Training

I certainly don’t need to write at any length about the fact I think it is crucial that scientists communicate their research with the public. Over the summer we’ll be sharing a few posts on this very subject.

To get the ball rolling I thought I’d focus on one aspect of science communication (#scicomm): how to get your research out there to the media, be it written press, radio or TV. If I put my mind to it, I could write a little how-to-guide, but truth is, there are others who can do it way better than I can. More helpful (perhaps?) is a collection of places you can go to for training on how to improve how you communicate with the media.

Media skills for scientists by SciDev.net – It is an online course, which you can do at your own pace. It comes in at £120 but does include more than 12 hours of lectures and plenty of supporting materials (worksheets, slides and feedback). As a side note – the training pages of SciDev.net include a section with over 50 practical guides on all kids of subjects, from how to reach a wider audience with your research, to how to consider gender balance in science reporting, right through to choosing the right journal for your research article. Good news: they are all free!
Media skills training by The Royal Society – a one-day course where you will work with an experienced TV production team, a top voice coach, and a leading science communicator to prepare and practice media interviews. It comes in at a punchy £450, but there are some bursaries which are well worth looking into.
VoYS Standing up for Science media workshops – I’ve attend one of these in the past and highly recommend them. It was an excellent opportunity to gain a real insight into how the media works. They are free and happen all over the UK, but fill up fast, so its worthwhile signing up for them early. For upcoming opportunities, take a look here. A few workshops have happened state-side, so its worth keeping an eye on the USA Voice of Young Science website for more US based workshops in the future.
Introduction to the news media by the Science Media Centre – a half a day session offering a beginner’s guide to the media. For upcoming opportunities you’ll need to email to register your interest.
The European Geosciences Union (EGU) have also put together a number of resources and guides. Not sure if your research is newsworthy, then this guide is for you! Is your paper being press released but you’ve got no idea what happens next, this might help! Invited to take part in a press conference but not sure what to expect, worry no more! There is also a useful handbook published on the EGU’s blog, GeoLog, in collaboration with Climatica which is packed with information.
Journalists’ Views on what makes a newsworthy scientific abstract or presentation – a video prepared by the EGU where they spoke to journalists about this very topic.

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Public engagement training by NERC – sadly this is only open to NERC funded researchers, but well worth it if you can get on it! It is currently paused, but keep an eye on the website for info.
Training from the National co-ordinating centre for public engagement – There are a broad range of subjects covered in these workshops which run on an annual basis, taking place in Bristol or London. Register your interest via email.
Science communication training by the European Science Communication Network.
Training materials from the European Science Communication Network – a number of handbooks and notes, from the above courses, all of which are shared via a creative commons licence (yay for open access!).
British Science Association, Media Fellows – for a more immersive experience you want to get involved with these! The scheme offers a practicing researcher two to six weeks working at the heart of a media outlet such as the Guardian, BBC Breakfast.
Mass Media Science & Engineering Fellows Program by AAAS – the US version of the British Science Association Media Fellowships, which will give scientists the opportunity to research, write, and report today’s headlines, sharpening their abilities to communicate complex scientific issues to the public.

I can’t vouch for all these resources, workshops and schemes, so I’d love to hear back from anyone who has taken part in them and who can offer their opinion on how useful they found them!

Not only that, this list is very much UK focused, with a few US based opportunities for good measure. I’d love to make it more inclusive of other opportunities, so if you know of any other courses and workshops open elsewhere in Europe and across the globe, please add it to the comments, or ping me an email! Or you can reach me on Twitter too.

Welcome to the second post in this series of how to make the most of your PhD. If you missed what these posts are all about, check out last week’s post to get all the details!

Credit: Wikimedia Commons, user unknown

For this post, I wanted to talk about getting some generic (and very transferable, also known as soft) skills. They are the sort of thing any employer, whether you want to continue in an academic career or are thinking of make the move into industry, or even think you might want to go into something totally new, will look for. Trawl through any job ad and you’ll soon see these kinds of skills are important to employers. Unfortunately, how to go about gaining these skills doesn’t lend it’s self to creating a list, like I did last time, so this is more of a word heavy post.

Top Tip #1! Even if you are in the very early stages of your PhD, it is worth while keeping an eye on the job market and checking job descriptions, especially if you know what it is you want to go into once you finish your PhD. This way, you’ll be able to hone, from the start, the kind of skills and experience you’ll need to land your dream job (if such a thing truly exists!).

