Doctoral Skills: Personal development and training

In addition to acquiring in-depth specialist knowledge of a specific research topic, your time as a research student is an opportunity to gain many valuable skills that will be transferable to other situations.

The skills tasks required of PhD students in Physics are used for progress monitoring, as well as developing research appropriate skills in topics such as presentation, planning, project management and communication. As part of your training you can expect to spend approximately two weeks per year on activities to enhance these skills.

You will each be assigned a feedback supervisor who will provide comments and guidance on these tasks where appropriate.

Physics Doctoral Skills training has several key components:

Essential Training (e.g. Health and Safety, Research Integrity etc) - compulsory
Progress Monitoring (e.g. progress reports, literature reviews) - compulsory
Doctoral Skills Modules (1 per year) - compulsory
Attendance at research seminars and Physics department colloquia - compulsory

and several optional components:

Postgraduate Certificate in Transferable Skills - recommended
Doctoral College Researcher Development Courses - optional
Associate Fellowship of the Higher Education Academy - optional

Quick Links:

Descriptions and timetable for Doctoral Skills submissions

Skillsforge (tracking system for Doctoral Skills)

Postgraduate Certificate in Transferable Skills (PGCTS)

Doctoral College Researcher Development Programme

Physics Department Colloquia (link to follow, check email)

Essential Training (Compulsory)

This heading covers the key compulsory short training courses required for all students and staff at the University of Warwick and in the Physics Department.

Requirements

Most elements are self-training courses, delivered on Moodle, and are relatively short. Most of them only need to be completed once, on arrival, although the Risk Analysis will need to be reviewed, updated and signed each year.

You should ensure that you record your completion (e.g. by screenshotting the Moodle test outcome page or downloading a certificate where one is available). In some cases, these will need to be uploaded via Skillsforge. In others you should add them to a personal portfolio which you should keep safe (e.g. on OneDrive).

Requirements (all compulsory):

Research Integrity Training (may be taken in second year)

Those working in particular lab areas may be required to complete additional training modules as specified by their supervisor.

Any student who is teaching undergraduates will also need to complete Teaching and Demonstrating Training.

Teaching Training

You must attend and pass the Teaching and Demonstrating training course. This consists of a on-line Moodle course: https://moodle.warwick.ac.uk/enrol/index.php?id=62180 including an uploaded reflective piece, as well as attending the departmental session.

On completion you will be issued with a certificate from the Academic Development Centre (formally LDC) that needs to be uploaded on Skillsforge.

Progress Monitoring (Compulsory)

Tasks in this category are required for progress monitoring and formal progression through the degree.

Requirements

Four weeks after the start of their degree, all students must complete a Project Outline and submit this to their feedback supervisor.

Three months after the start of their degree, all MSc by Research students must complete a Three Month Progress Report, with a plan for their remaining time. This should be resubmitted together with an update on progress and revised plan for the Six Month Progress Review.

Six months after the start of their degree, all PhD students must complete a Six Month Progress Report and undergo a monitoring and progression interview with the Director of Studies (or designated substitute) and their Feedback Supervisor.

At the beginning of the Second, Third and Fourth Years, all PhD students must complete an updated Progress Report and Thesis Plan. The Doctoral College have announced plans to introduce formal continuation interviews at these stages in the 2026-2027 academic year.

All second year PhDs not on long term attachment outside of Warwick are expected to present a Research Poster on a designated day TBC in May 2026. First year PhD students should use this for their poster review task.

You will find brief descriptions of tasks, the submission deadlines for these tasks and reviewer information in the following link: Submission Deadlines and Important Dates .

Doctoral Skills Modules (Compulsory)

The Doctoral Skills Modules 1, 2 and 3 are a set of research-related transferrable skills tasks that have been tailored for Physics PG students and are taken in the first, second and third year of a PhD, respectively. They are intended to be equivalent to the three Doctoral Skills Modules of the Postgraduate Certificate in Transferable Skills (see below), although the latter are currently being revised. Satisfactory completion can be recognised with an Award (i.e. a formal qualification) through that scheme by mapping Physics tasks onto PGCTS tasks.

