All Graduate School of Life Sciences courses

The Ensembl Plants project offers a single and integrative collection of interfaces for accessing and comparing genome-scale data for 38 species (release 24, November 2014). Our Genome Browser allows visualization and analysis of plant genomic sequences including gene annotation, genetic variation and comparative genomics. Tools for downstream genomic analyses such as VEP (Variant Effect Predictor) and BioMart (data export) will be also covered in this workshop. In addition to our Browser and web tools, the publicly available data in Ensembl Plants can be accessed programmatically via our Perl and REST APIs, downloaded FTP or accessed through MySQL queries. Users can view their own data in the context of the reference sequence and datasets.

This course covers state-of-the-art tools and methods for NGS RNA-seq and exome variant data analysis, which are of major relevance in today's genomic and gene expression studies. Further information is available here.

Please note that if you are not eligible for a University of Cambridge Raven account you will need to book by linking here.

How do you make your research palatable to the press? Do you stumble and fumble when in front of a camera? Are you protective about your research, wary of handing over all your hard work to a journalist? Join Dr Eliza Filby, founder of GradTrain and lecturer at King's College London for this one-day media training course especially designed for researchers interested in engaging with the media at all levels.

Many basic numeric messages are inadequately communicated because of poor presentation. This course illustrates some of the problems and demonstrates ways to improve the reception of messages by different target audience. This one-day course is the foundation to all presentations of statistical information. The basic principles of presenting information in tables, charts, maps and text are explained. These are illustrated and then reinforced through practical exercises.

The course is for anyone who is involved in communicating statistics to non-statisticians, or who reports on data within organisations, to specific communities and to the general public where a message is being delivered.

Download the poster at http://www.gradschl.lifesci.cam.ac.uk/GRASP/clear-vision-poster/view

This day-long training course consists of a mixture of taught and interactive practical elements intended to show participants how to get the best out of Twitter for research purposes.

Please note that this course requires you to have an existing working knowledge of Twitter. In order to apply you must fill in an application form available at the following address

https://cambridge.onlinesurveys.ac.uk/come-fly-with-me-application

You own your own research right? Well it depends...

This session will explore the sometimes complicated world of copyright and what can happen when publishing work through formal routes such as journals or through more informal routes such as pre-print servers. The session will also introduce concepts such as third party copyright and rights retention, as well as how licensing tools such as Creative Commons can be used to not only help maximise the reach of research but also navigating reusing other people's work.

PLEASE NOTE that this course will be taught live online, with demonstrators available to help you throughout if have any questions. All lecture components will be recorded and uploaded to the course Moodle page so that you will be able to access that information even if technical or time zone restrictions means that you aren't able to join us for the live sessions.

This virtually delivered course is intended to provide a strong foundation in practical statistics and data analysis using the R or Python software environments. The underlying philosophy of the course is to treat statistics as a practical skill rather than as a theoretical subject and as such the course focuses on methods for addressing real-life issues in the biological sciences.

There are three core goals for this course:

1. Use R or Python confidently for statistics and data analysis
2. Be able to analyse datasets using standard statistical techniques
3. Know which tests are and are not appropriate

Both R and Python are free software environments that are suitable for statistical and data analysis.

In this course, we explore classical statistical analysis techniques starting with simple hypothesis testing and building up to linear models and power analyses. The focus of the course is on practical implementation of these techniques and developing robust statistical analysis skills rather than on the underlying statistical theory

After the course you should feel confident to be able to select and implement common statistical techniques using R or Python and moreover know when, and when not, to apply these techniques.

This series of lectures provides a basic introduction to neurobiology. If you are a new graduate student working in another area but think your research might benefit from some understanding of neurobiology, this is for you. If you have done an undergraduate course in neuroscience of any kind, this is NOT for you.

As scientists, your skills of critical thinking are well developed in hypothesis testing, observation and empirical experiment. This workshop will incorporate other modes of logic and reason into your scientific thinking. The focus of discussion will be social and ethical issues in biotechnology.

You will develop:

• Knowledge of critical thinking, with respect to logic and argument development
• Skills in application of critical thinking using case studies and debate involving bioethics

Developing your critical thinking and recognising how human elements impact on scientific enquiry will support you in making more appropriate decisions in the direction of your scientific projects.

PLEASE NOTE

This course compromises of two compulsory sessions. In the first session you will learn the skills and in the second you will apply them. There is also an optional follow-up session where you can meet with members of your group to discuss how you have applied the skills in your research.

Trainer:

Caroline Broad is a Philosophy graduate, with seven years experience working in the bio science industry and 15 years delivering skills development workshops.

As scientists, skills of critical thinking are well developed in hypothesis testing, observation and scientific projects. This workshop will incorporate other modes of logic and reason into scientific thinking.

