Opportunity to increase your knowledge of understanding and working with people, communication, influence and impact
Places are available on the next two online sessions of Working with Difficult People, delivered by Company of Mind.
The knowledge, insights, skills and tools you will gain from Working with Difficult People will make it easier to understand and work with people, particularly in challenging situations.
To find out more and register directly for the events while places last, please go to our LDC Development Team Eventbrite pages:
Join us for the final part of our four-week programme ‘From Surviving to Thriving’! The session is presented by Dr Matt Lane from The Researcher Development Partnership Cambridge on:
While a joyful curiosity might be the fuel of research, doing it day-to-day can be really tough. The series aims to help researchers move just a little bit from a sense of merely ‘surviving’ within the research process to ‘thriving’, being just a little bit more productive and happier.
Getting Organised for Research (and Life) 1 – Get Control of the ‘Tasks’ that Plague our Mind, 25 March 2022 (Time: 10:00am – 12:30pm)
Getting Organised for Research (and Life) 2 – Get Control of Research Literature and Information, 01 April 2022 (Time: 10:00am – 12:30pm)
Overcoming Imposter Syndrome, 05 April 2022 (Time: 09:30am – 12:30pm)
Getting Organised for Research (and Life) 3 – Get Control of Life’s Projects, 08 April 2022 (Time: 10:00am – 12:30pm)
The Emotionally Intelligent Researcher, 26 April 2022 (Time: 09:30am – 12:30pm)
Supporting Your Career Offer
Creating Effective Job Applications 1 and the Follow-up Support 2, 01 & 11 March 2022 (Time: 09:30am – 12:30pm)
Effective Career Networking, 15 March 2022 (Time: 09:30am – 12:30pm)
Shining at Interview, 22 March 2022 (Time: 09:30am – 12:30pm)
PGR ‘Career Ready’ Bootcamp, 29 March 2022 (09:30am – 12:30pm)
The Emotionally Intelligent Researcher, 26 April 2022 (09:30am – 12:30pm)
Our workshops listed above are taught live and online to Postgraduate Researchers throughout the year. Workshop numbers are capped and places book up quickly. Please don’t hesitate to get in touch with us if you have any questions at ldcdevelopment@liverpool.ac.uk .
We are pleased to share the following article, written by Dr. Adrian West, Company of Mind
“What should be, or ought to be, is different from what is” (the error of ‘speculative thinking’ as defined by Robert Thouless).
What can we do to make sure the future we want happens?
Is that even possible, when so much is unpredictable and beyond our control? Especially if knowing what we “want” isn’t actually that straightforward. Reality is Contingent Much of what happens in our careers (and lives) is outside our control – however strong and single-minded our visionary belief. If you ask academics (or anyone) what chance events had a big positive impact on their careers, you always get interesting and surprising stories. Scientific laws define the boundaries of what is possible, but what actually happens is largely down to historical chance happenings: the “contingent” nature of reality as Stephen Jay Gould put it. If you apply for positions, fellowships and so on, the outcome will depend at least on who else happened to apply for the same positions – for example.
Do Something! Yet it’s also true that you can “make things happen”. This is easy to see if we consider the alternative: if you do nothing at all it’s far less likely that much will happen! You can be confident and make Herculean efforts…that come to nothing; and you can make a tiny nudge that topples an empire. But in both cases you learn a lot along the way and create new possibilities – if you’re not so blinded by self-belief that you are able to see them. “Doing something” has a power – “problems” of any significance require us to start solving them just to understand what the problem actually is.
Capacities for success? Taken together, those points advocate a strategy for success that is a combination of energy, action, wisdom, playfulness, persistence, courage, and common sense – as you might expect. It doesn’t say “what” to do, but it does indicate why those obvious qualities are, in fact, important.
What to Actually “Do”? (and Why We Don’t). The common problem is to have a rather fixed view of what we want ‘next’, which at the same time is (perplexingly) rather vague: “some sort of fellowship”; “some sort of intermediate academic position”, or “I don’t really want to think about it”. Which are hard things to execute on.
But, maddeningly, other concrete things do have to be done ‘now’ and within our immediate focus – an experiment; writing a chapter; teaching tomorrow; a meeting…so it’s very difficult to put serious energy into the more vague, further away, futures. The difficulty of a task isn’t so much the technical challenge, it’s more about emotional resistance to doing it, or a lack of clarity about what exactly to actually “do”. We’ll definitely need to master this “managing the present, while creating the future” if we end up responsible for other people.
A Trick The trick is to make the vague definite; the fixed flexible; and the not-doable long term, into short-term things we can easily “do” today. As a caricature, let’s use the ambition of becoming a “Star Researcher” for example. You can find out what you’ll need to have achieved by, say, five years from now. Then you can work backwards to identify steps you can actually execute on today. Time is shorter than we think; but you can achieve more than you imagine you can by making steady small steps of useful progress, from which we will at least learn, and perhaps therefore adapt our plans and goals as we progress. You will end up way ahead of people who never quite got around to it – which may include your ‘old’ self.
