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A must-attend in-person session with information tailored to postdocs in Cambridge, whether University-based or employed by Colleges or Research Institutions.

At this event, you will be given information about:

• Your contract
• Professional development and the Careers Service
• How to connect to the wider postdoc community at Cambridge
• You will also meet representatives from various University services who may be helpful to you while you are working in Cambridge.

Do you have a deadline coming up or a piece of writing that’s long overdue? Or maybe some data analysis that just keeps slipping to the bottom of your to-do list?

Alongside everything else that needs to fit in with our busy research lives, it can be hard to schedule devoted time in which to sit, think, and write. Our online retreats give you time, peace, and space to fend off procrastination and beat writer's block. Each session will provide a friendly and constructive environment in which to meet like-minded peers, discuss challenges and work in a focused way using the established Pomodoro technique.

These virtual retreats are being hosted collaboratively across a number of institutions over the summer months. You can book to attend as many or as few as you like. The table below lists the retreats that are currently planned. Additional dates and times will be added as they become available.

Most people find taking decisions and action under uncertain conditions challenging, and some find it daunting. There are practical ways to cope with uncertainty and make it less crippling, including simple techniques which can be trained and implemented in our daily lives. Once these skills have been acquired, we can even learn to have uncertainty work to our advantage, using it to fuel creativity and problem solving and to boost team work.

This workshop is an opportunity to experience uncertainty in a safe environment and learn to get comfortable with thinking on our feet. We will borrow tools from improvisation theatre and cognitive sciences to help you experiment with uncertainty and learn strategies for harnessing it to your benefit.

Feedback from postdocs who attended the training in July 2021:

• Really great experience. Mostly, I think it helps a lot with confidence and also with tuning your listening skills and your respect for what others said and do. You can't predict things and need to embrace them as they come, and this is so useful in both personal and work life.
• I found this workshop was a very fun way to spend two hours. But more than that I liked the positive messages it gave for approaching my research - e.g. sometimes it’s best not to overthink but go with the obvious, or if things go wrong (even repeatedly) just forget about them and keep trying something new.

The Speaker: Ron Jortner is a neuroscientist, entrepreneur, and professional improviser. He completed his PhD at Caltech and the Hebrew University, and held positions at the Max Planck Society and the MRC Laboratory for Molecular Biology. He lives in Cambridge, is founder and CEO of Aspire Biosciences, managing director of Masthead Biosciences, and artistic director of the Cambridge University Science Improv Society.