RED Program Launch 2026

Welcome to the Research Education and Development (RED) Program for 2026. Our first semester offerings are now live on the RED Program webpage (Semester 2 offerings will be available from late June). If you’re new here, let us talk you through some preliminaries. If you’re already an old friend of the RED Program, scroll down to check the updates for this year.

I’ve recently enrolled in a graduate research degree. What do I need to know about the RED Program? 

The RED Program helps you make the most out of your time as a graduate researcher – whether that’s through setting you up with a good foundation, honing your skills, coaching you to do your best, finding your way if you feel a bit lost, planning your next steps, or getting connected. Participating in RED activities, workshops, and events lets you find your researcher community at La Trobe, improve your graduate research experience, and stay focused.

The Research Education and Development (RED) Team, based in the Graduate Research School (GRS), curates the RED Program – workshops, seminars, and ongoing initiatives to support the development of researchers across all disciplines within the University. The RED Program includes a range of activities around different themes that support researcher development, including: research skills, academic writing and publication, research communication, career planning and development, managing supervision, research funding, engagement and impact. To better understand the big picture of what’s on offer and how it can help you, scroll through our brochure (requires La Trobe login for SharePoint).

What are workshops like and how do I sign up?

The offerings in the RED Program range from drop-in sessions, to technical training, and development activities. Most of these are offered online, via Zoom, to best accommodate researchers across a variety of locations.

Plenty of workshops in the RED Program are designed specifically for graduate researchers and, if you’ve recently enrolled, we should be seeing you at an upcoming Orientation session. New candidates are automatically invited to Orientation and some of our foundational workshops, so that you can start out right and get a feel for how workshops run. Signing up for other offerings is easy, just click the “Register” link next to the session you want to attend on the RED Program webpage and follow the prompts.

For workshops run by the RED Team, we emphasise participation and peer-sharing. The time we spend with you is providing structure and space for you to do the work of developing as a researcher. Our workshops are not so much about telling you what to do as giving you context and tools to figure out what you need to do and what works best for you. These workshops are also a vital opportunity for you to meet other graduate researchers, reflect, and ask questions in a supportive environment. You can find out more about how to get the most out of sessions on the RED Blog.

2026 updates 

Even if everything above sounds very familiar, we’re always tweaking and updating RED Program content and delivery, based on feedback from participants, colleagues, and collaborating partners. Below are some of the updates we’re happy to announce for this year.

*New workshop on planning your RED Program participation. The RED Program incorporates offerings from academic members of the RED Team as well as wonderful colleagues from across the University and trusted external providers. Our Program is expansive and there are usually more than 100 workshops and seminars on offer each semester, so it pays to spend some time planning what you want to attend and when. In 2026, we’re running workshops to help you with this. Sign up for the next Get Ready for Semester: Making the RED Program work for you session to get planning (February 24, for Semester 1).

*Start your week right, with Shut Up And Write! (SUAW). Our RED-facilitated, university-wide SUAW session is moving to Monday mornings 10am – 12 noon. Begin your week with a pleasant productivity hack: tick things off the to-do list and get to know your fellow researchers at La Trobe. All staff and graduate researchers are welcome to attend – we run these sessions on Zoom to allow folks from all campuses (and even further afield) to participate. If you’re new to SUAW, check out these details about how things work. To join a session, sign up for our weekly SUAW reminders by emailing:  red.grs@latrobe.edu.au with SUAW sign up in the subject line.

*AI, academic integrity and your thesis: Expectations and support. Did you know there are new guidelines for responsible AI use in research at La Trobe? (Requires La Trobe login for intranet access). Find out more about applying these to your own work as a graduate researcher in our new workshop on AI and academic integrity.

*3 Minute Thesis (3MT) preparation. Are you considering the 3 Minute thesis competition this year? If so, we’ve got some great news: all your 3MT-related workshops are scheduled in May and early June to help keep your preparation on track. Check out the 3MT page for a list of workshops.

*Registrations have changed. When you register workshops run by the RED Team, things might look a little different than you’re used to and that’s because we’ve waved farewell to Eventbrite. We’re moved everything into a more streamlined process for you with Microsoft Forms. Huge thanks to our co-ordinator Vincent for undertaking this work. Our colleagues in the Library have also transitioned sessions over to Microsoft Bookings. We hope that you find the new way of doing things is more straightforward, saves you time, and is a little easier on the eyes as well as the inbox.

*Workshops and development opportunities for supervisors are changing, too. There’s so much going on in the supervision space that it has its own blog post.

We look forward to seeing you at RED things, soon!