Photo by Arnaud Padallé on Unsplash

What can you do?

Plan ahead. We release our timetables by semester, which means you can plan weeks, or even months, in advance. We repeat most sessions in semesters one and two (and try to run these at different times / days, each time) to give you the best chance of attending. After you register, block out the time in your calendar so you can avoid double-booking yourself (few things make our hearts sink as much as hearing “I’m also in a meeting right now, so I can’t speak”). Remember, you can’t get anywhere near as much from a session with us if you miss chunks. Without the framing and introduction at the beginning it can be difficult to make sense of the content that follows and, similarly, leaving before the wrap-up means you won’t always understand the purpose of activities or recommendations.

Be prepared for interaction and collaboration. Yes, it can feel awkward and can absolutely be more challenging for some folks than others, for a range of reasons – but it’s also invaluable. Rather than, say, avoiding a breakout room (we do notice if you leave as soon as a breakout room pops up!), think about ways you might be more comfortable contributing – perhaps typing in the chat is easier than talking. Or maybe you’d prefer to ask questions rather than talk about your own experience. If this is something you struggle with, take some time before a workshop to think about how you might feel more comfortable interacting and note any questions you’d like to raise (you can even email them to us in advance, if you like). These things can ease the feeling of being put on the spot. And it can be handy to remind yourself that these activities aren’t small talk: this kind of peer-sharing helps you access the “hidden curriculum” of doctoral education and is a key part of your development as a researcher.

Keep an open mind. Research degrees are very different from coursework and can challenge you in new ways, whether you’ve come straight from another degree, had a wealth of experience in other sectors, or great success in a different career. It’s always useful to take stock of and draw upon your existing skill set, but the strategies that got you here aren’t always the strategies you’ll need to complete a research project at this level. Be prepared to learn (and sometimes unlearn) and to be (gently) challenged. It helps to be open to changing your practice. A research degree is hard work but we want to make sure it’s no harder than it needs to be. Our job is to facilitate you figuring out what works best for you in order to thrive in this environment.

We look forward to welcoming you into more RED things, soon!

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The Graduate Research School’s Research Education and Development (RED) Team supports and assists La Trobe academic staff and graduate researchers in:

• quality research practices
• strategies for success in research publication and funding
• insight into researcher career paths and industry sectors
• practising excellent research communication skills

The RED Team is dedicated to providing a diverse, responsive, and forward-looking development program.

The post Getting the most out of workshops with the Research Education and Development (RED) Team appeared first on Research Education and Development.

Editor’s note: The year 2020 brought significant disruption to us all. It was also a time where students commenced PhDs and began the process of transformation that doctoral research entails. At La Trobe, RED workshops were key moments where graduate researchers could come together and feel like scholars, and joyfully we have seen some strong friendships develop in the middle of the pandemic. 

In this post we have asked the PhD Pod – a multidisciplinary group of doctoral students (Ariane Virgona, Karly Edgar, Lyndel Kennedy and Kathryn Pettigrove) who collected together following various workshops and events –  to reflect on what it was like to start a doctorate during 2020.

Time, space and 2020 (Ariane Virgona)

Starting a PhD during ‘The Great Lockdown’ of 2020 was a challenging yet rewarding experience. The first year of a PhD often involves a great deal of solo investigation and reflection on the literature in a field. In this respect, 2020 offered a great opportunity to remove distractions to be able to fully immerse myself. The lockdown enabled me to have the space to organise my environment and time flexibly and to explore hobbies and relaxation techniques that I normally would not have found the time for (such as painting, a lot of bush walking, reading copious amounts of fiction, and scrupulously following the Suncorp Super Netball). 

I found the reflection time, as many others could agree, to be helpful and rejuvenating and I was also able to continue teaching online, which was an experience that helped strengthen my web and communication skills. Apart from being watched behind double sided glass, also known as the great black squares of D(Z)oom, it was an immersive experience that enabled me to be creative in how I approached the content.  Throughout the lockdown I created and maintained several meetings with other students to talk about research articles, discuss our progress or have a social conversation about how we are managing with this massive shift. At the beginning, I also attended several RED workshops and found these to be a source of guidance and a focal point to meet others from across La Trobe and the School of Psychology and Public Health.

On the other side, working from home was challenging in that it was isolating and there were many corridor exchanges and opportunities that were missed. It was also difficult to get to know students and their progress, as it was challenging to read non-verbal cues over Zoom. Last year required an immense amount of internal motivation and self-regulation that wavered at times; however, the experience overall has assisted me with learning to be resourceful and honest with myself and others. I also learned to be flexible with how I would plan my time and listen to what my body and mind needed more often. Working at home felt more like living at work at times, however, I look forward to continuing to implement the new skills of self-compassion and flexibility throughout 2021.

