Induction session details

This session, led by the Director of the Doctoral College, Professor Eva Kipnis, will provide an overview of the College’s role in supporting and enabling your postgraduate research journey. The Directors of the two Research Institutes will introduce you to the research areas and expertise within their institutes.

Aims of this session:

1. Introduce you to the structures, resources, and opportunities that will underpin your development as a researcher at Bradford.
2. Gain an understanding of the vibrant research environment at Bradford.
3. Learn how your institute can provide guidance, resources, and community to support you throughout your doctoral journey.
4. Opportunity for Q&A with the senior research leaders at Bradford about their experiences and top tips.

Facilitated by:

Professor Eva Kipnis (Director of the Doctoral College), Ben Whiteside (Director of the Institute of Digital and Sustainable Futures), and Anant Paradkar (Director of the Institute of Health and Social Care)

Join us for a 20-30 minute tour of campus showing you round the buildings and pointing PGR specific spaces, with opportunity to ask questions.

This session will introduce you to the processes, administrative tasks and regulatory aspects of your postgraduate study, and will:

• Introduce the Doctoral College Administration Team, your key points of contact and their role in supporting you
• Explain the processes involved in leave (annual and sick), supervision meeting recordings for attendance and how to navigate regulations and progression requirements
• Cover the use of CANVAS for submitting progression reports and E:Vision for accessing essential information
• Clarify who you contact, what processes to follow, and how the Doctoral College Administration Team can help you stay on track throughout your research degree. 

Facilitated by:

The Doctoral College Administration Team

In this session we will explore the research degree journey and expectations the university has of you as a PGR for progression and completion of your degree.

Aims of the session:

1. Introduce the research degree milestones and what’s required from you
2. Explain the progression scheme and expectations of each review
3. Clarify the expectations around the final examination of your degree
4. Share top-tips and bust myths about the research degree experience
5. Answer your questions about doing a research degree and studying at Bradford

Facilitated by: Gemma Jackson (Researcher Developer), Iana Sabatovych (Research Culture Manager) and Richard McCulloch (Research Culture Officer)

Every researcher must engage with professional development to set short-term and long-term goals, build the skills to complete the research degree successfully and understand how these translate to roles beyond academia. Self-reflection is a crucial tool to build a portfolio of evidence and set targets for our own development. This session will introduce the framework used at Bradford to help you start your journey as an independent researcher and the Development Needs Analysis process that is a requirement at Bradford. 

Aims:

1. Introduce the national researcher development framework (RDF)
2. Explore the skills that are required for research and their transferability
3. Help you identify prior experiences and existing skills
4. Discover your areas for development and create your initial development plan
5. Explain Bradford’s development needs analysis (DNA) process

Maps to RDF domains: Researcher: 1.1 Development-focused, 1.7 Reflexive

Facilitated by: Gemma Jackson (Researcher Developer)

Notes: bring a pen or your laptop for this session.

The supervisory relationship is important for your research degree experience, but every relationship is different. Being able to create good working practices and communicate well with them is essential.

Aims:

1. Clarify Bradford’s expectations and responsibilities of its supervisors and PGRs
2. Give guidance on how to work well with your supervisors and manage them
3. Understand the role of supervision meetings and meeting records
4. Explore the importance of a co-working agreement
5. Discuss supervision scenarios and how to address them

RDF 2025 mapping: Research Communities: 5.2 Teamworking, 5.3 Leadership, 5.4 Supervision and people management

Facilitated by: Gemma Jackson (Researcher Developer)

This session led by Careers introduces the support available for your during your studies and beyond. It give you advice on how to network and get you practicing in the session, using techniques to meet your fellow PGRs and building confidence . gives you the opportunity to informally meet and network with new and existing postgraduate research students, including some of your postgraduate research representatives, and members of academic staff who will be supporting you throughout your research journey.

As this session takes place around lunch time, please feel free to bring a packed lunch. The PGR Lounge has a kitchen equipped with a fridge, kettle and microwave.

Maps to RDF domains: B3.4 Networking, D1.1 Collegiality

Facilitated by: Catherine McAvoy (Career and Employability Consultant)

As a postgraduate researcher, you have access to a wide network of services designed to support your academic, professional, and personal development. In this session, representatives from Health and Safety, Student Life and Wellbeing, the Language Centre, Bradford:Fellowships, the Students’ Union, and the Visa Support Team will introduce the guidance, resources, and opportunities they provide to help you succeed and make the most of your time at Bradford.

