Academic skills training for international PhD students/researchers/academics

By offering a wide range of possibilities for helping international research staff (in addition to local staff), including PhD students, develop their professional knowledge and skills higher education institutions enable them to fulfill their potential as researchers, make their stay more meaningful professionally and academically and thus contribute to their professional integration in the institution or the national labour market.

Goals

Improved skills and knowledge Improved quality of service

Basic information

Categories Profesional & Academic Development
Mobility stages During mobility phase
Delivery schedule Periodic
Importance Important to have
Scale of organizational change
Target groups PhD student/Early career researcher
Types of contracts of researchers Full degree student Employee in training (interns, research fellows, postdocs) Exchange student
Career stages of researchers Less than 6 months 6-12-months of experience 1-3-years of experience
Lengths of stays of researchers 6-12 months More than 12 months

Practice setup

Higher education institutions can offer a wide range of training opportunities to develop the following transferable skills, among others:


  • Communication skills (e.g. academic English, presentation skills, science communication)

  • Leadership and personal efficiency (e.g. stress resilience, personal effectiveness, leadership foundation)

  • Career management (e.g. project management, innovation, creative thinking)

  • Research and valorisation (e.g. research data management, academic integrity, open science, GDPR in research)

  • Etc.

Such trainings can be designed in-house or contracted externally. 

Ideally, higher education institutions should be offering the same training opportunities for both local and international PhD students, researchers and academics. 

Cost of practice setup
Time required for practice setup
Personnel effort required for practice setup
Actors involved in practice setup
  • PR department
  • Language department
  • Doctoral school
  • Library
  • Project management office
  • Career development centre
  • Technology transfer office
Partners involved in practice setup
  • Other HEI/research organisation in city/region
  • Employer (with high demand of international staff)
  • Employers association
Indicators for evaluating progress/quality of practice setup
  • Training plan and programme designed
Description of collaboration

Several higher education institutions can team up to jointly design and offer training on transversal skills and competencies to their local and international research staff.

Institutions can also partner with employers interested in collaborating with researchers with specific transversal skills (e.g. project management, innovation).

   

Practice delivery

Trainings can be delivered on a rolling basis throughout the year and repeated every year for different levels of participants (e.g. beginner, intermediate, advanced). It requires nominating an internal unit responsible for organising the delivery of in-house or externally sourced training (e.g. doctoral school, career development center) in close collaboration with related internal services.

Cost of practice delivery
Time required for practice delivery
Personnel effort required for practice delivery
Actors involved in practice delivery
  • HR Department
  • IRO/welcome centre
  • PR department
  • Language department
  • Research office
  • Doctoral school
  • Library
  • Project management office
  • Career development centre
  • Technology transfer office
  • Incubator
  • Science park
  • Quality assurance office
Partners involved in practice delivery
  • Other HEI/research organisation in city/region
Indicators for evaluating progress/quality of practice delivery
  • Number of trainings implemented annually
  • Number of researchers trained annually
Description of collaboration

Several higher education institutions can team up to jointly design and offer training on transversal skills and competencies to their local and international research staff.

Institutions can also partner with employers interested in collaborating with researchers with specific transversal skills (e.g. project management, innovation).

   

Examples of practice

PROOF Training Program - a dedicated program for PhD candidates

 

To support and facilitate the development of the university PhDs' competencies, TU/e offers a dedicated training program for PhD candidates. Part of the PROOF Training Program is also open to PhD students from other universities (University of Twente, TU Delft, and Wageningen University).

The program covers the following areas:

  • Contents Analytic Storytelling
  • Design of Experiments in a Nutshell
  • Giving an Audience-Focused Presentation
  • Grant writing and presenting for funding committees
  • Information Literacy and Reference Management
  • Open Science
  • PhD Project Planning and Time Management
  • Poster & Pitch: Presenting Your Research
  • Practical Data Analysis for Researchers
  • Predictive Modeling in a Nutshell
  • Self-Aware Working – Dealing with the pressure of work
  • Supervising MSc Students
  • Supervision on Supervising Skills
  • Taking Charge of Your PhD Project
  • Teaching Skills for PhD Students
  • Time Series Analysis in a Nutshell
  • Writing Articles and Abstracts
Find out more