Development Opportunities

All Postgraduate Researchers are invited to present at the annual Doctoral Capability and Development Conference in March 2021. This is a great professional development opportunity as you learn all about presenting at an online conference in a very supportive environment. 

Team RECAP will be hosting a suite of developmental workshops to support your preparations in the lead up to DCAD21. To sign-up to a session, click on the relevant links below: 

Introducing DCAD Webinar

This session is for any PGR interested in presenting at DCAD21. We will cover:

• Presentation options available to you and how to decide which one is right for you
• The abstract submission process
• What to expect as a presenter at a virtual conference
• How the RECAP team will support you, including a suite of developmental workshops that you will have the option to attend

There will be some time at the end of the session to ask any questions you still have about the conference.

Please select to attend one of the two date available.

Planning and Designing an Effective Poster Presentation, Wed 17 Feb 2021 @ 13.30 

To support you to create your poster, the RECAP team are running poster workshops to help you prepare for the event. Presenting posters at conferences and symposia is a highly effective way to disseminate your research and network with peers. The challenge is to present complex material using language and format appropriate to your target audience in a very limited space. This workshop presents a process for planning and designing poster presentations that will help you to communicate your message with clarity. There will be plenty of hints and tips for producing a great poster and examples of common pitfalls to be avoided. 

Participants of the Planning and Designing an Effective Poster Presentation workshop are also invited to attend Poster Clinics where you can share and discuss your poster ideas and drafts with a member of the RECAP team.  

Perfecting your Elevator Pitch, Mon 22 Feb 2021 @ 14.00  

Whether you are actually trying to explain your research to someone in an elevator or not it is always necessary to be able to explain your research in a concise but interesting way. An elevator pitch is great for all sorts of occasions where you are speaking to non-specialists in your research field but, in particular, this session will support you to construct your presentation message for the interdisciplinary DCAD conference. The workshop will use techniques which have been previously used to prepare PGR students for the Three Minute Thesis (3MT) competition. It will help you pick out the key messages of your research and construct them into an attention-grabbing pitch.  

Presenting with Confidence: Developing Your Personal Pathway, Wed 24 Feb @ 9.30 – 15.30 

Preparing and delivering a presentation about your research gives you access to a priceless gift – the time and attention of your audience. This workshop is an opportunity to reflect, discuss good practice and be guided through writing a self-development plan for enhancing your presentation skills. 

Although this session is scheduled over a full day, there will be activities that are group-based and independent-based. 

Tips on Networking, Mon 1 March 2021 @ 14.00  

Preparing for and attending a conference, whether it is online or face-to-face, can be a source of anxiety.  Come along to this workshop to share tips on how to get the most out of a conference: effective networking, assertiveness skills and creating the right first impression. We will spend some time on some essential skills to help ease the pain of networking!    

Presenting your Research Online, Mon 8 March 2021 @ 14.00  

Presenting research at conferences and symposia allows us to disseminate our research findings to a wider audience. As remote-working circumstances continue, we are inevitably being asked to present our research more and more to online audiences.  

If you have already attended an online presentation session where the presenter simply shared their slides and talked over them, you will know that this is not the most engaging way to interest an audience. Online audiences have the added option to check emails or leave sessions without any awkwardness. 

In this workshop we will discuss some of the pitfalls of presenting online and share tips on how to make the most of presenting to an online audience. We will discuss ways to manage the different elements of presenting online including the technology, appropriate messaging and visual and audio content.