This workshop will consist of a set of debates on current bioethical issues. We will then analyse and evaluate the presence and impact of critical thinking within those debates

PLEASE NOTE: This course consists of two half day sessions, with a week between sessions.

A workshop of two half-day sessions that are one week apart, developing:

• Knowledge of critical thinking, with respect to logic and argument development
• Skills in application of critical thinking using case studies and debate involving bioethics

Developing your critical thinking and recognising how human elements impact on scientific enquiry will support you in making more appropriate decisions in the direction of your scientific projects.

As scientists, your skills of critical thinking are well developed in hypothesis testing, observation and empirical experiment. This workshop will incorporate other modes of logic and reason into your scientific thinking. Once these skills have been looked at, they will be use on example discussions in the areas of social and ethical issues in biotechnology – including reproductive cloning and use of bio-information. Please note that these are example topics for practicing the skills and are not the topic of the course.

Workshop leader: Caroline Broad is a Philosophy graduate with a passion for the practical applications of critical thinking; especially in the global, highly technical world we now live in; Caroline has spent ten years working in biotechnology field, previously as an employee for AZ owned MedImmune. She is a visiting lecturer at the Royal Veterinary College, teaching Advanced Concepts in Bio business; delivers workshops to post-docs at Imperial College in Innovation skills and creative problem solving.

Achieving clarity in writing is not just about what’s written on the page – that is merely the final stage in a long and complex process. It actually starts with the interpretation of the question… From a linguistic perspective writing is actually rather straightforward, but the clarity of the ‘end product’, particularly in academic writing, is very much dependent on the clarity of all the stages that precede it. This session will examine this process and explores strategies to help you improve the clarity of your writing.

Over the course of a PhD, students will create and use large amounts of different types of data. This course is designed to help students manage their data effectively, and to make them aware of some of the legal and ethical issues involved in dealing with data.

The design and analysis of experiments is an essential first step before doing any research; this short seminar will help you develop a clear understanding of what you need to consider when planning experiments and will help to maximize your productivity. Please note that this course is aimed at ecologists but the principles can be applied to experimental design in many other areas.

This new half-day workshop has been designed to explore the ideas and techniques to unlock your hidden potential as a researcher with clarity, vision and creative leadership. We willl explore the importance of a creative approach to your research - and its communication - by understanding the nature of creativity, how and where to apply creative thinking and activities (for instance, by setting a new dynamic in departmental meetings!) and finally how creative practices lead to personal change and technical and scientific innovation.

You are encouraged to attend with an open mind 'beginners mind' and a willingness to discuss real issues and problems that would benefit from a creative solution. You will be encouraged to compete a short action plan to focus on next steps in the creative process.

What is required to develop efficient and productive working relationships?

In this workshop we explore research that provides insight into individuals’ different working styles and how to exploit individual strengths to create an effective team. We explore the research of Meredith Belbin and his team role theory using practical exercises to confirm your team role strengths.

• Understand the facets of an effective team
• Belbin team role insight
• Learning styles and communication techniques
• An insight into individual motivations and drivers

Trainer: Caroline Broad is a Philosophy graduate, with seven years experience working in the bio science industry and 15 years delivering skills development workshops.

« Description not available »

There is a growing research base on how to approach influencing in a positive and ethical way. In this workshop you will practice techniques to improve your influencing skills and develop your natural influencing style.

Great ideas need people to get behind them. Teams need to be motivated towards their objectives. Academics and funders need to be convinced of your project’s worth.

We will explore the power of language, rapport, consensus and reciprocity within influencing. We will practice key influencing skills that will help you develop effective committed relationship with the right people for your purpose.

Trainer: Caroline Broad is a Philosophy graduate, with seven years experience working in the bio science industry and 15 years delivering skills development workshops.

If you cannot lead yourself, how can you influence others or be a productive member of a team?

Join us for an intensive 1-day, experiential workshop exploring the core elements of leading self and others positively and effectively. We start with self-leadership: purpose, values and how well I live them, and what gets in the way? It includes mental and neurophysiological tools for reducing fear (a.k.a. stress, tension), accessing presence/ the zone (often referred to in current trends as dynamic "mindfulness") all leading to increase the ACT of leadership - Awareness, Connection and Transformation - for self and others.

Having established this firm foundation, we build the capacity for open, productive, adult-to-adult interactions with others with emotional intelligence, trust, delegation and handling conflict.

If you cannot lead yourself, how can you influence others or be a productive member of a team?

Join us for an intensive 1-day, experiential workshop exploring the core elements of leading self and others positively and effectively. We start with self-leadership: purpose, values and how well I live them, and what gets in the way? It includes mental and neurophysiological tools for reducing fear (a.k.a. stress, tension), accessing presence/ the zone (often referred to in current trends as dynamic "mindfulness") all leading to increase the ACT of leadership - Awareness, Connection and Transformation - for self and others.

