The Doctoral School was delighted to be able to fund three of our research students, Nausheen Shahid (PhD Computer Science), Dan Parkes (PhD Geography) and Edd Loades (PhD Biological Sciences) to attend the Life Beyond the PhD conference held at Cumberland Lodge, Windsor last week. This annual conference offers PhD students and early career researchers the opportunity to share their experiences with each other and to take part in invaluable training in communication, public engagement, and drafting interdisciplinary research proposals, while also being encouraged to think about the impact of their research within the wider context of society.
All three have come back enthused by the experience. Thanks to all three for their inspiring reports on the conference:
- Dan: 'I entered one of the most diverse spaces I have ever seen in academia. Diverse in age, gender, discipline, ethnicity, etc. If we are the future of academia, then the “Rich old white boys club” is finally coming to an end.' Read Dan's report in full
- Edd: 'Overall, this conference widened my horizons to the skills that having a PhD provides, inspired me, and enabled me to be in an environment where I could learn, communicate, and enhance my transferable skills. I highly recommend this conference to all PhD students.' Read Edd's report in full
- Nausheen: 'The conference programme was packed with various talks and activities such as inspirational success stories, deployment of transferrable skills learned throughout the Ph.D. journey, verbal, digital and writing techniques for better impact and public engagement and social impact of one’s research. Sessions and tasks were so well designed that you get engaged quickly and start deploying your skills.' Read Nausheen's report in full
This Life Beyond the PhD conference is held annually and we hope to continue providing some funded spaces to our postgraduate researchers, especially those approaching the end of their PhD journey, in future years. Applications are normally opened end of June / July.