HumanitiesSocialand

PostgraduateResearchTraining

in the

Contact usEmail: hass.pgtraining@ncl.ac.uk Telephone: 0191 208 5855Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences 5th Floor Daysh Building Newcastle University Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 7RU

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Go online for more information www.ncl.ac.uk/hss/postgrad/training

Find out more about Postgraduate Research Training in the Humanities and Social Sciences

Northern Bridge Doctoral Training PartnershipWe are proud to work in partnership with the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) and the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) to provide world-class training and development opportunities to our PhD students.

Based at Newcastle University and funded by the AHRC, Northern Bridge brings together the expertise of Newcastle University, Durham University, Queen’s University Belfast and their strategic partners. The consortium hosts training and development events throughout the year for PhD students. www.northernbridge.ac.uk

North East Doctoral Training Centre A joint venture between Newcastle and Durham universities, the North East Doctoral Training Centre is one of the largest of the ESRC’s network of doctoral training centres, providing an interdisciplinary environment for doctoral training and research and advanced training courses for PhD students. www.nedtc.ac.uk

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WelcomeThe Humanities and Social Science Research Training and Researcher Development Programme is an excellent opportunity to develop your research skills and meet other PhD students from across the astonishing range in our Faculty – 26 subject areas within nine different schools.

As a postgraduate researcher, you are joining a community of over 500 PhD students working on advanced and original research across an impressive range of topics. An essential part of your experience will be to exchange ideas across traditional disciplinary boundaries with your peers from many different countries and backgrounds, and the Faculty has a vital role to play in this process.

In joining our training modules, you will be developing your research skills and enhancing your future employability. What is more, through discussion and debate with leading academic experts and other research students from beyond your specialised subject, you will encounter disruptive and challenging new ideas that will help shape your intellectual development.

Elements of our training programme are practical and focus on equipping you with the skills to help you manage your PhD successfully through to completion. In other parts of the programme, there are a wealth of options to explore concepts, methods and ideas that will make you think harder.

The programme is designed to complement the discipline-specific guidance you will be given in your school by your academic supervisors, and will be tailored to meet your individual needs and career aspirations.

Keep an open mind, and you will find you get as much out of this exciting, high-quality programme as you are willing to put in.

I wish you every success and happiness during your time as a postgraduate researcher at Newcastle University.

Professor Helen BerryActing Dean of Postgraduate Studies Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences

I can’t imagine how I would have found my way in first year without the chance to feel part of a really diverse and dynamic community of fellow research students working to develop their own research voices and skills in the midst of oceans of theory, literature and method. Jenny Crawford, PhD Researcher in Architecture

Find out morewww.ncl.ac.uk/hss/postgrad/training

Over 300 hours of research training each year

Over 5000 attendances annually

267 completed Postgraduate Certificates in Research Training

2 annual conferences

Postgraduate researchers from 65 countries

Prizes for high achieving students

84 academic contributors, including world-leading experts

Purpose-built state-of-the-art facilities

26 disciplines

HIGH ACHIEVINGSTUDENT

HOURS RESEARCH TRAINING

CONFERENCES 65COUNTRIES

84FACILITIES

5000+ATTENDANCES

DISCIPLINES

Over

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The answer is simple: both academia and employers expect doctoral graduates to have advanced skills far beyond an in-depth knowledge of their field of research.

At Newcastle University we have made a firm commitment to develop enhanced research training for our PhD students to meet this need. We provide an extensive programme of generic and research skills modules and workshops which span, amongst others: public speaking, academic writing, quantitative and qualitative methods, IT skills and techniques to present your research.

We also provide extensive opportunities for you to engage with questions of theory and methods, helping you shape your epistemology and define the theoretical framework of your research. For example, our interdisciplinary Thinking Theories and Methods seminar series offers the opportunity to hear distinguished researchers discussing how Bourdieu, Foucault, feminism, paradigms, positivism and resilience have influenced their careers.

Our training programme is flexible and adjusts to your needs as you progress through your research. With the help and support of your dedicated supervisory team, you can tailor your choice of training and create your own development programme to support your career aspirations.

Student-led conferences and competitionsWe hold two student-led conferences each year, giving you the opportunity to present and discuss your emerging research with your peers in a supportive, interdisciplinary environment. In your first year, the conference focuses on oral presentations. In the following years it provides a showcase for you to present your work in a more visual form, such as a poster or installation.

In addition to our on-campus conferences, we encourage you to attend and engage with conferences and events related to your academic discipline.

Through the institutional, regional and national three minute thesis competition, you can compete with other doctoral students from around the world to explain your research to a non-specialist audience in only three minutes – excellent practice in describing your research clearly and concisely to a non-specialist audience.

