Surviving and shining through your PhD

Speakers:• Anne Forbes (Earth and Environmental Sciences)• Miguel Alejandro Lopez-Ramirez (Life Science)• Ben Rozitis (PSSRI)Facilitators:• Sunitha Pangala (Earth and Environmental Sciences)• Sebastien Mitea (Physics & Astronomy)

(and the first year is a good time to start)

Anne (EES)

Alejandro (Life)

Ben(PSSRI)

Nuts & Bolts of Research 23rd March 2011

• Conferences• Networking• Literature• Funding• Presentation and publication skills• Internship/summer school/residential schools• General topics

Outline

• EGU• AGU• smaller national conferences (e.g. VMSG, MSG)

Conferences

Anne (EES)

Looking for a travel grant?• http://www.rdfunding.org.uk/queries/granttype.asp?TypeID=4

Looking for an outstanding meeting & course?• EMBO http://www.ebi.ac.uk/Information/events/calendar/courses.php• Wellcome trust http://www.wellcome.ac.uk/• Nobel prize, Vision 2020 http://www.embl.de/research/seminars/vision2020/index.html• Cold Spring Harbor meetings & course http://meetings.cshl.edu/index.html• Gordon Research conferences http://www.grc.org/meetings.aspx• IBRO http://www.ibro.org/Pub/Pub_Front.asp• Society for Neuroscience http://www.sfn.org/

Conferences

Alejandro (Life)

NATIONAL• UKPF Early Career Scientists' Meeting

(www.ukplanetaryforum.org)• RAS National Astronomy Meeting (www.ras.org.uk/nam-2011)CONTINENTAL• European Planetary Science Congress

(meetings.copernicus.org/epsc-dps2011)INTERNATIONAL• Lunar and Planetary Science Conference

(www.lpi.usra.edu/meetings/lpsc2012)• International Astronautical Congress (iac2011.com)

Conferences

Ben(PSSRI)

• Really useful for help with your project and getting a job!• Get your supervisor (or someone else) to introduce you

at conferences to people whose work you’re interested in.

Networking

Anne (EES)

• Meeting & course• Seminars in your department “be open to new ideas”• Supervisor’s collaborators• Your colleagues in your university

Networking

Alejandro (Life)

IMPORTANCE• Stimulates new research ideas • Creates access to additional expertise and resources• Helps you find a job!

WAYS OF DOING IT• Conference dinners/events• Poster sessions (especially those that provide free alcohol)• Workshops

Networking

Ben(PSSRI)

• Don’t read every paper thoroughly from beginning to end – it’s a waste of time.

• Use endnote or similar from the beginning.• Try a few different search engines (e.g. ISI Web of

Knowledge, Google scholar, Scopus).

Literature

Anne (EES)

How can I identify good literature?

• http://library.open.ac.uk/

• Impact factor link: http://admin-apps.isiknowledge.com.libezproxy.open.ac.uk/JCR/JCR?SID=W1A1C71OcpoJCb5FL4L

• Use of EndNote, Reference Manager or RefWorks

Literature

Alejandro (Life)

• Use NASA ADS to find literature (adswww.harvard.edu)

• Use RefWorks to create bibliography (www.refworks.com)

• Tips on literature search• Find the beginning and work forward• Check references and citations• Note and search for frequent authors• Read at least the abstract and conclusion sections

Literature

Ben(PSSRI)

• Grants for field and lab work. Emergency grants (e.g. to go to erupting volcanoes).

• Geological society of London (you don’t have to be a member to apply).

• Royal Geographical Society.• Look on www.cos.com & www.researchresearch.com and set

up funding alerts.• There are funds for younger people (e.g. under 30) and funds

for women.• Make sure you are clear about why the work is important when

you apply.• Remember that a specialist won’t necessarily read your work.• Funds are often trusts so will not disappear even in • the current economic climate

Funding

Anne (EES)

• Annual applications by societies

• Pharmaceutical companies and biotechnology industry

• Organizations (IBRO)

Funding

Alejandro (Life)

Small Grants (e.g. Travel Bursaries, Experimental Equipment, Etc.)• Conference organisers• CEPSAR• Royal Astronomical Society (www.ras.org.uk/awards-and-grants)Medium Grants (e.g. Projects)• OU's Dragons Den• ESA Education (www.esa.int/SPECIALS/Education)Big Grants (e.g. Postdocs)• ESA Research Fellowship in Space Science

(www.rssd.esa.int/fellowship)

Funding

Ben(PSSRI)

• Get together with PhD students in your year and present talks on anything!

• Be clear about target audience and journal before you start writing. Changing your work for a different journal can be a pain.

• Your supervisor will probably know best here!

Presentation and publication skills

Anne (EES)

• OU courses

• Attending conferences

• Listening feedback from your supervisors and colleagues

• Make it better!!! improve it all the time

Presentation and publication skills

Alejandro (Life)

A good presentation is:• Concise and simple• Not rushed• Engaging and/or humorous

Choosing a suitable journal for publication - key factors:• Topics covered / Audience• Impact factor (i.e. citation count)• Processing time (i.e. time from submission to publication)• Number of referees

Presentation and publication skills

Ben(PSSRI)

• Vitae courses – very good and free if research council funded. Look them up!

• Teaching on summer residential schools is good experience.

Internship/summer school/residential schools

Anne (EES)

• Summer School Alpbach (www.summerschoolalpbach.at)

• NASA Summer Schools• Several each year at different sites and on different

topics• Not all summer schools ran by NASA accept foreign

nationals• International Space University: Space Studies Program (www.isunet.edu/index.php/ssp)

Internship/summer school/residential schools

Ben(PSSRI)

• If you have to go on fieldwork your probation report and viva may have to be done before hand.

• Keep track of your own budget and what you spend – it will not be done for you.

General topics

Anne (EES)

• Glimpse of probation process and writing up• PhD progress (difference between lab/non lab based)• Completing project in 3 years – stress level• Budget breakdown• Requesting audience to take initiative to identify the

research skills required, explore if a workshop already exists, if not get together and organise/tailor the workshop to your needs

General topics

Ben(PSSRI)

Let’s thank the speakers

Anne (EES) Alejandro (Life)

Ben(PSSRI)