Communication and presentation skills

• Tutor: Stewart Theobald - Independent Consultant
• Usually scheduled: December
• Visit our online calendar to find out about scheduled courses

Overview

Would you like to engage and hold an audience attention? Would you like to feel confident in front of an audience? This is an interactive and flexible workshop, with plenty of opportunity to practise and ask questions. The workshop will focus on the techniques used by actors to overcome nerves and perform at their best. We will explore and practise techniques in the following key areas.

Key Areas

• Overcoming nerves
• Assessing an audience and flexing our style
• Gaining authority and credibility
• Handling questions with confidence

• Tutor: Lucy and Peter Moore Fuller, infohackit
• Usually scheduled: February
• Visit our online calendar to find out about scheduled courses

Overview

Great design enhances written and visual communication, making it more coherent, effective and accessible. 

The foundations of great design are balanced composition, consistent and meaningful typography, appropriate and engaging colour and imagery - and good planning. You don't need to be 'artistic' or an expert to utilise these concepts; we believe that with a little knowledge and practice, everyone has the potential to improve their design skill. 

In this lively session we examine:

• Key principles of design - we look at core concepts of composition, typography, colour and images, and how these apply to print and digital formats; understanding these fundamentals is valuable to all visual communication projects, from PowerPoint presentations to diagrams to infographics
• infohackit hacks for creating a poster - we share our top tips and simple steps you can follow when developing a new design or improving an existing one
• Planning exercise - preparation is essential for great design; we undertake an exercise to learn how by developing a plan for a visual abstract; you will need a research paper to use as source material (it doesn't have to be your own as this is an exercise only, but you do need to be familiar with the content)

Attendees will receive a summary document to remind you of the key lessons so you can apply them to your future design projects.

Delivered by infohackit: infohackit provide training in design and visual communication, targeted to the needs of PhD students and researchers. Peter and Lucy have had 20-year careers in information design, working with clients in research, Higher Education and health care. They founded infohackit in 2015 and have since trained hundreds of researchers to improve their visual communications, through in-person and online events: infohackit.com

• Tutor: Caroline Broad - Independent Consultant
• Usually scheduled: December
• Visit our online calendar to find out about scheduled courses

Overview

Meetings are so often unproductive, with unclear objectives.  In this interactive workshop, you will develop a more effective approach to meetings.

Key Areas

We will explore best practice on how to:

• Not have meetings!
• Develop buy-in of key meeting stakeholders
• Create positive communication pre and post-meeting
• Facilitate the engagement of all attendees

We will develop your key skills in:

• Meeting facilitation
• Decision making
• Listening
• Questioning

• Tutor: Stewart Theobald - Independent Consultant
• Usually scheduled: November, January, March, July
• Visit our online calendar to find out about scheduled courses

Overview

Would you like to learn exercises that will reduce vocal strain, improve vocal range, variety, clarity and pronunciation and gain and hold the attention of an audience? Would you like to make a positive initial impact and keep control of difficult situations? In this individualised and confidential one-hour session you will determine the objectives and work on exercises to address your specific needs.

Key areas

• Discover how relaxation, breathing and vocal exercises can improve vocal range and clarity
• Practice techniques to improve vocal range and clarity
• Develop a confident voice when speaking to groups and individuals
• Participants are asked to bring along a presentation to work with and have a clear idea of what you would like to achieve during the session.  

What have past participants found most useful?

"It was great to be able to discuss the particular issues I have with a personal trainer. The video analysis was also very useful."

"The in-depth personal exploration of my speaking style"

"The personalized help. Priceless!"

• Tutor: Dr Emma Williams - Independent Consultant
• Usually scheduled: February
• Visit our online calendar to find out about scheduled courses

Overview

It’s not good enough to be good – people need to know about it!

Using your research as a starting point, we will hone a series of short pitches (oral, written, virtual communication methods) with the aim of getting people to the stage of wanting to know more about you. This half day course will also look at networking tips to allow for pitches to happen. There will be practice and peer feedback. Participants will set up a communication (personal marketing) plan and actions to be undertaken whilst thinking of the “brand” they want to portray. Challenges will be personal but may include creating/updating academic social media, websites, blogs or outreach activities.

Key areas

• To understand that getting your message out there is essential to career progression
• To recognise that every time you communicate is an opportunity
• To craft short pitches
• To develop a personal communication plan 

• Tutor: Stewart Theobald - Independent Consultant
• Usually scheduled: November
• Visit our online calendar to find out about scheduled courses

Who should attend

This half-day course is designed for postdoctoral research staff for whom English is a second language and who wish to improve their speaking clarity and confidence. It will be a practical course looking at the voice issues of the individual, so numbers are limited to 10 per course. By the end of the course, participants will have a better understanding of standard English pronunciation and placement that will help them to improve their speaking clarity and teaching impact.

Key areas

• Physiology - emphasising standard English placement
• Forward resonance - to ensure a clear tone
• Articulation - for clarity of speech
• Phonetics - standard English phonetic sounds & symbols
• Pronunciation practice - individual assessment & guidance
• Stress, rhythm and inflexion - to deepen understanding of standard English

Visit Imperial’s Centre for Academic English for additional support with pronunciation, speaking and writing.

What have past participants found most useful?

