Supporting students’ development

The responsibilities, events and opportunities a PGR encounters throughout their studies can contribute to the development of a range of skills, experiences and connections. Researcher development can be thought of in these domains:

What you can do to support students

From training courses and peer reviewing to impact outputs and presenting at conferences, the many opportunities available is an exciting prospect for many students, but also an overwhelming one. The limited time they have also means that they must often be selective of the activities they commit to.

Consider how your role enables you to support students in developing holistically and, crucially, in alignment with their individual goals and aspirations. Also consider what we can do collectively, as pathways, as institutions, as a consortium, to draw on our resources and expertise to offer impactful opportunities to our students. Below are some of our suggestions and requests:

Supervisors

The ESRC emphasises the supporting role of the supervisor in a PGR’s training and development. We ask you to keep the following in mind:

• Set development objectives early and review them regularly. This is very helpful in narrowing down which opportunities are beneficial in meeting a student’s development goals. Use the tools in the DNA log to help facilitate these conversations.
• Discuss initial ideas/plans for the placement and overseas visit early on. This helps to establish aims and objectives for each opportunity in the context of the student’s developmental journey, and determine the most appropriate time to take advantage of these opportunities. Don’t forget that students from the 2024 intake onward must complete a placement during their funded period.
• Always bear in mind the ESRC requirement for students from the 2024 intake onward to submit theses within the funded period. Students should manage their training and development activities to ensure they can submit on time. Again, setting and reviewing development goals with your student is a good way to assess the impact of each opportunity and prioritise.
• Signpost to other support and events available at your institution such as the doctoral college, careers services, library services and health and wellbeing support.

Pathway Leads (PLs)

Pathway Leads are ideally positioned to promote, share, and deliver best practice across our Partnership, ensuring students have access to or are aware of a range of training and development opportunities. The following directives are taken from the PL role descriptor:

• Ensure that supervisors are aware of SWDTP supervisor training requirements and expectations, including around conducting Development Needs Analysis (DNA) with supervisees
• Maintain an oversight of PGRs’ experience within the pathway in your institution, report problems and from time to time contribute suggestions to the hub, Institutional Academic Lead (IAL) or the Academic Advisory Board (AAB). This includes identifying and communicating gaps, failings or shortfalls with respect to research training, supervision arrangements, support for PGRs’ wellbeing, provision for professional development and fulfilling our Equality, Diversity and Inclusion commitments.
• Represent your institution on the pathway and liaise with the Pathway Leads in other institutions to develop opportunities for collaborative research training initiatives and cohort-building across the pathway. This includes promoting funding available to academic colleagues from the SWDTP.
• Offer support and advice to SWDTP funded students throughout their study. This will include directing students and academic colleagues to appropriate information sources, such as the SWDTP website and Student Handbook.

Institutional Academic Leads (IALs)

Institutional Academic Leads provide academic leadership to help deliver our training support. The following directives are taken from the IAL role descriptor:

• Meeting with the other SWDTP Institutional Academic Leads to share thoughts on local developments and challenges; to inform of new ideas, activities and future plans for PGR training.
• Championing collaboration across pathways and SWDTP partners within your HEI and facilitate links between SWDTP and other doctoral training entities to which your HEI belongs.
• Communicating with Pathway Leads (PLs) to ensure they are supported.

Training and development resources

Find upcoming activities and resources from past events on our Training and Development page. We have a directory of institutional and external training providers, as well as an active events calendar optimised with researcher development in mind. These cover a range of target audiences and formats, so be sure to check in regularly.

SWDTP-wide events for students

Throughout the year, the SWDTP has a host of activities for our students and, in many cases non SWDTP-funded PGRs and ECRs, that are aimed at their training and development. This includes our skills training events, higher level methodology webinars, summer schools, community coaching programme, and student conference. Check our events calendar and subscribe to our newsletter for the latest opportunities.

Funding for student-led activities

Three types of funding pots are available to current SWDTP students to run impact, collaboration or cohort building activities respectively. Further information can be found here.

Read on learn about funding for academic-led opportunities.