Hi all,

I'm in the process of resurrecting a research student seminar series in my department (it used to happen, but fell by the wayside when the organising students left the uni). The idea is that every fourth seminar is an opportunity for students to do a short 15minute research talk, but the other seminars are related to other training needs. These seminars are un by our development team, academics or students from the department.

I was wondering if any of you had a similar series in your departments? And if so, what sort of sessions do you run?

We currently have suggestions for things like:
-- overcoming procrastination
-- speed reading techniques
-- getting the best out of a conference
-- surviving your Viva

Does any one here have any ideas of topics they would like to go to at this kind of event? Obviously I'm asking the same of the other students in my department, but they're not very forthcoming with ideas. Most would come to an event like this, but don't want to be that proactive in organising anything or requesting specific sessions.

Many thanks for your suggestions in advance!

Personally, I think this is a really good initiative, so when I get a nice list of topics and our website up and running I'll post it here so that others can maybe adopt something similar in their departments.

Most importantly though, we have the support of the department who are going to provide tea/coffee and cake. Provide cake and they will come!

Depending on your field, maybe something on how to get published? If you're in a big team in a lab, maybe these decisions are out of your hands, but as a social scientist I'd have loved an insider guide to publishing. Another thought how about effective job applications?

For the newer ones, how to survive your first conference or writing for a journal paper? Mind you if you are in a big research group - the gang of you would most probably go to the conference together. When I was at the conference in Edinburgh last year, I could see the groups all together and Bristol had the largest group. There wasn't a lot of mixing going on!

Great initiative! Might want to look at what's happening at these universities. Their PhD seminars aren't particularly focused on academics (which we these things tend to be) but on being a PhD student and the various practical/non-academic challenges that come with that role (as you've highlighted).

http://blogs.warwick.ac.uk/researchexchange/ (the idea of building of an academic AND social community of PhD students is quite appealing!)

http://www2.lse.ac.uk/intranet/LSEServices/TLC/TLCPhD/Authoring%20a%20PhD.aspx (The workshops at LSE are divided up by year of study, which is quite helpful as people need different types of support at different stages of their doctoral journey)

http://researchstudents.anu.edu.au/ (I believe the programme's led by Inger Mewburn of the excellent The Thesis Whisperer blog. The graduate students at ANU are really lucky to have her!)

Thanks ultimax, that's fantastic and just the sort of thing I was looking for :-)

I have attended a few of these sorts of things, and the most useful ones I went to were:

'How to write an abstract' (usually aimed at writing them for conferences rather than a paper, could link in with 'how to get the best out of a conference' or 'how to design a good poster')

'Critical analysis of the literature' (e.g. find a poorly designed study in the literature and discuss its failings vs. a well-designed example)

'How to get published' (topics such as how to pick the correct journal, how to write a good cover letter, what journals are looking for etc.)

Great idea & I hope it works well. There's a link here to an initiative that brings developing researchers together to discuss all sorts:
http://www.worcester.ac.uk/discover/dr-karima-kadi-hanifi.html

Mog