Humanities Researcher Development and Training Programme
The Humanities Division has a team that supports the personal and professional development of postgraduate students and researchers. The key focus of the team’s role is to enhance generic skills training offered to Humanities graduate students and researchers at the University of Oxford. The team works with faculties, TORCH (The Oxford Research Centre for the Humanities), other University departments and units and external partners to deliver a programme of training each year, aimed at:
- honing and developing the skills needed for research projects,
- gaining first-hand experience of engaging in collaborations, and
- taking the first steps towards pioneering and influential career paths.
Experiential, hands-on learning is fundamental to our approach, with student-led and early career researcher-led initiatives and projects being generated and supported through a range of funds and initiatives such as the AHRC-TORCH Graduate Fund, Student Peer Review College, and the annual Public Engagement with Research Summer School. All of these mechanisms are in turn run (with support from the Divisional Research Development team) by early career researchers themselves.
How to get involved
The Humanities Researcher Development and Training Programme is open to all postgraduate students (Master’s and DPhil) and early career researchers (including college-only appointments) in the Humanities Division. 1 An extensive programme of opportunities runs throughout the academic year, arranged into a number of ‘pathways’:
Business and Entrepreneurship – pitch an idea to the Humanities Innovation Challenge Competition and win £2,000, or find out what history can teach us about entrepreneurship through the Said Business School’s series of lectures on ‘Engaging with the Humanities'
Career Confidence – develop your CV, draft a cover letter, practise fellowship interview techniques, or learn how to give a teaching presentation
Digital Humanities – learn how to encode text, 3D-scan museum objects and write code, or participate in the world-leading Digital Humanities at Oxford Summer School
Heritage – network with industry leaders in the heritage sector, learn how to set up a research collaboration with a historic house, take a tour of a museum under development with a lead curator, or contribute to Trusted Source, the National Trust’s online knowledge bank
Public Engagement with Research – create a podcast, practise on-camera interviews, learn the techniques of ‘storytelling’ when talking about your research, apply for funding to support a public engagement project for your research through the Graduate Fund, or participate in the annual Public Engagement with Research Summer School
Preparation for Academic Practice – attend workshops on writing journal articles, preparing for the DPhil viva, organising a conference, or using EndNote. Pitch your idea for a monograph to editors from world-leading publishing houses, and prepare a fieldwork application for ethical review.
Teaching – build on the training offered by your faculty (Preparation for Learning and Teaching at Oxford) and gain accreditation to the Staff and Educational Development Association by enrolling in Developing Learning and Teaching seminars. Attend workshops on applying your teaching experience to the job application process, or learn how to teach with objects at the Ashmolean Museum.
All our events and opportunities are free to attend, and a number of workshops, particularly those in the ‘Preparation for Academic Practice’ pathway, are repeated each term.
See www.torch.ox.ac.uk/researcher-training for the full calendar of events, and www.humanities.ox.ac.uk/researcher-development for more information about the programme. You can also email the Humanities Training Officer, Caroline Thurston, at training@humanities.ox.ac.uk if you have any queries.
