ABRC Events
Upcoming Events
Training Workshops - Thursday 6th June, 09.30-12.30 and 14.00-17.00, T0.08/T0.09, Clinical Trials Unit Building
We are thrilled to welcome Fistral Training and Consultancy back to deliver more training for researchers and academics! We have two half day sessions: Handling Academic Rejection (09.30-12.30) and Increase Your Stress Hardiness and Take Your Research in Your Stride (14.00-17.00). You can sign up for either or both sessions. Spaces are limited so sign up is essential! Lunch and refreshments will be provided. You can find more info hereLink opens in a new window and sign up hereLink opens in a new window.
LGBTQ+ Pride in STEM - Thursday 13th June, 12.00-15.00, GLT4
We are hosting a Pride Month event celebrating LGBTQ+ pride in STEM! Join us for discussions and insights about queerness in STEM and research. An informal networking lunch (featuring free pizza!) will be held followed by presentations and an open space to discuss issues raised. Details on speakers and schedule will be confirmed soon. All are welcome - please register your interest hereLink opens in a new window!
Past and Recurrent Events
Career Seminar: "The (Good) Life of a Scientific Editor" - Monday 29th April, 12.00-13.00, IBRB Lecture Theatre
Join us to welcome Dr Alejandro Montenegro-Montero, Executive Editor of Cold Spring Harbor Protocols. He will be delivering a career seminar discussing what the daily life of a full-time journal editor looks like, and also offering insight on what to do if you are interested in journal editing as a career. After the talk, please join us for a networking lunch in IBRB Lower Atrium from 1-2pm where you will have the opportunity to have an informal discussion with Dr Montenegro-Montero about the ins and outs of publishing!
Funded jointly with Biomedical Sciences Division in WMS, Integrated Natural Sciences society, and MRC Doctoral Training Programme in WMS. A biography of Dr Montenegro-Montero can be found hereLink opens in a new window.
"Failure is Part of Success" - Thursday 25th April, 13.30-15.00, GLT4
It’s been a while since our last Normalising Failure session but we are back with a bang! We have 2 PIs, Prof Sébastien Perrier, and Dr Michael Lewis, as well as postdoc Dr Cerys Currie, who will discuss their experiences of failure and how they overcame them. We will start at 1.30pm with the talks, followed by more informal discussion from around 2-2.15pm – please don’t hesitate to join even if you cannot stay for the whole event! We invite everyone to be part of promoting a better research culture, where tea, coffee, and cake will be provided!
To ensure we order enough cake, please sign up hereLink opens in a new window.
Introduction to Project Management for Researchers - Friday 8th March, 09:30-16:30, A0.39
Part of our drive to develop researchers. Dr Fraser Robertson from Fistral Consultancy will be delivering this one-day course tailored to early career researchers, which will provide attendees with tools and techniques immediately applicable to planning and managing research projects. We have opened a waiting list for this event. Please see hereLink opens in a new window for more information and to sign up for the waiting list.
LGBTQIA+ Coffee Morning - Monday 4th March 2024, 10:30-11:30, IBRB Lower Ground Floor
Come along for tea, coffee, cake, aimed at the LGBTQIA+ community and allies! More info here. Please bring your own mug.
Professor Gina Rippon "How paradoxical is the Gender Equality Paradox? A view from the 21st Century Brain" - Tuesday 27th February 2024, 11:00-13:00, MTC Lecture Theatre
Part of our "Inspiring Women in Science" seminar series. Join us for a discussion around neuroscience and gender stereotypes, and career tips from this accomplished academic and author! Then we will have a light lunch in IBRB Lower Atrium. More details here.
"It's Okay To Fail!" - Thursday 7th December, 1.30pm-3.00pm, GLT4
To promote a “Safe to Fail” culture across WMS and SLS, ABRC are organising regular “Monthly Fails” sessions, encouraging researchers and academics to come together to discuss and normalise failure.
For the December session, the theme is “It’s Okay To Fail!”. More nice academics, namely Prof Domenico Giacco (Health Sciences, clinical-focused) and Dr Anthony Lyons (Biomedical Sciences, teaching-focused), will come and discuss their experiences of failure and how they dealt with it in their different career paths. Attendees then have the opportunity to discuss failure and success with their peers, giving and receiving support.
We invite everyone to be part of this positive and welcoming space! Tea, coffee, and cake will be provided – please sign up hereLink opens in a new window to make sure we order enough cake!