 Finding productivity strategies in amongst the Netflix (Karly Edgar)

I started my PhD in early January 2020 before we really knew what COVID-19 was. I was happy to work from home but it wasn’t long before I realised that, if I didn’t make an effort, I potentially wouldn’t talk to anyone other than my supervisors about research. The ‘PhD Pod’, an informal gathering of four PhD newbies, became one of the most significant aspects for me of the year.

As Melbourne went through various stages of restrictions, I found myself swinging back and forth from feeling very productive and then feeling like I was stumbling around in the dark, which is probably normal with or without the COVID context. I learnt there are limits to my self-motivation and that I need to be consistent in scheduling holidays even if I can’t go anywhere. Also, that it is always good to have a routine that I stick to most of the time but that I can completely ignore at other times. I’m fortunate and extremely grateful for the fact that I have the space for a dedicated office so I can spread out but also so I can close the door at the end of the day. After developing my multitasking capabilities, I find that I am now able to happily walk and read or write at my very ad hoc walking desk, guaranteeing that I’ll move at least a little each day, no matter the weather or the lock down situation. I also discovered that a semi-focused art practice, the growing of plants, the companionship of the dear cat, and a steady supply of books that aren’t about research are also all necessary elements to remembering there is life outside of research (and the 5km radius). Also, Netflix. Quite a lot of Netflix.

Zooming in from the trestle table (Lyndel Kennedy)  

When my PhD supervisors advised in February 2020 that I’d need to be on campus three days per week, I said, ‘Great!’. After years of raising children and running a business from home, and then completing a graduate diploma in psychology wholly online, I was beyond excited at the thought of being surrounded by similarly obsessed people and couldn’t wait for all the corridor chats and kitchen catch-ups I was sure would happen. I even started driving to Bundoora for library study sessions in between school runs. With my PhD not starting until April Fool’s Day, I was too impatient to wait for my desk allocation to begin my 3 days per week on campus. So, I was on campus when I received my daughter’s phone call on 10 March 2020 to say there were positive COVID-19 cases at her school, she didn’t feel well, and could I take her to the doctor? I called my partner and sons as I drove, urging them to immediately return home from work and university. The three-day wait for her (negative) results gave us a private taster of a hard-locked-down life, and it wasn’t pretty.

During those early days, the five of us jostled for space to work, think and breathe, as we told ourselves it wouldn’t be for long. My partner, with his non-stop Zooms, took over the study, and my new workspace – the kitchen table – meant I was constantly interrupted by hungry young people. After a few weeks of frayed tempers, we installed a trestle table in the bedroom and then I found the quiet I needed to settle into online training, literature-review reading and research-proposal writing.

Now, eleven months later, my research project is progressing well, and we’ve found new family routines that largely work. With daily commutes still largely absent, household chores are much more fairly distributed, and our dog is guaranteed a late afternoon walk. The RED team’s rapid online pivot meant I attended far more workshops than I would have otherwise and Zoom-living has removed geographical restrictions on making connections with fellow graduate researchers. La Trobe’s efforts to keep us connected has been much appreciated, and forming the PhD Pod with Ariane, Kathryn and Karly has been the icing on the cake! While I’m still optimistic about starting my three-days-per-week on campus soon, I’ve learnt to hold my expectations more lightly, plan for disruptions, and design online-enabled studies. I’m grateful for our health, for the opportunities that today’s technology brings, and for the extra time with my two- and four-legged family members. I hope that our new normal, whenever and whatever that turns out to be, still allows us to savour the important things in life. Zoom on!

Silver linings of starting a PhD during 2020 (Kathryn Pettigrove)

As an interstate student I was always going to be ‘working from home’. I knew my supervision meetings would be online, and that I’d miss the benefits of on-campus life like sharing office space and corridor chats with my colleagues. Instead, I’d imagined library-hopping across the city and working from local cafés – wi-fi and coffee, what more could I need?  So, when restrictions began coming into place, I figured the only thing that would be changing for me was my location. I set up my desk in the bedroom and dusted off the old coffee machine – it’s basically the same thing, right?

Looking back now, I can see that I was impacted more than I realised. Spending months within the same four walls (with a daily commute of 5 metres) meant that work/home boundaries quickly began to blur. The workday was often interrupted, whether by loads of washing or awful news updates, and having my workspace constantly in my peripheral vision made it difficult to switch off.  The loss of usual social connections and de-stressing leisure activities, and all the emotional ups and downs of the year, made for a less-than-ideal working environment both physically and mentally. 

