Have you considered how to achieve impact with your research?   Although you can gain academic recognition through publications and conference presentations, as a researcher, you are also expected to achieve wider impact with your research though working across disciplines, working with non-academic partners or through public communication and engagement.  Impact, and in particular public engagement, is an expectation of the research councils and other funding bodies.

Engaging in these impact activities is also highly motivating and will help you develop wider skills, such as project planning, communication, working with different groups and can benefit both your research and your long-term career. The LDC Development Public Engagement theme  offers more information on how, as a post-graduate researcher, you can gain involvement in public engagement.

The workshop ‘Making Meaningful Impact during your PhD‘, 21st Feb, 10 – 3pm, part of the LDC Development Programme, will help you to design and plan an achievable project for making meaningful impact with your research as a postgraduate researcher. Using Design Thinking processes, you will identify the needs of the key beneficiaries of your research, generate innovative ideas for making impact, build a prototype of your project and test your ideas via a supportive peer review with fellow PGRs.

You can gain further experience of public communication through online publishing to University news articles or sources such as ‘The Conversation’. The LDC Development online course, ‘Communicating research online: writing for a wider audience‘ , 11th Feb – 8th April, will help you prepare a suitable article in short steps each week, through regular practice, advice and supportive feedback. The course also includes an opportunity to join a peer review.

We also be offering two further webinars on related subjects:  

• 12th March 12:30 – 13:30 Webinar on ‘The conversation’ delivered by Catrin Owen from SoTA and
• 20th March  12:30 – 13:30   Webinar: Using Twitter for Academic Purposes delivered by Rachel Heah  from SLSJ.

Further details will  be announced shortly.

The LDC programme includes further workshops and webinar to help you develop your writing and presenting skills, as well as to prepare for conferences. For more details see our programme timetable.