The theory of pronunciation, how sounds are made (Postdoc, Life Sciences)

The trainer, he is really good! (Postdoc, Chemistry

Learning about different vowels, stress and inflection in standard English

• Tutor: Gareth Mitchell - Imperial College London
• Usually scheduled: March
• Visit our online calendar to find out about scheduled courses

Overview

Science communication is an increasingly important part of a scientist’s professional identity. Promoting your work and being able to debate its significance or its controversial aspects to a range of audiences is an essential skill and will enhance your job prospects.
This enjoyable course, led by an experienced journalist, will prepare you to talk about your work with scientists outside your specialism, media professionals, and members of the public. Through a hands-on activity with professional audio equipment, you will have the opportunity to explore some new skills by participating in the recording and editing of a short radio feature.

Key Areas

• To give an awareness of some of the key forms of contemporary science communication
• To discuss the opportunities and difficulties that arise when scientists engage with the media
• To help you find your ‘voice’ when discussing your work
• To learn some tricks and ‘insider secrets’ about how to capture your audience’s attention whether speaking or writing or broadcasting

What have past participants found most useful?

"Getting a journalist’s perspective"

"Radio interview – practicing something that had seemed intimidating beforehand. Very useful in helping to distil responses to the essentials based on the audience."

• Tutor: Bernie Babel, Imperial College London
• Usually scheduled: April, October
• Visit our online calendar to find out about scheduled workshops

The aim of this pop-up is to give you a better understanding of what assertiveness is and identify those situations where assertiveness skills are required. We will also explore how to behave assertively in appropriate situations.

You will get to try out being assertive using case studies as examples.

• Tutor: Dr Inês Perpétuo, Imperial College London
• Usually scheduled: April, October
• Visit our online calendar to find out about scheduled workshops

You know who you are and what are your achievements and successes, but how do you communicate them to others?

This workshop aims to strengthen your ability to promote yourself and your research in interviews and funding applications, for jobs through the CV, as well as on social media.

There will be time to cover interview pitches and the use of social media beyond science communication. We are going to cover the why and how to increase your visibility and some strategies to overcome perceived or real barriers, both online and offline.

This workshop will have some interactive aspects as we will work on short pitches with the aim of getting people to the stage of wanting to know more about you.

• Tutor: Societal Engagement Team, Imperial College London
• Usually scheduled: January
• Visit our online calendar to find out about scheduled workshops

Come along to this pop-up session to discover more about what public engagement is, why it is important and how it can benefit you and your work. We will focus on how engaging with members of the public, schools, patients, and community groups can help you to achieve research impact.

Find out tips on how to plan for impact through engagement, as well as achieve it and evidence it. Ideal if you are thinking about research proposals or fellowship applications, we will look at what the big funders think about engagement and impact, as well as having some time to consider what it all means for your own areas of research.

• Tutor: Press office team, Imperial College London
• Usually scheduled: May
• Visit our online calendar to find out about scheduled workshops

Sharing the results of your research and gaining media coverage is an excellent way to show impact, as well as potentially bringing you new opportunities for collaboration and funding. During this workshop you will learn how the press office can help you promote your research to the media, what we consider when promoting stories, and how news stories and press releases are put together. You will have a chance to try it out for yourself by summarizing your research and pitching it for a press release.

In addition, if you’ve ever considered science communication as a career, we’ll talk a little about the different roles we’ve had in our careers, with plenty of time for Q&A at the end of the session.

• Tutor: Dr Inês Perpétuo, Imperial College London
• Usually scheduled: May, November
• Visit our online calendar to find out about scheduled workshops

LinkedIn is a professional networking platform that can be used to increase your online visibility. A professional online presence is important as 64% of employers check future employees' LinkedIn profile during the recruitment process. 

During this workshop we will: 

• discuss the sections of a LinkedIn profile, top tips on creating an effective profile, and what makes LinkedIn a great platform to showcase your career goals and achievements. 
• practise writing some sections of your own profile and thinking about what to include in others. 
• receive hints and tips on how to network with potential employers and how to take advantage of job adverts that you can find on LinkedIn. 

You don’t need to have a LinkedIn profile already, but it would be helpful if you set up an account in advance.

• Tutor: Dr Inês Perpétuo, Imperial College London
• Usually scheduled: February, August
• Visit our online calendar to find out about scheduled workshops

Your research is very important to you, but how do you make sure others look at it and understand its importance?

Can you clearly articulate the different types of impact you are making? How do you maximise your chances of really having an influence in your areas of interest?

In this session, we will look at what research impact is and why it matters and how you can create and maximise impact.

• Tutor: Dr Inês Perpétuo, Imperial College London
• Usually scheduled: March, September
• Visit our online calendar to find out about scheduled workshops

What is networking? Why is it important in your career? How can you network effectively?

The aim of this pop-up workshop is to help you understand how to network effectively and make you confident and happy about going out and networking to advance your career!

• Tutor: Dr Inês Perpétuo, Imperial College London
• Usually scheduled: January, June
• Visit our online calendar to find out about scheduled workshops

You know who you are and what your achievements and successes are, but how do you increase your visibility as a researcher?

Is social media a tool for visibility increase, science communication, or a bottomless pit of time wasting?

In this session, we are going to cover the why and how to increase your visibility, social media use, and some strategies to overcome barriers, both online and offline.

• Tutor: Dr Inês Perpétuo, Imperial College London
• Usually scheduled: June, December
• Visit our online calendar to find out about scheduled workshops

Turning your carefully thought-out research programme into simple, concise English in order to be accountable to the general public – it’s become a standard part of funding and fellowship applications, and it’s the stuff of many a researcher’s nightmares. But the lay summary matters. It demonstrates neatly how clear your ideas are; the funders need it to evidence which projects they have invested in; and on a practical level, your lay summary may be the only part of your application, which is read by the entire panel.

This bite-sized, interactive session will look at what goes in a lay summary, which bits to leave out, and how to pitch your language.