On the other hand, working from home also resulted in some surprising benefits for me. Meetings and events shifted online, and suddenly I could be just as present ‘on campus’ as everyone else. I signed up for practically every RED workshop (!), and honestly couldn’t have felt more welcomed by Tseen, Jamie and Jeanette. The faces of fellow research students became familiar, and I gained three collaborators and friends in the PhD Pod. From my bedroom in Sydney, I really felt like part of the La Trobe graduate research community.  I don’t think that could have been true in the same way under normal circumstances, so despite everything 2020 threw at us, I am grateful for this silver lining.

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The post Pandemic PhDs: Starting a doctorate in 2020 (The PhD Pod) appeared first on Research Education and Development.

From LEFT to RIGHT: Emma MacDonald (La Trobe Rural Health School, Bendigo), Sire Camara (La Trobe Arts program, Shepparton), Nicole McGill (Charles Stuart University), Carol Reid (Judith Lumley Centre, Bundoora), Suzanne Muntz (Shepparton Research Network / Librarian, Shepparton), Corina Modderman (La Trobe Rural Health school, Albury/Wodonga), and Dr Phuc Nguyen (Business School, Shepparton campus)

Rurality and developing reflexive interdisciplinary research skills can make for an incongruous situation!

Researchers need skills in critical thinking, debating, and learning through discussion across multidisciplinary contexts. Living rurally means this occurs through either virtual platforms or involves long travel distances. Rural PhD candidates often find themselves appraising, thinking, reflecting and writing in isolation; we talk to ourselves (A LOT).

Regional and rural campuses present opportunities to come together to address academic isolation, having a purpose to connect help make these opportunities real. Introducing a journal club at the La Trobe Shepparton campus offered exactly such a reflective, regional research space.

In June 2019, after we partnered in a successful Intellectual Climate Fund (ICF) application, the inaugural Shepparton La Trobe Journal club was launched. Its aim was to provide regional and rural Higher Degree Research candidates (regardless of university) with a purpose and setting to come together. We felt it was important to create these interdisciplinary opportunities to network in our region. The La Trobe Shepparton campus is a thriving university environment; small in size but big on atmosphere. The research culture on campus just keeps growing. The modern, physical buildings cover a corner block in the centre of this regional town in North-East Victoria. The people (the psychosocial culture) create a cosmopolitan feel where a meeting, lunch table or lecture has representation from any or all of Shepparton’s over 45 diverse cultural groups.

The journal club was modelled on the format from the School of Nursing and Midwifery at the Judith Lumley Centre, Bundoora. Carol previously participated in this collegial activity of selecting and discussing a journal article using a structured appraisal tool. The Shepparton journal club was scheduled bi-monthly at lunchtime, knowing the work/study/travel/family life juggle of our target participants. In particular, we were thinking of the busy Allied Health clinicians at Goulburn-Valley Health who are undertaking PhD studies. The funding allowed us to provide coffee and a light lunch from the on-site café. We each knew of a few people to invite from our wider networks. We also thought about other gaps in the needs for rural and regional researchers, particularly the impact of isolation in masters and doctoral studies. So, at alternate meetings, we planned to invite a guest speaker.

The scheduled meetings ranged in attendance from eight to four people; there were six meetings held over during the second half of 2019. The participants were all at different stages in their PhDs, from various discipline orientations and with research topics that varied greatly. Critically appraising an article from a single person’s discipline or research perspective or interest may not have suited everyone’s needs. The ‘common ground’ was the opportunity to discuss the research journey and learn from other’s experiences. We factored in a roundtable discussion at the start of each meeting for casual, incidental learning. The guest speakers added significantly to this evolving format.

The first speaker was from the Shepparton Campus was Dr Phuc Nguyen, who is a Lecturer in Management (La Trobe School of Business). Phuc shared her expertise on grant applications and building a research narrative through collaboration. Dr Lucinda Aberdeen, a Senior Lecturer in the School of Humanities and Social Sciences, spoke about writing as an enjoyable exercise and one to be embraced during the journey of undertaking a higher degree by research. She commented afterwards:

I found the participants at the Journal Club meeting hungry for knowledge about effective academic writing and the complexities of publishing in journals. It was a privilege to engage in such a lively intellectual dialogue with a group of emerging scholars on the Shepparton campus, whose dedication is contributing to the research culture of both the campus and the region.

