Professional development is a key part of the educational experience at Imperial and the Early Career Researcher Institute's Professional Skills Development Programme gives postgraduate students the opportunity to develop attributes which are of most value to a broad range of employers. The programme supports students with specific development needs as well as providing specialist training which aims to challenge and inspire students who are excelling. ECRI are pleased to introduce the Students as Partners initiative, which gives Doctoral students from across the College, the opportunity to engage with the programme and shape its design and delivery.
Student Programme Partners (SPP)
The professional Skills Development programme is split in to eight distinct areas, each of which has a Programme Lead. The Cornerstone programme, a dedicated programme to support Imperial’s PhD supervisors, developed in partnership with doctoral students is now also included in the SPP scheme. As such, the following nine Student Programme Partner (SPP), opportunities are available (one for each of the doctoral programme areas and one for the Master’s programme),
| Master’s Programme* | Research Impact |
| Research Communication | Research Integrity |
| Research Computing & Data Science | Professional Progression |
| Professional Effectiveness | Graduate Teaching Assistant Programme |
| Cornerstone |
*Those interested in this programme area must have a Master’s degree from either Imperial or another institution.
Student Programme Partners will be required to collaborate with the corresponding ECRI Programme Leader in the following ways:
- Assist with co-commission of the programme - identifying gaps in provision, looking at priorities, reviewing existing provision, as appropriate, helping to develop business cases for new provision and advising on the removal of existing courses, where appropriate.
- Assist with co-design of courses – designing course material, workshops and other associated workshop and teaching activities. Student Programme Partners may wish to confer with their peers to seek further ideas and input.
- To co-deliver, typically, 4 workshops (in part or in full, depending on the expertise of the SPP)*
- Recommend other students who might also assist with co-delivery of workshops, where appropriate.
- Co-assessing the outcome of annual programme review and making any recommendations for changes to the programme as part of handover to successors.
- Attend ECRI meetings where relevant.
*Payment for additional teaching will be made via the usual GTA remuneration means and will not affect the bursary.
Glossary of Terms
- Co-commissioning – advising on the strategic direction, ideas generation, setting priorities
- Co-design – developing and designing content
- Co-delivery – contribution towards delivery, teaching
- Co-assess - evaluation