Modules like the nature of explanation and enquiry really did open up alternative ways of looking at my research and forced me to think like an interdisciplinary scholar, which I now consider myself to be. Dr Arin Keeble, Newcastle University Alumnus

Developing ResearchersWhen you are studying for a Doctorate, there are numerous demands on your time and resources: your supervisors set deadlines, there are seminars to prepare for, conferences to attend and a never-ending mountain of papers to read. So why is it crucial that you find time in your hectic schedule to engage with research training and researcher development?

Postgraduate Certificate in Research TrainingIntegral to our training programme is the opportunity for all PhD students to undertake a Postgraduate Certificate in Research Training at no extra cost. The certificate provides an opportunity for you to develop and demonstrate training across a range of research methods, equipping you with the knowledge, understanding, skills and aptitudes to undertake advanced research.

Research training partnersOur partners include: BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland, Sage Gateshead, Seven Stories National Centre for Children’s Books, Wordsworth Trust, and Tyne and Wear Archives and Museums.

Our partners offer training opportunities across many fields, including:

archival research

arts management

creative practice

cultural resource management

exhibitions

media engagement

performances and screenings

publications and other forms of dissemination

We are also active in linking with local and national government policy and voluntary sector organisations, including: Newcastle City Council, Northumberland County Council, West End Refugee Service, Forestry Commission, Newcastle Gateshead Initiative and Sustrans.

Our workshops and modules include Academic writing and self-editing your thesis

Fieldwork in developing countries

Introduction to information and library skills

Introduction to quantitative methods

Languages for researchers

Managing personal development

Managing your PhD

Progressing your PhD

Qualitative methodology and critical enquiry

Research ethics

Research in the wider context

Risk management in research projects

Specialised training in NVivo, SPSS, GIS and EndNote

The nature of explanation and enquiry

Writing across boundaries

One of the best things about the research training programme is that it gives you the chance to meet fellow students from various walks of life. I’m proud to say that many who I now call both colleagues and close friends were those who I met throughout the course of the programme. This was one of the most important factors that helped me settle into postgraduate life and speaks volumes about the welcoming and inclusive community at Newcastle University.Matthew Scott, PhD Researcher in Human Geography

1 Dr Laura Leonardo delivering a seminar to doctoral students. 2 One of our PhD students presenting her research.3 Our student-led conference.

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Find out morewww.ncl.ac.uk/hss/postgrad/training

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Meet Our TeamOur training programme is led by Dr Robin Humphrey and Dr Laura Leonardo who are experts in the field of postgraduate research training and researcher development.

Dr Robin HumphreyDirector of the Postgraduate Research Training ProgrammeFor the last decade I have devoted my time and energy into developing and directing a wide-ranging postgraduate research training programme in the humanities and social sciences, which now incorporates researcher development into interdisciplinary research training modules and workshops.

My work has become my research area and I publish widely on doctoral pedagogy and policy. In 2011, I was awarded a National Teaching Fellowship by the UK Higher Education Academy for my contribution to interdisciplinary doctoral research training.

I believe the main achievement of my career is to have combined an enquiry-oriented approach to the teaching of research methods with the nurturing of inclusive, participatory and challenging learning environments so as to produce a rare, possibly unique, learning context in which doctoral students in the humanities and social sciences can foster interdisciplinary awareness. I will give the last word to an African doctoral student in education who told me: ‘when I come here [to the training programme], it feels like family’.

Dr Laura LeonardoLecturer in Postgraduate Skills DevelopmentMy focus on the training programme is to ensure that we offer the richest possible array of training opportunities for our researchers in the arts and humanities, while also looking after the researcher development agenda. While I am very vocal about the need for specialised, bespoke training, I stand firmly by the principles of inter, cross and trans-disciplinarity. I aim to engender a research environment that can address issues of isolation within the academic community and motivate a new generation of thinkers who are happy to work outside of their discipline.

This is precisely what we endeavour to foster through the research training programme: a place where junior researchers from all over the world and across our 26 disciplines can experiment with new and exciting concepts and acquire practical skills while interrogating the big questions of contemporary academic research in a friendly, conducive and stimulating environment.

Find out morewww.ncl.ac.uk/hss/postgrad/training

The research training programme introduces students to a range of up-to-the-minute scholarly, methodological and epistemological approaches to research. By opening students to a number of different, and often competing, approaches, without trying to neatly resolve them, the research training programme communicates and stages the ‘drama’ of research to students, opening up to them, often for the first time, the remarkable and challenging negotiations of value-systems that research in the academy of the twenty-first century entails.Dr Ian Biddle, Senior Lecturer in Music

1 Our first year conference2 Dedicated computing facilities for PhD researchers3 We provide tailored research training to meet your individual needs4 Our workshops facilitate supportive peer networks5 Newcastle University’s award-winning library6 Dr Robin Humphrey with a group of postgraduate researchers, ‘it feels like family’ 7 Our purpose-built doctoral training centre

The research training programme was brilliant at helping me ease back into academia. I’ve also made some important contacts through the networking opportunities it presented.Jen Locke, PhD Researcher in Museum Studies

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