Blog Archives
Come along to the 2024 Postgraduate Researcher Poster Competition!
The Graduate School would like to invite you to their 17th Annual Postgraduate Researcher Poster Competition on Thursday 23rd May 2024, 11am to 2pm, in the Owl’s Nest on the ground floor of the Learning Hub, Waterside campus. The poster competition is a development opportunity for doctoral research students, who present their research on a research poster, giving short 1-1 verbal presentations alongside. Come along to meet some of our PGRs and learn about their research!
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UON Research Conference 2024 – call for submissions deadline extended to 13th May!
The call for submissions for our Annual Research Conference is open to all researchers at UON, so whether you are a PGR student, an early career or more experienced researcher you can apply to present your research on Tuesday 25th June (on campus) and/or on Wednesday 26th June (online). You have the choice of a 20 min oral presentation, chairing a round table discussion, facilitating a workshop, presenting a 20/20 Pecha Kucha (20 slides, each for 20 secs!), designing a research poster/infographic for an online collection or submitting an artefact/object for a ‘touch the exhibits’ display on campus. You can enter as many of these categories as you would like. The call closes at midnight on 13th May. To enter read on…..
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Call for Posters from PGRs! Enter the Postgraduate Researcher Poster Competition 2024
The Graduate School has launched the call for entries for the 17th Annual PGR Poster Competition, which will be held on campus on Thursday May 23rd. Our Poster Competition is open to all doctoral students at UON and is an excellent development opportunity for presenting research, for improving communication and for networking with other doctoral researchers & visiting staff. The Entry Form is here, the new deadline for entering is April 29th. You have until May 23rd to produce and print an A1 landscape poster, which you need to bring with you. There will be Amazon voucher prizes to win – £100 for the winner and 2x £75 for the runners up!
Read the rest of this entryGraduate School Development Days 2023-24
Graduate School Development Days on campus have all been finalised for the 2023-24 academic year. You are invited to browse through the days and topics below and plan ahead to set aside time for the ones that you would like to attend to meet up with other PGRs and attend some development workshops. Here is a brief overview with links for more information and to book.
Development Days are full days on campus, with lunch, based on a particular stage of study or theme. They are designed to be experiential, discussion-based and involve networking with other PGRs Face to face opportunities are proven to decrease feelings of isolation amongst research students and will allow you to make new friends with fellow PGRs for future support and connections.
13th November 2023 Finishing stage – Editing, proof reading and viva ‘experiences’
Strategies for managing the final editing & proofreading of your thesis. Hear from visiting alumni on their viva experiences and ask all those tricky questions.
15th December 2023 Unlocking the World of Quantitative Research: Philosophy and Practice: (Half day)
Join us for a comprehensive workshop designed to demystify the art and science of quantitative research, equipping you with essential knowledge and skills to conduct meaningful research in your field. This workshop will be for about 3h, immersing you in the philosophy, questionnaire design, and data analysis using SPSS.
16th January 2024 ‘Reading’ Development Day
Improving your reading skills will also improve your writing skills. This development day will involve a reading retreat and will feature links between good reading skills and writing at Level 8.
16th February 2024 ‘Writing’ Development Day
Dr Alison Hardy is back with her legendary writing retreat, where she will first introduce 90 minutes of good writing strategies, followed by dedicated writing slots to enable you to get on with your doctoral writing tasks.
7th March 2024 Presenting and disseminating your research with impact
This day will focus on impactful research, methods of dissemination, improving your presenting skills and getting your research out there by building your digital presence.
15th April 2024 Progressing from the middle stage of your doctorate
Maintaining momentum, managing your supervisor and their feedback, overcoming procrastination and improving productivity – just get your thesis done! Here are lots of tips and tricks that will help you achieve progression in this latter stage.
Writing your first article and increasing your chances of getting published in journals, with ‘expert’ academics talking about their experiences and giving tips.
18th June 2024 Building a Research Career
This day will focus on what it takes to build a successful research career, whether you would like to work in or outside of academia. PhD to Prof or another exciting career outside of academia – what is it to be?
As well as our Development Days on campus we are also offering a couple of online days on qualitative research.
Part 1: Qualitative research methods: an interactive guide 14th March 2024
Part 2: The collection and analysis of qualitative data 5th June 2024
We have a variety of short webinars and workshops on offer in the Gateway calendar, so take a look to find what you need. If you would like help deciding what to sign up to then please contact Simone Apel for a 1-1 session on Teams.
Come along to the Annual Postgraduate Researcher Poster Competition!
The Graduate School would like to invite you to their Annual Postgraduate Researcher Poster Competition on Thursday 25th May 2023, 11am to 2pm, in the Owl’s Nest on the ground floor of the Learning Hub, Waterside campus. The poster competition is a development opportunity for doctoral research students, who present their research on a research poster, giving short 1-1 verbal presentations alongside. Come along to meet some of our PGRs and learn about their research!
If you are a researcher or a research student yourself why not come along to support your colleagues. The event is a competition and we are offering a first prize of £100, and two second prizes of £75 for the top three posters. We will have judges circulating, picked from academic and non-academic staff. Judges will score the posters on design, accessibility of content, verbal presentation and researcher engagement. The prizes will be announced at 1.45pm.