Special Monthly Failures event - "PIs Fail Too!" - Thursday 19th October, 10am-12pm, GLT4
Part of our Peer Support Network series. Kicking off our first Monthly Failures session, Dr Erin Greaves, Dr Craig Thompson, Dr Aparna Ratheesh, and Prof Tim Saunders will join us to discuss their experiences with failure, which we will then follow with anonymous sharing of failures in small groups! Tea, coffee, and cake will be provided! Sign up here - registration is optional but is appreciated!
Pizza and Poster showcase - Friday 14th June 12:30-1:30, IBRB Lower ground floor atrium
To celebrate the last month of the current Ambassadors for Better Research Culture project, please join us for “Pizza and Posters!” on Friday 14th June, 12:30-1:30pm in the IBRB lower ground floor atrium.
We will be displaying 4 posters that we have created to showcase our activities and the data collected over the past 7 months.
Come and chat to us about what we have done, what we are doing next, and eat pizza!
Researcher Training Workshops - 16th June A0.42
A couple of months ago, the ABRC held a survey regarding training needs among the Gibbet Hill PGR students and staff members. Thank you to everyone who responded! Following feedback you provided, we determined that the most popular theme from our respondents was “tackling stress/building resilience” (Figure 1). The other popular topic was “communication and collaborative skills”, additionally highlighted by many in the additional suggestions section (see the word cloud below). Based on this information, we have arranged for Dr Rosie Doyle from Fistral Consultancy Ltd to deliver two 3-hour training sessions on the 16th of June: “Increase Your Stress Hardiness and Take Work in Your Stride” and “Assertive Communication in an Academic Environment. You can find details of both sessions here.
Inspiring Researcher Seminar – 20th June 2023 12pm, IBRB Lecture Theatre
The ABRC believe that role models like you are important, but female role models in science are still fewer and further between than we’d like. As such, we are pleased to invite Professor Iva Tólic from Ruđer Bošković Institute, Zagreb, Croatia to give a seminar about her amazing research about the mitotic spindle. This session will be followed by lunch and networking in the IBRB Atrium.
Researcher's Mental Health Day - 19th May 2023
We are very excited to host our Mental Health day on the 19th May. This will include toolkit sessions focused on mental health awareness and impostor syndrome, specifically tailored towards those working in academia (GLT3 from 9:30am -12pm). These seminars will be delivered by Dragonfly Mental Health.
We have also invited Pets As Therapy to provide us therapy dogs from 2-4pm in the CTU Atrium! Find more information and registration details here.
Research Culture Coffee Club
These events generally take the form of a panel discussion focused on a few topics within a central theme. We are very lucky to have Professor Andrew McAinsh, the pro dean for research in WMS and Professor Miriam Gifford, the head of SLS, as members of our panel. We have previously had discussions about expectations surrounding supervision and wellbeing. More to come in the future!
Register for May's PGR event here: https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/sci/med/research/culture/abrc/events/pgrcoffeeclubmay/
CMCB Alumni Talks
In these events, we have speakers who have previously worked in WMS return to the department and give a talk about their careers. We have previously had talks from:
- Clare Garcin (Athena Swan and ED&I Project Officer, WMG, University of Warwick),
- Paula Esquivias (Associate Principal Scientist & Team Lead, Rosalind Franklin Laboratory),
- Algis Toleikis (Vilnius University, Lithuania),
- Sarah McClelland (Barts Cancer Institute, Queen Mary University of London, UK)
LGBTQIA+ Coffee Mornings
We host monthly events with coffee and cakes, principally for the LGBTQIA+ individuals working at Gibbet Hill, but all allies are very welcome to join us. These offer a relaxed atmosphere to speak openly with like-minded individuals. Please find the dedicated page for more info!
https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/sci/med/research/abrc/lgbt/
Balancing an Academic Research Career and Parenthood
This event was part of our celebrations of International Women’s Day. We invited a panel of researchers from Gibbet Hill at a variety of levels of seniority to speak about their experiences as mothers working in science.
Funders’ Research Culture Workshop
We invited representatives from UKRI (Research England), Wellcome Trust, Cancer Research UK and the UK Research Integrity Office (UKRIO) to share their visions and update the research community on funding policies. Please see the dedicated page for this event for more information.
https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/sci/med/research/abrc/frcw/
