Enhancing the postgraduate research experience:
skills, employability and careers
Edinburgh Napier University, Craighouse Campus
6 July 2010
Notes
All presentations are available at
http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/events/detail/2010/academyevents/06_July_PGR
Overview 1: PRES – evidence and implications
Presentation at
http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/assets/York/documents/ourwork/postgraduate/PRESenhanc
ementworkshop_ChrisPark.ppt
Case study 1: Skills development - The Speed PhD (Dr Jim Boran, University of Manchester)
Presentation at
http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/assets/York/documents/ourwork/postgraduate/JimBoran_Sp
eed_PhD.ppt
Discussion session 1: How to embed skills development effectively into research degree
programmes (‘One Step Beyond’ recommendation 7)
Learning outcomes for the skills sessions can often be little more than tick box exercise at
the end of the course. Attendees discussed how to embed skills and fed back two
suggestions per table:
 Supervisors- retraining, updating; should there be supervisor regulation? (NB there
is a supervisor engagement survey tool in BOS)
 Generic skills to be taught at an appropriate level, limit how many students can
attend and make it seem exclusive.
 Induction: how important it is. Importance of networking and enhancing
engagement.
 Induction- more dynamic engagement to raise expectations of who they can be,
where they can go
 Annual learning development action planning to help keep them aware of what’s
going on. Awareness of embedding skills.
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Senior management buy-in requires rigorous evaluation: they will always ask
“what’s the benefit?”
Tailoring to subject specific areas and meeting the needs of part time students.
Making a compulsory induction book
Bringing alumni into the induction programme (“where are they now?”)
Does embedding mean compulsory?
Learning outcomes for courses should be clearly defined.
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Important to promote skills development to the supervisors.
Be clear about what the programmes of courses are offering. Push PDP and have
that driving the process.
Overview 2: Skills, professional and career development – The Researcher Development
Framework (RDF), and doctoral careers and how to manage them (Ellen Pearce, Vitae)
Presentation at
http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/assets/York/documents/ourwork/postgraduate/EllenPearce_
Vitae.ppt
Case study 2: Professional and career development – Preparing future academics
(Professor Mary Bownes, University of Edinburgh)
Presentation at
http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/assets/York/documents/ourwork/postgraduate/Mary_Bowne
s_PRES.ppt
Case study at
http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/assets/EvidenceNet/Case_studies/thompson_edinburgh.pdf
Discussion session 2: How to establish employer needs for research postgraduate skills (‘One
Step Beyond’ recommendation 12)
 Coordinated approach to employer perceptions. Lots of institutions have lots of local
contacts, question of who to ask HR? senior management or employers? Are
employer expectations realistic
 Commercial awareness- chicken and egg situation if you haven’t worked in business
 What is a PhD actually for?
 Evidence in job adverts- trawl to see what sort of skills people are asking for
 Knowledge transfer and using the universities better. Innovation vouchers- way for
smaller employers to buy in expertise from universities.
 Learning from each other in terms of universities and employers. Work wisdom.
 Talking to employers and getting them involved in the delivery of skills agendas at
institutions
 Dialogue with employers nationally and regionally- look at how they operate their
post graduate recruitment programmes
 Increasing the numbers of joint funded post-docs and PhDs
 Engaging employers within the skills development and training programmes.
Southampton career day bringing Alumni and employers on-board.
 Informing research students of the realities of the job search and thinking about
outside academia.
 Less convinced of contacting employers- do we talk to the managing director or HR?
Talking to alumni is the key- finding out where they went and what skills they found
useful/less useful.
 Knowledge transfer and dual ownership- stronger in engineering in science but open
out to other areas.
 More engagement with small/medium sized enterprise.