We hope to see you there!
Want to learn how to design effective academic posters? Join us for a poster making and critique session!
Academic poster presentations are excellent visual and verbal communication tools for researchers to describe their research to others. In this highly practical workshop we will consider what a poster should convey, we will look at visual design and written content and, using tips from poster competition judges, the session will also feature best practice in the verbal presentation of your poster at a competition. The session includes a design critique of real academic posters and you will go away better prepared to produce your own. It will contain essential training for PGRs entering into UON’s Poster Competition on May 25th.
After the workshop you will:
- Understand the aim & purpose of poster presentations
- Describe what makes a great poster from a judges perspective
- Understand best practice in design to ensure your poster is attractive
- Be able to write and organise your poster text
- Identify the verbal presentation skills needed
We are looking forward to have you join us for this poster making workshop on Tuesday, 4 Apr 2023, from 12:00 to 14:30.
For more information and to sign up visit the workshop’s Gateway page.
Want to know how to make excellent academic presentations? Come to this Graduate School Development Day!
This experiential one-day course is focused on improving your presentations skills enabling you to deliver confident, clear and persuasive presentations both for internal seminars and external conferences. We will utilise a range of discussions, reflection, and experiential exercises to develop techniques to enhance the impact our presentations have.
Adair Richards is a globally recognised researcher and higher education specialist. He has spoken at many of the world’s top Universities (e.g. UCL, Harvard, Yale), and is now an Honorary Associate Professor at the University of Warwick. His PhD was for research into potential cures for antibiotic-resistant bacterial diseases. Across his career, Adair has gained a broad base of academic experience also including postdoctoral research positions in both the sciences – biophysical chemistry, and the humanities – museum studies. His academic publications have received hundreds of citations, including by a Nobel laureate, and he has a particular interest in interdisciplinary studies.
This event will take place on campus on Friday, 31st March 2023 10am to 4pm with lunch provided.
Find out more and sign up on Gateway here.
Call for Posters from PGRs! Enter the Postgraduate Researcher Poster Competition 2023
The Graduate School has launched the call for entries for the 16th Annual PGR Poster Competition, which will be held on campus on Thursday May 25th. Our Poster Competition is open to all doctoral students at UON and is an excellent development opportunity for presenting research, for improving communication and for networking with other doctoral researchers. The Entry Form is here, deadline for entering is April 27th. You have until May 25th to produce and print your A1 landscape poster. There will be Amazon voucher prizes to win – £100 for the winner and 2x £75 for the runners up!
The aim of the event is for PGRs to create a research poster that explains complex research to a mixed audience of non-subject specialists. Your paper poster will be displayed on traditional poster boards in an exhibition in the Owl’s Nest, Learning Hub at Waterside Campus, with an in-person judging session. Entrants must be available from 10am on the day until 2pm.
At whatever stage in the research process you are, do take this opportunity to share your work with others and gain valuable feedback. For further information on the rules of entry, please see the Guidelines.
Read the rest of this entryWellbeing Day for researchers on January 18th 2023
Following on from our successful Wellbeing Week in September, we are hosting, on campus, a Wellbeing Day for researchers on the topic of Resilience in Research on the 18th of January. It is open to all postgraduate researchers and all staff doing research at UON. There will be two main sessions held on the day.
The morning session will be facilitated by Daniela Bultoc, an award-winning emotional intelligence and resilient leader coach. This interactive session aims to provide researchers with the space to focus on themselves, review where they are now and gain a renewed perspective on what is important to them. The session provides practical insights into building resiliency and refocusing in times of uncertainty or when dealing with setbacks.
Participants will have the opportunity to reflect on what helps them be at their best, what motivates them and what their strengths are. They will become more aware their own communication approach in different situations, and especially when solving problems or working with others.
The afternoon session will be facilitated by Cathy Smith, Dean of Research and Innovation, and will be a discussion based around different themes concerning the various challenges and concerns faced by researchers. There will be an opportunity for attendees to briefly discuss wellbeing issues they have experienced as a researcher at UON. And the discussion will cover how the University can support the researcher community and how we can support each other. You can choose to remain anonymous by submitting your thoughts, experiences, and questions around these areas beforehand to be brought up at the event in this section of the day. You can follow the links above for the sessions’ respective Gateway pages for more information, to see the schedule and to sign up for the sessions. Please note that the two sessions have separate sign ups and you need to sign up for both of them if you wish to attend the whole day. Lunch will be provided
UON Annual Research Conference 2023 call for hosts and organisers
The University of Northampton’s Annual Research Conference is a 2-day conference run in June which gives UON researchers, from Postgraduate Researchers to Professors, an opportunity to present their research. Previous conferences have featured key notes, traditional paper presentations, posters, round table discussions and Pecha Kucha – 20 slides, each shown for 20 seconds. Last year, one of the two days was organised as an online event to give PGRs studying off-site an opportunity to present their research. This was well-received, so for 2023 we would like to continue this format.
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UON Graduate School Blog 