Research News and Updates

Dear all,

I hope you are well and that your projects are continuing as well as they might, given our hybrid home-lab working we are operating under. I for one, am used to working on my sofa now with the kids popping in and out. Just a mini-update, a catch up of where we are from me, though I suspect you may know much of this from the other channels of communications you receive.

First of all, I just wanted to say how great it is that PhD life has carried on with some degree of normalcy over the last few months. Several of our students have graduated, predominantly having their vivas by Teams; journal papers are being submitted and published, some of us are attending conferences online; students are back in the labs, working hard on new work; a cohort of new students will start their studies in October, on the new MPhil/PhD programme.

Wellbeing: This is a hard time for all of us. However, if your PhD is causing you extra undue stress then please talk to us. While your supervisor will in most cases be a great first channel of communication, please contact me direct if you this is not the case, or if you would like another person to talk to. I can offer guidance or assistance if you have issues around your supervision, if you are having financial issues, if you have any issues with the course. There are all the other independent services within the University, particularly for mental health issues. More details here (https://warwick.ac.uk/services/wss).

Progress Panels: Many of you will have progress panels forthcoming tomorrow, or shortly thereafter. I want to thank all of you for getting your documentation in by the deadlines. Following some communication with students, I want to reassure you and make clear that the panel will take into account the interruption to your studies this year. If you are behind in your plan, this will not be a reason to fail your panel (something that happens rarely anyway), rather they will want to see that you have a plan for moving forward. I would be appreciative of feedback regarding the panel procedure this year given the new documentation we have put in place, and the forced move online, which might well improve the process (or not!!). Feel free to get in touch.

Working from home: At the time of writing this email, the rules remain that you must, predominantly, keep working from home, except for when you come into the University to work in a lab under agreement with your supervisor. This will continue I am afraid even once term has begun in a couple of weeks. However, the senior School management are working towards a limited return to the office shortly thereafter, though not to 100% capacity for obvious reasons. I understand there will be communication of this in the coming fortnight.

PhD Project extensions: You will all have lost time to your projects over the last 6 months. Hopefully, those of you early enough in your PhDs will have enough time remaining in your projects to make this up, however, many of you will not be in that position. For those in the last 3-6 months of your projects, you may wish to consider a request to the Doctoral College for an extension to your project of 3 or 6 months, or more if necessary. These have been almost all been granted recently, and the previous 4 year deadline, though we should all aim for it if we can, is now less of a priority.

Funding Extension Update: You will be aware that funded final year students (with funding dates up to 31/03/21) will have had, or be eligible for, a funding extension. This is 3 months of funding extension from the University or 6 months funding extension from UKRI, depending on their funding source. Unfortunately however, there is still no word on funding extensions or students with funding dates beyond 31/03/21 and this is still an uncertain picture, regardless of where the funding comes from. Further announcements from the University/UKRI are expected soon (but I’ve been saying that for a while). Anyone with financial problems should get in contact with myself or their supervisors.

Student Staff Liaison Committee: The SSLC (https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/sci/eng/ro/pgr/sslc) continues to meet regularly and the first meeting of 2021/22 will be in early November. This committee has never been more important for funnelling the thoughts, worries, and problems of PhD students through to the management of the School and the University. I therefore have two requests: First we will need new members this year to replace those leaving. Please contact me by reply if you are interested in being on the SSLC this year. Second, please do engage with your SSLC reps, let them know of general issues you wish them/us to focus on in order to make your experience better.

Personal development and skills: The ADC have now moved all their ‘learning to teach’ provision online here, as have the Researcher Development Programme here. Now may be a great time to engage with these to get to your ten day annual target.

I may have left something out, feel free to reply with any questions.

Best Regards

Peter

Dr. Peter Gammon SMIEEE, MIET, SFHEA
Associate Professor (Reader) in SiC Power Electronics

Director of Graduate Studies, School of Engineering

P.M.Gammon@warwick.ac.uk | External: 024 76523154 | Internal: 23154

F321 | School of Engineering | University of Warwick | CV4 7AL | Find us on the interactive map

Personal Webpage: www.warwick.ac.uk/pmgammon