Your postgraduate research journey is about more than your thesis; developing personal and professional skills, to complement your research project specific training, is an important part of being a postgraduate researcher.
The Researcher Development at Manchester team will work with you to achieve your personal and professional goals by providing and facilitating courses for all stages of your postgraduate research from literature reviews to viva preparation to career planning.
Here is a quick guide, from the Researcher Development team, on how to approach your personal, professional and career development:
- Bookmark the Researcher Development at Manchester webpage and follow the team on twitter to keep updated about the latest courses and resources and how the team can support you.
- Read the PGR Professional and Career Training and Development – Statement of Expectations for an outline of what you can expect from us and what we expect from you.
- Discuss with your supervisor and supervisory team your training and development needs. Your supervisory team will lead and advise on discipline specific, theoretical and methodological training.
- Use the eprog training and development needs milestone to identify your strengths and gaps in development.
- Prioritise which courses and development opportunities are most appropriate for you.
- Review regularly your training and development plan with your supervisory team to ensure your plans are in line with what is expected in relation to both your project and thesis and broader career aims.
- Access the Library’s My Research Essentials training programme for workshops and resources on the research process (data management, open data and referencing, writing), disseminating your research (publishing) and raising your profile.
- Make use of the additional resources, training and support on methodological approaches from e.g. ArtsMethods@Manchester and Methods@Manchester
- Think broadly, your development as a researcher takes place in a range of ways and attending a course is only one aspect. Taking part in ‘on the job’ training such as learning a new technique or taking part in activities such as the Three Minute Thesis Competition and taking up opportunities such as The Brilliant Club participating in the PGR Showcase, all contribute to your professional development.
- Record and monitor your development. You can use eprog to do this and many PGRs find that keeping a research diary of their training and development provides a useful way to record their knowledge and skills and reflect on their development.
The Researcher Development team are here to help, if you have any questions about any aspect of your training and development please contact us at ResDev@manchester.ac.uk.