Having established this firm foundation, we build the capacity for open, productive, adult-to-adult interactions with others with emotional intelligence, trust, delegation and handling conflict.

This course will take a complete look at the final year of your PhD. From the core elements of the thesis and viva and the often forgotten administrative tasks that must get done, on to looking at who you have become and what career path you may take.

We are running a series of focus groups to gain a better understanding of the entrepreneurship and enterprise landscape at Cambridge for STEMM postgraduates. We welcome everyone to come along and share their experiences and thoughts about this subject with us. Whether you have previously gained entrepreneurship and enterprise experience or thought this is an area to build on as part of your post graduate training, your contribution to these sessions would be most valuable.

This session will be held online via zoom. Joining instructions will be sent to participants two days before the scheduled focus group.

A crash course in what you need to know about scientific writing. This lecture is aimed at those writing scientific papers, but many of the principles apply equally to writing a doctoral dissertation. The examples given are mostly in the area of of Biochemistry research, but applicable to many others.

A full day session including group and individual work, enabling you to think about what a challenging conversation is, whether you need to have one, how to navigate it, if and when you and then how to help avoid further escalation of a difficult situation.

A participative session involving group and individual work delving into how giving and receiving feedback can be a useful development tool, helping you to be heard effectively and potentially the reducing the need for challenging discussions.

Your lab notebook is one of the most important and precious objects you, as a scientist, will ever have. This course will explore how keeping an exemplary laboratory notebook is crucial to good scientific practice in lab research. The course will consist of a short talk, a chance to assess some examples of good and bad practice, with plenty of time for questions and discussion. You might like to bring along your own lab notebook for feedback. (Please note that issues relating to protection of Intellectual Property Rights will not be covered in this course).

A highly participative session including group and individual work. To help build your confidence when networking in-person; looking at preparation, who to approach, how to start and finish any conversations well and manage post event contact.

A participative online session including group and individual work, enabling you to feel more confident when online networking; looking at how if differs to in-person networking and what this means your approach and thoughts about it.

This full-day course takes an evidence-based approach to writing academic papers. Participants learn that publishing is a game and this course will help them win it. It is designed to maximise the number of papers from a research project, make the process of writing the paper as efficient as possible, reduce the chances of co-authors and supervisors making unnecessary changes in the late stages of preparation and fosters collaboration between researchers. The course is highly interactive and participants not only learn from each other, they will, by the end of the day, be well on their way to completing a paper for a particular journal. They effectively learn to market themselves and their departments as well as learn about the process of writing. Past attendees have said the approach is fun. Originally developed for clinicians the course is relevant to all researchers, irrespective of their discipline.

Olivia Timbs is the organiser and trainer. She is a regular tutor for The Guardian Masterclasses programme running this course and another on effective writing.

The course takes an evidence-based approach to writing. Participants will learn that publishing is a game and the more they understand the rules of the game the higher their chances of becoming publishing authors. They will learn that writing an academic article and getting it published may help with their careers but it does not make them better researchers, or cleverer than they were before their paper was accepted; it simply means they have played the game well.

Suitable for GSLS postgraduates in any discipline who are keen to learn how to write academic papers and articles efficiently as well as more established researchers who have had papers rejected and are not really sure why.

If you want a better chance of your name on a paper, this is for you!

Trainer

Olivia Timbs is an award-winning editor and journalist with over 30 years' experience gained from working on national newspapers and for a range of specialist health and medical journals.

This day-long training course consists of a mixture of taught and interactive practical elements intended to show participants how to get the best out of Twitter for research purposes.

Please note that this course requires you to have an existing working knowledge of Twitter. In order to apply you must fill in an application form available at the following address

https://cambridge.onlinesurveys.ac.uk/come-fly-with-me-application-form

A one-day workshop to introduce and practice skills needed for innovative working relationships with business. This is a workshop full of discussion and activity around the practical implementation of the following:

The learning aims are.

• An insight into UK plc expectations following the 2012 Wilson report
• Project management skills that turn an idea into a reality
• Technical skills that test scientific and commercial project viability
• Behavioural skills that build and maintain relationships

Participants will learn about:

• The changing landscape of UK and European funding
• The UK’s drive towards business – academic collaborations
• Expectations from industry. Differences and similarities to academia
• How to manage academic – business differences
• Core project management techniques including: Project Initiation documents; Impact measurement; Risk management; Project tracking and reporting
• Effective working in complex teams including: Creating team buy in; Managing and sharing your knowledge; Communications skills

Provides an understanding of the UK and European landscape for researchers in the context of future careers and collaborations with industry. Also valuable for academics looking for a career move into industry. Provides an insight into what innovation really means and introduces the practical project management tools to implement innovative projects.