Requirements

The Doctoral Skills courses can be found on the Warwick SkillsForge platform. You will also find brief descriptions of some of these tasks, the submission deadlines for these tasks and reviewer information in the following link: Submission Deadlines and Important Dates. However note that many of the tasks are best completed throughout the year as they arise naturally in the course of a PhD. You might consider setting a monthly task of updating what skill tasks you can on Skillsforge and your CV.

Centrally defined DSM tasks for each year (set by the Doctoral College) are currently as follows:

Research planning: overlapping departmental progress review and risk analysis
Time management: a short reflection on challenges and current approach to time management
Research review: summaries of two academic presentations
Networking: record interactions with those outside your immediate project
Oral presentation: Prepare and deliver a short presentation and reflect on experience
Applications of Research: explore benefit beyond academia (i.e. industrial, IP, outreach or public engagement)
Career Development: consider career pathways.
Problem solving: describe a problem and its solution encountered during research.
Communication to non-specialists: short example with commentary
Ethical Principles: reflective piece on ethical implications of work, its conduct or its dissemination.

On the course handbook page for each year you will see some suggestions for how our required progress monitoring tasks map onto these skills. Where a task for the Doctoral Skills Module contains elements expected for the departmental progress reviews (e.g. literature reviews, gantt charts, thesis plans) you should submit the completed progress review components as evidence on Skillsforge rather than redoing them.

On Skillsforge, you may wish perform a Development Needs Analysis (DNA) to identify your strengths and areas requiring further development, both with respect to your specific research project and a more general development of your skills.

It is not expected that material you submit to Skillsforge (apart from the webpage) will be generally available to others, except for your supervisor, feedback supervisor and the Director of Graduate Studies. It will be primarily be used to monitor progress and help develop your skills.

Research Seminars and Colloquia (Compulsory)

Seminar attendance helps broaden your understanding of the discipline and place your own research into wider contexts, either in your research area or Physics more generally.

Requirements

The Physics Department hosts research colloquia (a one hour lecture and questions) every two weeks in the Autumn and Spring terms. Attendance at Physics Colloquia is required of all postgraduate research students. These are designed to be accessible to students in all areas of Physics, and are one of the very rare times that all members of the department are encouraged to come together in a research-focussed context. You will be informed of upcoming colloquia by email.

Rare exceptions to the attendance requirements may apply (e.g. if travelling for research, unwell or with significant caring responsibilities) but attendance should be the norm, regardless of whether other members of your research groups also plan to attend.

Most research clusters (e.g. Theory, Astro etc) will also have a weekly research seminar (presentation from a visiting or local speaker with questions) specific to their research area. All students are expected to attend at least one weekly research seminar, and should identify with their supervisor which is most appropriate. In some research areas sub-cluster level meetings and research group meetings may also be deemed compulsory at the discretion of the supervisor.

You should keep a log of seminars and colloquia attended, and aim to keep brief notes on these talks, some of which may be expanded into reviews for Doctoral Skills Module tasks.

Optional Additional Training

Postgraduate Certificate in Transferable Skills (Recommended)

We strongly encourage all Physics students to consider registering for the Postgraduate Certificate in Transferable Skills (PGCTS).

The minimum Physics DSM training tasks, if completed to a satisfactory standard, will qualify students for a Postgraduate Award with minimal extra work. An additional three transferable skills modules qualifies a student for a Postgraduate Certificate.

All PhD students have the option to complete this Warwick-led certificate which aims to help you to be a successful doctoral researcher and to be even more successful in your post-doctoral career than you might have been otherwise. The certificate consists of six modules: normally you will complete two each year. Each year, one of these (the compulsory DSM module) will concentrate on the skills that you should be building up during your routine work as a research student. The other will be based on an approximately three-day course with some follow-up activities.

If you choose to follow the PGCTS DSMs, then these can substitute for the Physics equivalent, although you should still complete Physics progress monitoring tasks to our deadlines.

More information about signing up and available modules can be found here

Associate Fellowship of the HEA

Those of you teaching may also wish to apply for an Associate Fellowship of the Higher Education Academy (HEA). This is an internationally recognised professional accreditation which is highly regarded by employers in the education sector, and is used as a condition for appointment or promotion in some jobs. It also provides formal recognition of your personal development and skills in the higher education sector.

Please contact Tom Hase if you would like to discuss the steps needed.

Researcher Development Programme from the Doctoral College