Training and development

Planning your professional development 

Whatever your plans for the future – whether you are pursuing a career inside or outside academia – your ongoing professional development during the next few years will be fundamental to your success on your doctoral programme and beyond.  

You are being trained to be a professional researcher. This means successfully submitting and defending a thesis, but it also means demonstrating that you have developed ‘a wide range of professional transferable skills such as public engagement and communication of research, enterprise and entrepreneurship, teaching, project management, leadership and teamwork skills’ Qualifications Assurance Agency (QAA) 2020. 

These professional transferable skills are articulated in the UK’s industry-standard professional development framework, the Vitae Researcher Development Framework (RDF), which provides a sector-wide shared vocabulary for talking about the key skills and characteristics of research professionals.  

Auditing your skills and planning your professional development 

At the beginning of your research degree, you will need to conduct an audit of your existing skills and make a plan for your professional development during your degree, which you will agree with your supervisors. You can find guidance on how to do this in our guide to planning your training, and we have also produced skills analysis and development planning templates to help you get started.

Your progress towards your agreed training goals will be formally assessed at upgrade and each time you submit a Progress Report. You can access detailed training on skills auditing and development planning via our training session 'Planning your training and skills development' (available live and recorded).

Training options 

You have a wide range of training options to support your professional development during your research degree. The Graduate School runs a comprehensive programme of training for PGRs, and you will also have access to specialist PGR training run by your Faculty, as well as training run by the Library and other Units within the University. You can find out about and book your place on training sessions via My Learning Centre. Our fortnightly PGR Update email will alert you to upcoming training opportunities too. If you’re not able to attend live training sessions, you can access recordings of sessions via the Researcher Development Programme Team Recordings and Resources and PACE Space channels (see 'shared' tab) 

We also have regular online Writing Groups in the PGR Community Team: PGRs Writing Groups | PGR Community (team) | Microsoft Teams. These currently take place on Mondays and Fridays 10:00-17:00 GMT. PGRs at any stage in their doctorate join in order to keep each other accountable and share community and advice.

For those attending PGR in-person or online events: event organisers may film and take photographs at their events and use the images on OU websites, social media and in publications. If you do not wish to appear in recordings or photos of an event you attend, please speak to the event organiser in advance or on the day of the event.

Online resources

Research Skills contains the online training modules and videos to support PGR study. It is asynchronous - learners can view and use any of the materials without signing up and at their own pace. For any access issues, please email [email protected] with your Student OUCU.