One Way to Get Going Pushing and motivating ourselves can be lonely, hard and delusion prone. Many of us are more effective when working in a team towards a goal we all believe in. There’s an upcoming event taking place for people who enjoy collaboration and find the above relevant to their future. It is a team exercise, where each “research group” is in friendly competition with the other teams, to achieve the most progress for their individual members (much as a real research group functions). The series runs over a fortnight with 3 consecutive facilitated sessions “Ingenuity”, “Perseverance” and “Opportunity” online : If that’s for you, and you can commit to the time needed, then we’ll look forward to seeing you there.
Practise Skills; Build Capacities If you attended our earlier series – Practical Thinking; Working with Difficult People; Getting Organised for Research (and Life) – you should be able to recognise where all of those tools apply to this. For example “Motivate the Elephant”? “Lateral Thinking”? “Horizons of Focus”? We won’t be re-doing that material, but it’s definitely an opportunity to apply what you have learnt for real. Why is that important?
Anthropologists tell us that the unique human capacity isn’t intelligence, but imitation. As a species we’re stunningly good at it, unknowingly. Think of language, civilisations, religions, cultures, skills, and professions. It is why humanity has made the unique kind of progress that is has. That being so, you’re perfectly adapted to transcend evolution because you can consciously make choices about what you ‘imitate’, and therefore what abilities you acquire, and hence what you become. We’re less ‘fixed’ than we think we are, which is reassuring really.
Next Tuesday (the 27th of April) from 10-12am, Peers for PhDs are hosting a Semester 2 Check in coffee morning where we can catch up and have an informal chat about how we are all doing over a cup of tea or coffee. Spring is a great time to check in with goals and plans, refocus and make sure we’re looking after ourselves. Join us for this coffee morning with your favourite beverage, check in with your peers and let us know how your research is going!
Please register via the link above, and the link to the zoom meeting will be sent out on the day
All PhD students at the University of Liverpool are invited to join the conversation. Please register in advance using your university email.
You can be added to the mailing list to hear about future events or ask questions by contacting ella.fox-widdows@liverpool.ac.uk
For those near completion and now in the process of job searching, the challenges of the pandemic can make this process more challenging than before. This means that planning ahead and making essential preparation is particularly important,, as highlighted in a recent article from jobs.ac.uk, ‘Getting your post-PhD job during COVID-19‘.
Our upcoming programme includes a number of online workshops, delivered by our Careers Consultant, Sally Beyer, to support your career preparation, including two workshops to help your mental preparation and mind-set:
Past feedback: From the Career-Wise Researcher Workshop:
“A great opportunity to really think about your personal and career goals and consider the steps you can take to improve your chances of success”
“Good for identifying your inspiration, reflection on what you want from your career and a reminder of why you signed up for a PhD in the first place”
Further ways to prepare for the future
If you are still far from completion you will have more time for career preparation, and time to review your interests and assess the activities that you should be engaging in now to further those interests. We have a new workshop series, based in an engaging game format, to consider how the ingenuity, perseverance and opportunity can help you reach your desired ambitions:
If you are looking at other activities to supplement the experience in your PhD, you might also consider the opportunities to teach your research area in local schools through the Brilliant Club:
In this session we’ll be discussing tips and methods in ways we wind down and enjoy our free time outside of research! Sharing resources, routes to go on walks, and all things we enjoy! This will be an informal discussion where we can share our hobbies and remind ourselves why it’s important to maintain a good-work life balance and be happy outside of our PhDs.
All PhD students at the University of Liverpool are invited to join the conversation.
Peers for PhDs is a student-led project for people undertaking PhDs at the University of Liverpool. We aim to support wellbeing by providing more opportunities for postgraduate researchers from across the university to meet, share practical solutions to common challenges and support each through the ups and downs of the PhD. You can be added to the mailing list to hear about future events or ask questions by contacting ella.fox-widdows@liverpool.ac.uk
We have opened booking for most of the remaining events for this academic year on March 5th. These cover a range of subjects and include some exciting events new to the programme. The workshops are arranged under the following headings:
NB you will need to register for each workshop in the lists below separately. Places are still very limited – please only book if you can attend!
Also, if anyone is interested in the opportunities to teach your research area in local schools and hear about the work of the Brilliant Club, they are offering an upcoming webinar:
The upcoming programme includes a range of workshops to help you improve your writing techniques including two new series of workshops provided by Dr Matt Lane, who delivered our ‘From Surviving to Thriving’ series. Places on all workshops are limited so we ask that you only book on one of the following three workshop series, to allow others the opportunities (Thank you!)
