Responsesassignment

The student and postdoc members of the SPEC felt that while there were
opportunities to interact with colleagues in their own specific institute, there were
fewer opportunities to interact with colleagues from other institutes. There were
common activities such as the BBQ and Firbush but there were limitations on
space on both of these and the activities did not necessarily suit everyone’s
interests. It was felt that more could be done to increase interaction and crosscommunication.
There tended to be strong student communities within each
institute; however these could be strongly influenced by the study culture of
dominant groups of students. The School provides funding for activities and the
students felt that perhaps opportunities were being missed to encourage student
engagement with the Graduate School.
The Panel recognized that it was natural for a student to feel a strong alliance to
their research group and institute; however, the Panel recommends that the
School takes steps to raise the visibility of the Graduate School to students.
The Panel suggests that SPEC may wish to consider supporting a school wide
student/postdoc society to host social and cultural events throughout the year.
The society could perhaps be encouraged to take advantage of the numerous
festivals held in Edinburgh throughout the year to organize communal activities.
Advice on setting up activities could be sought from such resources as EUSA
and the International Office, who host a programme of events for students during
semester teaching periods. (1.6 & 1.7)
The Panel noted that the School has excellent facilities and many highly
specialized laboratories and equipment and that provision was in place to ensure
specialized training. The School has a policy to have standard operating
procedures for all laboratory equipment and to have risk assessments for all
research work. It was quite usual for a Postdoc or PhD to ‘run’ a piece of
equipment and to build up considerable experience and technical knowledge
about the equipment but this ‘hands-on' knowledge could be lost when the
person left. This could potentially lead to problems over continuity of training and
support provision for students.
The Panel recommended that a review of the operational and health and safety
training should be carried out by the SPEC. This would assess current provision
and look at ways to ensure continuity and support, perhaps by creating an online
repository of training videos and films made by the postdocs and research
students currently operating the equipment. These video clips would be
complimentary to the existing standard operating procedures but would allow ‘on
the ground’ practicalities and tips and hints to be passed on. It was felt that
general aspects of health and safety should be mandatory and included at a very
early stage of the PhD student’s career. (1.6 & 1.8)
The School has a strong record in supporting their students to publish papers in
journals and to attend and present at both national and international conferences.
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