RKT News February 2013 - University of Portsmouth

Graduate School Update
New Graduate School facilities get the
thumbs up
The Graduate School finally moved into its new base at St
Andrew’s Court in September 2012. The move had been long
awaited but universal feedback from research students,
supervisors, Graduate School Development Programme tutors
and external visitors has been that the facilities were worth
waiting for.
Darren Van Laar, the Director of the Graduate School said: ‘The
Graduate School team are all delighted with the reaction to the
new facilities, which represent a significant investment by the
University to develop and support the research environment
needed to enable research students to flourish and develop
their research and career orientated skills. Students and
supervisors have been taking advantage of the state-of-the-art
teaching accommodation which is maintained with the unique
needs of research degree students and supervisors in mind.
The new viva room is already proving popular for events such
as major review meetings, vivas and other research-related
meetings.’
The new facilities were officially opened on 23 January by
Professor Jim Al-Khalili – theoretical physicist, author and
broadcaster. Professor Al-Khalili said: ‘Having a graduate
research culture is vitally important for universities and for
students. It helps universities maintain a strong reputation for
research and teaching, and gaining a PhD degree gives
students a major boost when seeking employment.
Every research student needs skills training and courses and a
Graduate School is well placed to provide this.’
Our first fifteen months
Time flies and it only seems like yesterday that the new
University-wide Graduate School Development programme
(GSDP) was launched back in October 2011. Fifteen
months on and 320 research students have attended over
125 GSDP workshop sessions; 200 new research students
have completed the Graduate Schools ‘Getting Started
with your Research’ workshops and our inaugural Research
Students Conference: ‘Research Matters; Impact Matters’,
held at the New Theatre Royal in October 2012 was a great
success.
Valerie Anderson, the GSDP Coordinator paid tribute to all
those colleagues from different departments and subject
groups around the University who contributed to the
success of the GSDP events: ‘Students consistently tell us
how much they are learning from the insights, expertise and
experience of our workshop tutors – they really are
excellent role models for the research and development
culture the University seeks to sustain and enhance’.
New Research Degrees Coordinator for the
Faculty of Science
Dr Sally Kilburn (right) has
taken over from Professor
Darek Gorecki as the
Faculty Research Degrees
Coordinator (FRDC) for the
Faculty of Science. Sally is
an experienced PhD
supervisor who has been
a key member of the
Professional Doctorate
team.
The FRDC ensures the recruitment, admissions,
supervisory and training processes are working smoothly
within the Faculty and contributes to the quality assurance
and enhancement of research degrees. Sally said: ‘I am
fortunate to take on the role from Darek, who achieved a
huge amount by setting up processes to support both
research students and staff across the Faculty, and to have
the administrative support of Holly Shawyer and Jody Salt.
My background is in microbiology and immunology and my
current research interests are within health services
research and looking at methods of diagnosis, systematic
review and food allergy. I am looking forward to working
with the Graduate School and my colleagues across the
Faculty of Science to ensure that postgraduate research
students gain the most from their time at the University.’
Professor Jim Al-Khalili at the opening of The Graduate School
Research and Knowledge Transfer newsletter • February 2013
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www.port.ac.uk/research