The University of Bradford has many IT systems and platforms available to PGRs, some which you will need to use during your research degree and others that may be useful and support your research. This workshop will:

1. Introduce the software, platforms, and virtual environments available ​
2. Explain how best to navigate the University’s online environment
3. Familiarise you with the IT environment and available software
4. Signpost to resources and information ​

Maps to RDF 2025 domains:​

• Knowledge and Practice: 2.4 Digital and technological capabilities
• Research Management: 3.2 Project management ​

Facilitated by: Gemma Jackson (Researcher Developer), Iana Sabatovych (Research Culture Manager)

Every researcher needs to find relevant and useful sources of literature to provide context and support for their research and manage these sources efficiently. This workshop will:

• Introduce the Library’s tools and resources, and how to use them to find literature
• Provide literature search techniques to help you start your literature engagement work
• Introduce reference management and how to use it from the start of your degree

Maps to RDF domains: A1 Knowledge Base: A1.4 Information Seeking, A1.5 Information Literacy and Management

Facilitated by: University of Bradford Library

All research projects are designed to answer research questions or address an aim. This dictates the best methods to use, the data required and how you will interpret the findings which will bring about new knowledge.

The aims of this session are:

1. Clarify your research aim or question
2. Think about the potential impact and contribution from your research
3. Introduce philosophical, epistemological and ontological positions
4. Understand the differences between quantitative, qualitative and mixed methods
5. Discuss your potential data generation and analysis methods

Maps to RDF: A1 Knowledge Base, A1.2 and A1.3 Research Methods

Facilitated by Gemma Jackson, Researcher Developer

Having a project plan is essential to getting your research project off to a good start and support timely completion of your activities including ethics, data collection and writing your thesis. This session will introduce the basics of research project management and consider self-organisation.

Aims of this workshop:

1. Explore milestones and timeline of a research degree
2. Introduce the project management cycle and two approaches to planning
3. Discuss how your research progress can be monitored
4. Help you create initial project plans for your first three months and the entire research project 
5. Consider your organisational skills and work-life balance

Maps to RDF 2025 domains: Researcher: 1.3 Organised, Research Management: 3.2 Project management

Facilitated by Gemma Jackson (Researcher Developer)

Note: bring a pen or laptop for this session.

Acting ethically and upholding integrity are cornerstones of conducting good quality research. This session will introduce the expectations Bradford has of all its researchers and explain the importance of ethics in every research project.

Aims:

1. Introduce ethical principles and codes
2. Understand ethical issues and risks, and how they relate to each other
3. Identify complex ethical issues in research case studies
4. Reflect upon potential ethical considerations in your research
5. Explain the university's ethics review process you will engage with

 Notes:

• This session has pre-reading. Review this resource before attending and come prepared with questions on ethical issues: Pre-reading for research ethics session.pdf
• Bring a pen or laptop for this session.

Maps to RDF 2025 domains: Researcher 1.9 Responsible, Research Management 3.5 Research Integrity and Ethics

Facilitated by: Gemma Jackson (Researcher Developer)

All research projects contain areas of risk which can impact upon your ability to deliver outcomes on time. Similarly, all research projects involve data and management of this is key for researchers during and after a project. This session will introduce the risk assessment process for projects and the data life cycle, and the expectations on PGRs. is a requirement for your research, this session will explain the process you’ll be using.

Aims:

1. Introduce you to risk and data management for research projects
2. Explore areas of risk within your research
3. Create an initial risk assessment for your project
4. Understand the data life cycle and how this aligns to the project life cycle and research degree milestones
5. Initially consider data your methods may generate and how to store it

Notes:

• This session has pre-reading. Review this resource before attending and come prepared with questions on areas of risk in research: Pre-reading for assessing risks session.pdf
• Bring a pen or laptop for this session.
• This is the last induction session. We will use the last 15 minutes at the end of this session to discuss all the questions you have.

Maps to RDF domains: Researcher 1.9 Responsible, Knowledge and Practice 2.3 Information and Data Literacy, Research Management 3.3 Risk Management

Facilitated by: Gemma Jackson (Researcher Developer)