GRADskills 2026 Workshops open for booking
We are pleased to announce that our GRADskills workshops are now open for bookings !
Key details: GRADskills is operated by IELLI for St Leonards College and supports the development of research postgraduate students to improve their research capability and widen their employability inside and outside of academia.
Audience
- PG research
Programme information
GRADskills is a suite of workshops and activities designed specifically for research postgraduate students (i.e. PhD, MPhil), delivered by the International Education and Lifelong Learning Institute (IELLI) for St Leonard’s Postgraduate College. GRADskills aim is to support the development of all research postgraduate students at the University of St Andrews, to improve their research capability and widen their employability inside and outside of academia. [email protected].
Workshops are grouped into thematic bundles which roughly follow the trajectory of the research degree (first year, mid-way, final year).
Further online or asynchronous resources can be found on the GRADskills webpages.
More information on Vitae’s Researcher Development Framework (RDF) and how you can use this to plan your professional development can be found here.
Individual workshop booking links
Links below indicate an upcoming event. If a workshop title is not actively linked below, then dates for the current term have already passed and dates for the upcoming term have not yet been chosen. Further enquiries and last minute bookings (online bookings close the day before an event) should be directed to [email protected].
If you can no longer attend a workshop, please cancel your booking at least 2 working days in advance. Failure to do so may mean that future bookings are not approved. This PDMS intro video shows how to find, book and later print a certified training record.
Theme 1) Getting started
- Postgraduate Researcher Welcome Event
- Wednesday 15 April 2026
- Wednesday 3 June 2026
Theme 2) Carrying out my research
- NVivo (day 1): Introducing the software and qualitative analysis
- Wednesday 8 April 2026
- NVivo (day 2): Advanced features and customising your approach
- Thursday 9 April 2026
- Turning your PhD into a start-up
- Wednesday 22 April 2026
Theme 3) Dealing with my data
- Data management plans: first-year review writing workshop
- Tuesday 31 March 2026
- Tuesday 28 April 2026
- Research data underpinning theses: requirements and submission process
- Thursday 23 April 2026
- Research data: why, when and how to publish them
- Thursday 26 March 2026
Theme 4) Conferences, networking, and public engagement
- Writing conference abstracts, proposals and bios
- Wednesday 25 March 2026
Theme 5) Writing and publishing (in various media)
- Constructing strong introductions and conclusions
- Thursday 30 April 2026
- Open Access Publishing for Postgraduates
- Thursday 2 April 2026
- Write your journal article! Editing your sentences
- Wednesday 25 March 2026
- Write your journal article! Sending your article!
- Wednesday 15 April 2026
- Writing a literature review in the Arts
- Tuesday 7 April 2026
- Writing conference abstracts, proposals and bios
- Wednesday 25 March 2026
Theme 6) Teaching
Theme 7) Finishing up: what’s next?
- CVs and job applications: getting onto the short-list
- Thursday 23 April 2026
- How to submit your thesis: submitting your final Library copies
- Monday 11 May 2026
Programme organiser
IELLI
Email: [email protected]