UKCGE launches new online theme and discipline based special interest groups.

The new UKCGE website, which was officially launched last month, now hosts a number of special interest group to enable colleagues form across the postgraduate sector to join discussion and share their experiences across a number of topic areas:

• Research Ethics and Integrity
• International Students and Collaborations
• Part time and Distance Leaning
• PGR Administration (General)
• PGR Supervision
• Skills, Training and Employability
• Access and Inclusion
• Postgraduate Taught (General)
• Professional Doctorates
• Marketing, Recruitment and Engagement

There are also a number of groups dedicated to the following discipline specific areas:

• Arts and Humanities
• Health and Social Care
• Social Sciences
• Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM)

Each Group has its own forum page on the new website, where users may share experiences, ask questions and collaborate on joint projects. The forum pages will also be the place to go to follow-up on, and discuss issues raised at, UKCGE workshops and conferences.

Colleagues from UKCGE member organisations can join one or more of the groups by registering and/​or logging in to the new website and visiting the Special Interest Groups section of the site: http://www.ukcge.ac.uk/about-ukcge/professional-networks.aspx

Ben Massey, UKCGE Marketing and Liaison Officer said,

‘We are now at a stage with our new website where we can start to utilise the additional benefits the system brings in order to keep improving the membership experience and continue building value into the annual subscription fee.

The new special interest groups build on the success of the Council’s formalised Network for Deans and Directors of Graduate schools and the more recent Graduate School Managers Network. The new groups will be less formalised in nature but will still allow colleagues to share experience and gain deeper understanding of particular issues

Being able to subscribe to special interest groups directly can bring more people closer together with related interests, enable a more effective means of communication and enable the Council to link up events under related themes.’