1. Dr Matt Lane’s first workshop is aimed at those in their first year and are writing their Literature review or their First year report:
2. Dr Matt Lane will also deliver a further series for those in their second year or beyond and are looking to advance their writing skills for research publications or their thesis:
3. In addition, we are also offering three shorter webinars, delivered by Dr Shirley Cooper and based on the research writing webinars provided in previous years.:
We expect to continue our online writing retreats over the summer period. New dates will be share with all who have already signed up to the existing list for these retreats on the link:
New Series – We have now released details of a further series of team-based workshops by the Company of Mind (Dr Adrian West)., which are spread over the three dates: 25th May, 1st June and 8th June.
In this session we’ll be discussing tips and experience of undergoing a PhD whilst having responsibilities outside of research time. This includes caring responsibilities, part-time or full-time work, or other commitments and will be an open informal discussion with like-minded peers on the best approaches to manage time and the specific struggles of students who have similar responsibilities.
All PhD students at the University of Liverpool are invited to join the conversation.
Peers for PhDs is a student-led project for people undertaking PhDs at the University of Liverpool. We aim to support wellbeing by providing more opportunities for postgraduate researchers from across the university to meet, share practical solutions to common challenges and support each through the ups and downs of the PhD. You can be added to the mailing list to hear about future events or ask questions by contacting ella.fox-widdows@liverpool.ac.uk
The Liverpool Doctoral College Development team programme for Jan to March is listed below and events are open for registration. Follow the links on each title for more information and to book a place. The list below is loosely organised to our programme themes, with some overlap between themes. All events will take place online, mostly in Zoom.* NB Places are limited – please only book if you can attend!
Taking Ownership of your PhD
Workshops for those who have recently begun their PhD
Managing your own motivation is important to maintain research progress. We offer an early workshop to help you set goals for the coming year, and then two workshop series, the first to help you manage yourself and your motivations and the second to build better working relations with others. NB you will need to register for each workshop in these series separately.
Our online writing retweets will continue, which provide community writing support, particularly for those managing the final write-up in isolation. For details see:
*If you have problems in connecting, or have other access issues, please get in touch with us directly at ldcdevelopment@liverpool.ac.uk as it may be possible to make alternative arrangements.
We have announced our new programme for January to March.Registration opens 6th January.
We would like to thank all those who have joined our events, webinars, workshops, writing retreats and so on over the past year. We wish you the very best for the coming break, and hope you do feel able to have a break, if not to meet people, at least to have a change of scenery … Look after yourself, and support friends and colleagues where possible.
We also hope that you are looking forward to 2021. It has been a challenging year for most of us and we can only hope for better in the coming year. Maybe you will more time in the University, meet people face to face at last, get to conferences, or to finish your thesis ….
We also have a new programme for January to March, although delivery will remain online. A full list is on ourweb timetable, where you can obtain further information for most events and registration opens on the 6th January. Here we take a preview of our January events.
Writing retreats – Our programme begins with our online writing retreats, which offer peer support to those writing (although you also do reading, data preparation …) All those already on our list for these events will be notified of these upcoming dates.
Teaching Opportunity – Are you interested in a teaching opportunity in local secondary schools? Would you like an opportunity to gain valuable and rewarding experience in teaching your own research area to support those considering University? The Brilliant Club are providing a webinar for us to introduce their Scholars programme, how it works (even in a pandemic) and how it will help you. No registration is required, see below for details:
Presentation skills – Are you looking to improve your presentation skills? We have two online workshops to help you plan your next talk, and deliver your research coherently and succinctly, and to help you develop your delivery style and gain confidence. For further details follow the links below. (The sessions are repeated in March.)
Goal planning – Finally, the start of the year is a good time to review your progress and set goals for the coming year. Join us in the following session delivered by Lynne Elliott (LSTM) to reflect on your progress so far, what you have learnt from your experiences and plan what you want to accomplish in the coming months:
“The next Peers for PhDs meeting at the end of this month will be centred around discussing self-motivation and setting achievable goals throughout the PhD! It will be hosted by myself, a PhD student in the Electrical Engineering building and Carys, a PhD student in the Archaeology, Classics and Egyptology department! We have a short informal presentation with some tips and discussion points on being self-motivated and setting smart and realistic goals during this difficult and isolated time! The aim is to have an open discussion with everyone contributing tips or struggles.
The session will be on zoom on Thursday 26th of November at 6-8pm! Please register with the link above to join us then and find more information about the event.
The zoom link will be sent out to registrants next week,
All PhD students at the University of Liverpool are invited to join the conversation. You can be added to the mailing list or ask questions by contacting ella.fox-widdows@liverpool.ac.uk, and please pass on the message to any PhD students you think might be interested in this event,
Hope you are well and hope to see you there next Thursday,
