About

Welcome to the University of Birmingham Postgraduate Researcher Development blog.

The purpose of this blog is to look at topics related to personal and professional development for postgraduate researchers at the University of Birmingham.  Topics will cover the full range contained within Vitae‘s Researcher Development Framework, and each post will hopefully get you thinking about the topic and point you in the direction of further resources to support your development.

Developing yourself as a researcher is important because you don’t start postgraduate research with all the skills and knowledge you are going to need to complete your postgraduate degree, disseminate your research or take the next step into your chosen career.  There will be discipline-specific knowledge and skills you need, but also things like writing skills, perseverance, collaboration skills, understanding of ethics, publishing, funding, and so on.

The blog was started in June 2016, and is maintained by the Postgraduate Development Officer at the University of Birmingham.