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Doctoral Research Training

Danielle Lamb

Postgraduate students are increasingly adept at taking control of their own personal and professional development, and are more career-minded than ever before. Whether they plan to stay within academia on finishing their doctorates, or forge their careers outside it (and recent statistics show that around 45% of doctoral research students in the arts and humanities will continue to work in higher education, more than in any other discipline area), postgraduates acknowledge the importance of acquiring, and being able to demonstrate and articulate, a wide range of skills that will enhance their performance in the world of work.

In 2004, the AHRC set out a framework of research training requirements for postgraduate study in the arts and humanities, asking individual institutions to provide training to help research students 'both to complete a high-quality doctoral thesis and to develop a range of knowledge, understanding and skills necessary for their future employment'.

However, how to go about this was left open. When trying to design such training, the individualized nature of research projects, coupled with the fact that doctoral students in our disciplines are often working in small research communities, has often posed difficulties. But with some postgraduates feeling that the 'generic' research skills training available to them had little to say about the particular subject-specific demands of conducting successful research, or preparing for a career in their chosen academic field, the Subject Centre for Philosophical and Religious Studies (PRS) felt we were in a position to make a positive contribution.

After consultation with departments and Subject Associations on the design and delivery of such a programme, it was trialled initially in a single pilot region - Yorkshire and the North East of England - in 2005/6 and 2006/7, using funding obtained from the AHRC collaborative research training scheme (£10,000 over two years). The six HEIs that we approached all took part: Durham University, the University of Hull, the University of Leeds, the University of Sheffield, the University of York and York St John University.

It took the form of two events in each academic year - a two-day residential, and a one-day conference. These were designed and run in a collegiate manner with academic staff at the participating institutions, locating the training firmly within the disciplines in question.

The residential comprised a series of skills development workshops - students explored a variety of issues from those faced at the beginning of doctoral study, to the challenges of preparing for life after the PhD. Topics included:

The summer conference was an opportunity for students to present their own research in a supportive environment and to get detailed formative feedback on their performance - including advice on the proposals submitted prior to the conference, and constructive guidance on the delivery, as well as the content, of their presentations. The programme also included further workshops on conference-related topics such as preparing conference proposals, and asking and responding to questions in a research seminar situation.

The students who participated in these events gave very good feedback - for example the residential workshops were rated as 'good / very good' on average by 90% of respondents. In addition to this, academic staff at the participating institutions also had very positive comments. Dr Hugh Pyper (Head of Biblical Studies, University of Sheffield) said, 'I found it a particularly enjoyable event to take part in myself as it was an opportunity to raise some of the practical issues involved in developing a career in academia which are not formally part of the academic teaching and supervision for individual research students... The feedback I had from students who participated was uniformly excellent.' Dr Matthew Eddy (History and Philosophy of Science and Medicine MA Director, Durham University) commented, 'It helped [students] to think about their long-term teaching goals and the ways in which their research fit in with their teaching.'

More background to the project, including details of past events, can be found at http://prs.heacademy.ac.uk/projects/ahrc/index.html.

This page was originally on the website of The Subject Centre for Philosophical and Religious Studies. It was transfered here following the closure of the Subject Centre at the end of 2011.

 

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The British Association for the Study of Religions
The Religious Studies Project