Programme Published
UKCGE Annual Conference — PGR Day
Join us at this PGR-Led Conference at the University of Liverpool, which precedes UKCGE’s Annual Conference. This event will have a focus on Careers, Skills and Futures Shaped Through the PhD, and ties into the broader theme of Postgraduate Cultures: Community, Collaboration and Connection.
Background
During your postgraduate research degree you develop personally and professionally. Alongside advanced research expertise, postgraduate researchers (PGRs) develop a rich mix of skills, perspectives, and professional strengths that open doors to a wide range of career possibilities — within academia, industry and the third sector. In this conference we will shine a light on these sometimes-overlooked skills, how to identify, grow and articulate them. This conference provides a dedicated, peer-led forum for you as PGRs to share experiences, strategies, and critical reflections on doctoral life, career development, and professional transitions, as well offering some training and development sessions from relevant careers-related experts.
Whether you are studying a ‘traditional’ PhD, an MPhil, DocMed, professional doctorate or Research Masters, are at the beginning of your PhD, nearing completion, or simply curious about what comes next, this conference offers an open, welcoming, future-focused space in which PGRs can lead sessions, or contribute practical insights, opportunities and challenges, reflective accounts, work-in-progress, and evidence-informed approaches to career planning, the career journey and professional development.
Conference Aims
- Celebrate and share the strengths, skills, and expertise developed through (and alongside) doctoral study
- Support confident career exploration across academic, industry and third sector pathways
- Build community, peer support, networks, and collaboration
- Encourage reflective, empowered thinking about the postgraduate research degree as both research and professional development
Themes and Topics
The Postgraduate Researcher Career Experience
- Can we consider the doctorate itself as career development? How can we unpack the skills, experiences and attributes gained during a research degree? How these can be showcased and used to guide your career planning?
- Navigating the PhD career journey: managing expectations, opportunities, challenges, imposter feelings, wellbeing, resilience, and work-life balance
- Establishing your PGR identity: becoming a postgraduate researcher. What this experience has involved, what skills have you needed to grow? What will you need to develop to make your next step? How will you or have you navigated professional identity changes? (If you’ve had a career before embarking on your research degree you may have a great insight to share into this!)
- Exploring supervision, mentoring, building professional networks, research cultures and communities, independent working
- Fostering interdisciplinary and collaborative doctoral experiences about career progression
- Discussing research commercialisation and setting up a business
- What opportunities have you found/made/taken during your research degree? How did you do it? what tips do you have for others?
Career Pathways and Professional Futures
- What does actively prioritising your career development look like to you as a PGR?
- Growing your transferrable career skills/attributes confidence as developed during your research degree
- Considering academic career trajectories, norms and expectations
- Exploring careers in industry, policy, public engagement, third sector, and entrepreneurship
- Discussing international careers and global mobility
- What tips do you have for others? What do you wish you knew at the start that you know now?
Job Searching and Applications
- What does career development look like in the wild?
- Identifying career opportunities that align with your interests and values
- Understanding different employment landscapes: academic vs non-academic job markets
- Tailoring applications for different sectors
- Developing your online presence, networking, and professional identity.
CVs, Cover Letters and Interviews
- How can you promote yourself, your skills and experiences in the right way to the right people?
- Writing effective academic CVs vs industry résumés, cover letters and personal statements
- Preparing for interviews, presentations and assessment centres
- Translating doctoral research into accessible narratives for employers.
Funding, Grants and Bid Writing
- How can you keep building your researcher profile to establish an academic career post-PhD?
- Applying for fellowship and grant applications
- Creating early-career funding strategies
- Learning from peer review experiences
- Developing funding narratives and impact statements.
Skills, Growth and Professional Development
- What other skills and professional development have you undertaken that can support your future career?
- Teaching, leadership, and project management skills
- Public engagement, science communication and outreach
- Digital, data and methodological skills
- Publishing journal articles, book reviews, blog posts, monographs
- Reflective practice and career planning tools.
Wider Perspectives
We also encourage proposals that explore:
- Equality, diversity and inclusion
- Accessibility and inclusive research cultures
- First generation doctoral experiences
- Positive change and innovation in doctoral education.