Making the most of your PhD – The Researcher Development Form

 

Those of you who are in the first year of your PhD may have noticed a deadline approaching in Eprog for the Researcher Development Form. This is not a progress monitoring form, it is designed to help you to make the most of your time as a PhD student by identifying what skills and competencies you hope to develop and discussing with your supervisors what training and development activities you might undertake. The Researcher Development Framework (RDF), which is a national framework, endorsed by the Research Councils is useful as a guide. This is intended to be a reflective exercise to get you thinking about your research training needs.  Although completion of this form is not compulsory I would like to encourage you to complete it for two reasons. Most importantly it will provide an opportunity to reflect upon what you hope to get from your time as a PhD student and how you can make the most of it. Secondly, as researcher development manager, I will be studying the responses to the form carefully in order to inform the planning of next year’s researcher development programme, so it is an opportunity to articulate your views and get them heard.

Please note that if the form is not submitted the milestone will become ‘red’.  You should inform your supervisor if you do not wish to complete the form and your supervisors can then submit the form without completion and then authorise it.  Students will also need to authorise the form so that the milestone will become ‘green.’

Ian Fairweather (Researcher Development Manager)