Graduate Development

where will your research degree take you?Being successful as a researcher requires you to think carefully and strategically about your skills, objectives and the areas in which you need to develop, including personal/transferable skills which are an increasingly important aspect of research training.

During your research candidature, you will be able to take advantage of a range of training and development opportunities offered both at discipline level and by the Researcher Development & Graduate Centre.  These will enable you to: develop both your transferable and specialist subject-specific skills: communicate the nature and results of your research to specialist and non-specialist audiences; improve your employability and enhance your career prospects.

To help you manage your development, you are encouraged to engage in processes like Training Needs Analysis and Personal Development Planning.  These processes are designed to give you tools to examine where your development needs are and to help you to address these.

Engagement with personal and professional development should also relate to your longer term career aspirations.  Pursuing development opportunities can be useful both as a way of thinking through what you want to do long term and as a way of developing and evidencing the skills that you will need to move on.

Questions or comments?

Please email: rdgc@soton.ac.uk