During 2017-2019, Dr Helal Ahmed undertook a Master’s in Education research project entitled ‘Are Professional Skills Courses Transferable? The Evaluation and Impact of the Graduate School Professional Skills Courses on Master’s Alumni Students’.

The aims of this research were to identify which MasterClasses were the most beneficial to alumni. The outcomes support enhancements of the Graduate School Master's Programme.

For further information on this project please contact h.ahmed@imperial.ac.uk

Dr Caroline Hargreaves undertook a Master’s research project to examine what relative ‘value’ doctoral researchers place on professional skills development and how this changes as individuals move beyond their PhD. It explores whether alumni views can inform the professional skills agenda to engage researchers earlier in their trajectories.

For further information on this project please contact caroline.hargreaves@imperial.ac.uk

Evaluation of the transferable skills programme as a whole

Conducted in 2009, this research focussed on the views of late stage PhD students in Science, Engineering and Medicine at Imperial. Key findings:

• Students reported a positive impact from having taken part in transferable skills initiatives
• Participants reported an enduring positive impact on their behaviour and considered that the training met their perceived needs as they progressed as researchers
• Greater importance was attached to training opportunities by female students, overseas students and PhD stduents motivated by career-related reasons

For more information about this research see:

• Walsh, E. et al. 2010. Evaluation of a programme of transferable skills development within the PhD: views of late stage students, International Journal for Researcher Development, Vol 1 (3)

RCUK review of researcher development activities

In April 2010, RCUK visited the five UK universities who had received the most funding for researcher development activities. You can see an extract of their report here:

“The skills programme for PGRs is excellent. The Panel were very pleased to see that evaluation of the skills development programme has been undertaken throughout, allowing for evidence-based policy making, and convincing academic staff of the value of this training. The clear leadership of and advocacy for the programme from a high level within the university, and the systematic approach to quality assurance and evaluation (which were used to continually improve the programme), were particular strengths of the management of the programme.&rdquo

For further information, please see the RCUK website, which has a summary report of all 5 visits.

Find out more: Poster - Impact of Professional skills programme [pdf]

Information to follow shortly

Information to follow shortly