The Graduate School Semester One Programme will be launching in September. Training and developmental opportunities are available to provide postgraduate students with the support they need throughout the semester. 

We will be hosting an Information Session for staff to launch the semester one programme on Thursday 5 September from 12.00-14.00 in Training Room 7, the Graduate School. If you would like to attend, please register your interest via graduateschool@qub.ac.uk.

Research Culture Week was a multidisciplinary showcase and celebration of postgraduate research at Queen's University Belfast. A week-long programme of workshops and events was held that covered a variety of themes aligned to the work and development needs of today's researchers. The week included the final of the Vitae 3 Minute Thesis Competition, the 5th Annual Researcher Plus Competition and the Launch of a Student-Led Academic Journal.

IMPACT is a project that creates an opportunity for postgraduate students to use their research, skills and creativity, working in multidisciplinary teams, to impact the community around them and create viable solutions to real-world problems.

In 2019, a group of postgraduate students worked in blended teams alongside RCity Belfast, a group of young people from Ardoyne and the Shankill, to create innovative solutions that inspired positive social change both at home and internationally. The team travelled to South Africa for two weeks of design thinking and on their return, they worked with community leaders to devise an implementation and operations plan to see their solutions brought to life.

On 27 June, the young people from RCity Belfast visited the Graduate School for a celebration event during which they were congratulated for their contribution to the IMPACT Global project. 

Find out more about the project by watching UTV's documentary, 'Not in my generation', which follows the group on their journey.

The results of the Postgraduate Experience Surveys (both Taught and Research) have been compiled and sent to schools.

The Graduate School will be hosting a debrief on 4 September from 12.30-14.00 for staff to consider and feed back on how PRES/PTES was run, share practice around student engagement, and discuss ways to work with students to understand results and develop enhancement actions.

If you are interested in attending the debrief, please register your interested by emailing graduateschool@qub.ac.uk by Friday 30 August.

Postgraduate taught students have had the opportunity to gain valuable industry insights and direct engagement with a variety of local employers through the Graduate School's leadership programme. Employers from across numerous sectors have participated in the Master Your Leadership programme by setting business-specific challenges and tasking students to develop and propose viable solutions. Most recently, representatatives from Axiom Managed Solutions set a challenge around building their brand around recruitment both locally and internationally. Learn more about the programme here.

The Graduate School's Peer Proofreading sessions enable all postgraduate students to develop the skills needed for effective revision and editing of their texts. The sessions address consistency (tense, voice, style); citation; spelling; grammar, and self-evaluation. Techniques for developing proofreading skills are applied throughout.

Peer support schemes offer an opportunity for postgraduate students to work collaboratively to enhance their overall learning experience at the Graduate School.

Over the summer months, facilitators Dr Ben Harper and Ms Abbie Edgar have been developing two complementary themes: finding your academic writing style and developing critical analysis.  

The Dr RWM Strain Masonic Charitable Trust Development and Innovation Bursaries will normally be awarded to up to five postgraduate students who are in financial need and/or who require financial support to participate in further high-quality, transdisciplinary training and development. Established in 2018, the Bursaries are named in honour of Dr Bill Strain, a Queen’s graduate and long serving physician at the Ulster Hospital.

The Bursaries are designed to financially support and motivate postgraduate students at Queen’s who are members of the Order of Freemasons of the Irish Constitution, or the spouse, child, relative or dependant of a member.