« Description not available »

Join Sarah Cruise, a human communication expert, for two hours to explore the core skills of communicating effectively to engage with any audience. This workshop has been designed to cover various communication theories with illustrative demonstrations and practical exercises. Although this will be options should you not be able to take part. During this time you will cover: • the fundamentals of all good communication • two simple ways to enhance your own personal impact • tools for collating and structuring engaging and accessible content • guidance for creating effective visuals • and a model for handling interactive communications

You can find out more about Sarah on her website eloquential.co.uk and if you have any questions, accessibility issues or anything else you’d like to discuss prior to the workshop, you can contact her on sarah@eloquential.co.uk

« Description not available »

There are some key working relationships that require development and management throughout the course of a Ph.D. If this is discussed and understood at the earliest opportunity students can be proactive in managing such relationships, enhance transferable skills and have a better research experience.

Your final year is an exciting, yet unsettling time. You need to finish experiments, start to write your thesis and begin to think about the next chapter of your career. This two-day linked workshop is designed to help you make sense of the year ahead.

You will be given practical tips on planning your final year, as well as discuss the administration of your final year, writing your thesis and preparation for your viva. In addition, you will explore the career opportunities that are best suited to you, by thinking about your expertise, suitability and personal values. Finally, you will get the chance to review your C.V and experience the interview process.

This session discusses the benefits and challenges of maintaining an online presence as a researcher. Part of two sessions on this topic, this first session looks at setting up your academic persona and using academic platforms. Starting with exploring what comes up through a quick Google search all the way through to maintaining profiles on academic sites, we will look at the pros and cons of online engagement. This will include tools such as ORCID, and networking sites such as academia.edu and ResearchGate.

Participants should expect to have the opportunity to critically evaluate the various options presented in this session with the overall aim of being better informed when deciding where to invest their time and efforts when building an academic presence online.

This session discusses the benefits and challenges of maintaining an online presence as a researcher. Part of two sessions on this topic, this second session looks at using social media as a researcher. We will look at the practicalities and pros and cons of online engagement through tools such as Twitter/X, Mastodon, YouTube and LinkedIn.

Participants should expect to have the opportunity to critically evaluate the various options presented in this session with the overall aim of being better informed when deciding where to invest their time and efforts when building an academic presence online.

This session will cover the basics of Open Access publishing, helping you to understand the benefits and practicalities of this important area of academia and how it relates to your research. We’ll discuss strategic drivers towards open access policies, including your funder requirements and why you need to deposit your PhD thesis. We’ll also demystify open access terminology, tell you exactly how to make your work available openly and discuss Creative Commons licencing, all while giving you lots of tools and support to make open access easy.

The Graduate School of Life Sciences' main showcase in the Univeristy of Cambridge Science Festival for the public understanding of our research. It includes a competition for the best photograph or image from your research. Full rules and regulations are available online. You do not need to book a place for this aspect of the competition, just submit your image as described in the rules and regulations.

The Graduate School of Life Sciences' main showcase in the Univeristy of Cambridge Science Festival for the public understanding of our research. It includes a competition for the best poster concisely conveying a single message to the general public. You must book a place to ensure that your work is accepted.

The Graduate School of Life Sciences' main showcase in the Univeristy of Cambridge Science Festival for the public understanding of our research. It includes a competition for the best research poster, live dialogue and communicating your own research to the general public. You must book a place to ensure that your work is accepted.

Clear, effective and professional communication skills are absolutely essential to any aspiring academic. While students are taught the essentials of how to research, less emphasis is placed on how to present their work either in the lecture hall, in the seminar room or even the viva. This course is unique in that it fuses academic skills with acting training.

This course has been designed to help graduates students and ECRs to develop their understanding of available tools and techniques which can aid with problem solving and innovation in a research-intensive environment.

An introductory workshop for 1st year PhD students to explore the working relationships you will encounter during your PhD with emphasis on how to work well with your supervisor.

This whole day session is designed to help researchers develop strategies for making networking part of a successful career, whether inside or outside of research. It focuses on thinking about all of the researchers' working life as a route to networking, rather than being a course about "personal impact" in conference coffee breaks.

This workshop, led by Understanding Animal Research, outlines the Concordat on Openness on Animal Research and provides advice and practical information on how best to talk about the use of animals in your research.

Academics can make as much of an impact from what they say as what they write whether it be through teaching, conferences or job presentations. Working with a trained actor and an academic, this workshop will take participants through the process of how to write and deliver a speech.

In the first session you will cover how to structure a speech, the use of appropriate language and imagery, audio-visual aids and how to master the Q&A.

In the second session, we will focus on your performance. Drawing on acting techniques, participants will discover how to improve their diction, resonance, range and articulation as well as relaxation and breathing techniques to calm nerves.

This workshop is designed for PhDs and Postdocs at any stage of their academic career.