, actor and mentor. His fiction and documentary films have screened in film festivals around the world. He has 15+ years of experience, filming, editing and producing a range of films. He has also been teaching practical filmmaking for over 10 years for all ages. He currently works as a director, cameraperson, actor and mentor. |
Monday 5 February
| 10:00 |
In this series of four sessions we’ll be taking an in-depth look at various aspects of writing at postgraduate level. Each session will be 90mins, with 30mins at the end for questions and discussion. Whilst they have been designed as a set of sessions, with each building on from the previous, the individual sessions have been designed to be standalone – which means that you can attend the whole series or just those that particularly speak to you.
In this first session, we’ll be taking a step back and reflecting for a moment on what it is that you’re actually doing at PG level, as this is far more than simply writing. You’re engaging in a complex, cognitive process of knowledge creation. And so when the writing gets hard, its useful just to remember that what you are doing is far more complicated than just writing – as writing is something that you can all already do and to a pretty high degree of ability. In fact, as we will see, there are numerous factors involved in writing at this level, from the epistemological assumptions of your discipline, through how we construct argument, before we even get to how we construct an articulate sentence – and we’ll be looking at all of these.
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| 16:00 |
Public Engagement: Drop-in Sessions
Finished
A series of 30-minute drop-in sessions to talk with a member of the Public Engagement team. We offer expert advice to support your public engagement work, engagement processes and activities. These include:
These sessions are not workshops or taught sessions. Based on your area of expertise and depending on your School affiliation, you can book a time with one of our public engagement professionals:
The team will be available every week, each mentor offering two sessions of 30 minutes in the day and time indicated above. We will release new slots in the same days and times a couple of months in advance. Please book for the day and time you would like to attend, and you will receive closer to the session the Teams link to meet with the mentor. The link will be sent by RDP Course Administrator. Please make sure that that e-mail address does not go to your spam folder. |
| 16:30 |
Public Engagement: Drop-in Sessions
Finished
A series of 30-minute drop-in sessions to talk with a member of the Public Engagement team. We offer expert advice to support your public engagement work, engagement processes and activities. These include:
These sessions are not workshops or taught sessions. Based on your area of expertise and depending on your School affiliation, you can book a time with one of our public engagement professionals:
The team will be available every week, each mentor offering two sessions of 30 minutes in the day and time indicated above. We will release new slots in the same days and times a couple of months in advance. Please book for the day and time you would like to attend, and you will receive closer to the session the Teams link to meet with the mentor. The link will be sent by RDP Course Administrator. Please make sure that that e-mail address does not go to your spam folder. |
Tuesday 6 February
| 10:00 |
Once upon a time there was a researcher who spun a story so enthralling that it captured their audience’s imagination and they remembered the research for years to come. Was that researcher you? Would you like it to be? Telling a good story helps you connect with an audience; brings your research to life, visually and emotionally; and makes it easier for them to listen, understand and remember your research. This module takes you through the art and science of storytelling: understanding attention, motivation and the evolution of storytelling, the strength of non-verbal connections, dramatic structures and rhetorical devices; to give you the skills to craft an engaging story to communicate your own research. And if you want to apply this on a specific story of your own, then further support is available through individual coaching. Sarah is passionate about the art and science of communication and eloquential is her rattle bag of knowledge, skills and experience which she uses to train, coach and facilitate. Sarah collects research from areas such as psychology and neuroscience, along with practitioners’ experience from the performing arts to fill her bag of tricks, tips and advice. Sarah has been involved in public engagement since 2006, working closely with the Cambridge University. She is also a peripatetic teacher of communication and performance skills in schools, and a co-host of a podcast called Gin and Topic |
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In this series of four sessions we’ll be taking an in-depth look at various aspects of writing at postgraduate level. Each session will be 90mins, with 30mins at the end for questions and discussion. Whilst they have been designed as a set of sessions, with each building on from the previous, the individual sessions have been designed to be standalone – which means that you can attend the whole series or just those that particularly speak to you.
If you’ve ever had a look at the Cambridge Student webpages as to the requirements of postgraduate writing submitted for assessment, you’ll see that the University has only one criterion – and this is that it is ‘clearly written.’ At first glance, this seems both explicit and unequivocal as clarity in all its forms is surely the bedrock not only of postgraduate study, but of academia itself. Yet on further scrutiny, whilst there may be an instinctive consensus that this is a cardinal criterion for postgraduate writing, when it comes to defining what this actually means and how we are supposed to attain it, the matter is far less perspicuous. And indeed, clearly written is not simply an assessment criterion at Cambridge, as the vast majority of guides to academic writing rhapsodise about clarity as an assumed mutually acknowledged objective. Yet rarely is this criterion unpacked. And so in this second session, we’ll be looking at doing just that – by considering what academics see as the central tenet of ‘clearly written’, namely, argument, and also in what ways the rhetorical expectations of ‘clearly written’ in English may differ from the expectations in other languages.
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Working with your Supervisor
Finished
The student-supervisor relationship is vital for success in all research degree programmes. However, the exact role of the supervisor is often unclear and sometimes it may feel as though you are not getting the support you need. This can be frustrating for students and supervisors alike, and can lead to a negative doctoral experience. |
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| 13:00 |
Starting your PhD (STEMM)
CANCELLED
You are beginning one of the most exciting, yet challenging programme of your academic career. You have entered a new lab, with a new supervisor, new lab colleagues and a new project. This workshop will explore what it means to do a PhD, think about how to establish meaningful student-supervisor relationships and plan for a productive PhD project. |