So, what are these skills I’m talking about? I’m certain the majority of you are familiar with what I mean, but just in case, here are a few examples: leadership, communication, organisational, time management skills, amongst many others etc… The truth is, you’ll get a lot of these through just completing your Phd, but it is important to think about being able to prove you’ve got these skills! You might think about using the Researcher Development Framework (Vitae) to monitor and assess how your skills are developing.

Top Tip #2! Consider signing up to PGR Tips email bulletin from Vitae -it has LOTS of information on how to deal with the challenges of completing a PhD.

Make the most of the resources on offer at your institution. Training for researchers varies from Institution to Institution, but in most cases, you should be able to access training resources (usually on-line) and opportunities (I’m thinking courses) via a ‘Graduate School’. I use inverted commas, because that is how it is know at my University, but it may vary. As part of my doctoral training, I am required to complete a number of training modules specified by my Graduate School (I could write a whole post on whether I’ve found them useful or not), but in addition, I can access a LOT of on-line training resources and other courses, that I’ve been able to complete at my own pace. I’ve targeted that training to address areas where I felt I needed to make improvements. Needless to say, not everything you may come across will be of interest. It is just a good place to start looking for opportunities.

Top Tip #3! If you aren’t familiar with your ‘graduate school’ website, I encourage you to visit it now!

VITAE

An organisation that works towards the professional development of early career researchers. Vitae often works in partnership with Universities, research organisations and funders, so it is worthwhile finding out if your institution has links to Vitae as you may well be able to take advantage of what training they have on offer. Even if that is not the case, their website is full of information about the PhD process and online resources that are extremely helpful, user friends and useful.

A full list of course available can be found here. You can expect to find courses on:

Leadership in action
Collaborative research
Digital research
Advancing in academia
UK Grad School – three day practical learning and development programmes which enable researchers to reflect upon and develop their skills as doctoral researchers. I’ve not been on this course myself, but I know people who have and rate it highly.

AGU

The AGU website has a whole section on geosciences careers and LOTS of information, including regular career advice webinars and workshops. With the AGU Fall Meeting coming up in a few weeks time, it’s worth while having a look at what is on offer at the meeting. You can also arrange to get one on one careers advice at the meeting, follow this link. Here is a selection of things you might consider attending:

9^th December (11am- 12pm): Career Advice Workshop – Transitioning Your Career from Academia to Industry
9^th December (2pm-3pm): Career Advice Workshop – The Biggest Mistakes You Should Never Make in the Postdoc And How to Avoid or Recover From Them
10^th December (2pm-3pm): Career Advice Workshop: Not Geoscience As Usual – Opportunities at the Intersection of Science and Policy
10^th December (3pm-4pm): Career Lounge Talk – Meet Sarah Andrews, geologist, science communicator, and crime novelist
10^th December (6pm-7pm): Networking Reception for Early Career Female Scientists and Students
11^th December (10am-11am): Career Advice Workshop: Take Control of Your Career!

EGU

The EGU website has a couple of places to look for information, as well as job opportunities. With the newly created Young Scientists website, networking opportunities and sharing of experiences and resources should also become easier via the EGU, so keep checking! There already are a list of technical training opportunities (which I should have listed last week :s!). Plus, a fantastic list of resources with tips on all the topics I’ll cover during this series of posts. In addition, there is a Jobs tab on the main EGU website.

Publications

Stay tuned to the careers/jobs pages of both Nature and Science, as they have a selection of blog posts, articles, tool kits (Nature), tips and tools (Science) where you may find information on how to develop transferable skills. Science even holds its own Workshops (so depending where you are based, this may well be of interest). Whilst there isn’t quite as much information, it worth while scanning the New Scientist career pages for some useful resources too.

Next Scientist

Is a website with a range of blog posts and articles on all things PhD! There are posts about how to improve your communication skills, why blogging is useful, links to free e-books on how to get through your PhD and you can even volunteer to write a blog post of your own. You can also follow Next Scientist on twitter (@NextScientist).

Blogs

Here is just a selection of blogs where I’ve either found useful information or links to resources and opportunities. Admittedly, this list is based on my personal taste, by no means exhaustive and focuses on the overall academic experience, rather than being specific to Earth Science, but they may be relevant to you too.

That’s all for now! Next Week: Public Engagement, Science Communication and Outreach.

Training

Media skills for scientists – how to get them!

Making the Most of your PhD: Think about the next move