Our final speaker was an external guest from the University of Melbourne, Ms Kaye Ervin from the Rural Health Academic Network (RHAN). RHAN are part of a hub and spoke model where rural researchers are co-located at small rural health services to build research capacity. Kaye discussed predatory journals and gave her insights into scholarly publishing. Her feedback on the session was:

 I was surprised the Shepparton La Trobe Journal Club was such a relaxed event. Journal clubs can become boring and routine unless you are willing to adapt. I enjoyed sharing with the group and learning about other local research.

The Journal Club was a success because we considered purpose, participants, and best fit for context.

We encourage others to start with assessing existing models before setting up something similar, not only for a Journal Club but any researcher activity. Be courageous to adapt these models to be multi-purpose. The introductions, catching up on news and informal chats were just as important as the critical review of the journal, along with (of course) coffee and food.

Overall, we found a one-size-fits all approach doesn’t necessarily meet rural and regional PhD candidate’s needs. We also thought about sustainability. As a rural locality we have a small pool to draw from, so our top tip would be to change it up quickly and be reflexive to meet dynamic needs.

This year we plan to continue growing the research vibe for both academics and PhD candidates at the Shepparton campus with support of the Shepparton Research Network, led by Lucinda (who is the Academic and Graduate Regional Research Coordinator).

We would like to acknowledge the support from the Rural Health School (particularly the Graduate Research coordinators) and Dr Lucinda Aberdeen in helping us develop the ICF application, and the GRS and RED team for awarding us the funding.

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Corina Modderman is a Lecturer and Course Coordinator in social work and social policy at the La Trobe Rural Health School, Shepparton campus. She identifies as a Dutch Frisian woman who grew up on flat country surrounded by waterways. 


Corina has over 18 years of experience in child protection having worked in a variety of senior leadership roles across the world. From a social work background, she positions herself within a strong social justice, progressive standpoint. Corina is in the final stages of being a PhD candidate, investigating the lived experience of transnational social workers in an Australian child protection system. She tweets from @corinamodderman.

Carol Reid is a PhD candidate with the ‘Healing the Past by Nurturing the Future’ project. Carol travels weekly to the Judith Lumley Centre at the La Trobe Bundoora campus. She lives and works across the Goulburn Murray Region and is committed to promoting the strengths and resilience of rural and regional communities. 


Carol’s background is nursing, social work and evaluation. Her PhD topic involves primary health care and understanding trauma-informed care service models for complex trauma.


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The Intellectual Climate Fund (ICF) scheme opens next week! With the advent of COVID-19, working from home, and physical distancing, the challenges and opportunities for developing intellectual climate are heightened. While face-to-face events are no longer feasible, let’s test our creativity and see what initiatives we can generate!

If you’re an academic staff member rather than a graduate researcher, the Research Culture Fund (RCF) provides funding for activities that enhance research culture.

Both schemes open on 6 April, and close on 4 May.

The post Why journal clubs matter (Corina Modderman and Carol Reid) appeared first on Research Education and Development.

Many of us take significant private pleasure in becoming researchers.

We whittle drafts away in the wee small hours or sneak a moment here or there to read a book or article. But finding time to just be a researcher can be tough, especially for those of us who have busy work lives or heavy care responsibilities. It can be challenging to get large stretches of time to sink into researcher mode.

Retreats away from the hustle and bustle of ordinary life can offer us these opportunities. In addition to the practicalities of giving us time, many of us find that there is something magical about being away together.

The College of Arts, Social Sciences and Commerce (ASSC) hosted an annual 2-day, off-site HDR Retreat on the 26th and 27th July. In 2019 the retreat was held at the beautiful Grange Cleveland in Lancefield. The purpose of the ASSC HDR Retreat is to offer graduate researchers an opportunity to reflect on writing and presentation skills, strategies to assist with candidature management, and an opportunity to network and collaborate with other researchers. As a bonus, the countryside setting offers everyone an opportunity to relax, recharge and get to know some of the handsome creatures that also live there (see above!).

Sixty students and 9 academics attended both days of the retreat, with an additional 5 guest speakers presenting across the two days. Academics presented on various topics such as: supervisor dynamics, how to write your journal article in no time flat, engaging in deep work, an introduction to the importance of gaining ethics approval, and identifying and overcoming hurdles for international students (see Kiran Shinde’s post on this workshop here).

Participants at the retreat came from all La Trobe campuses, and from all Schools within the ASSC College.

The ASSC HDR Retreat is organised by ASSC Research in partnership with the RED team, Directors of Graduate Research and Graduate Research Coordinators. The program was developed with the in-put of a planning committee made up of graduate researchers: Esther Desiadenyo Many-Barfo, Ben Nguyen, Angelique Renieris and Silvina Sanchez Mera.

For today’s RED Alert, we have some reflections on the retreat from Silvina and Esther.

Silvina’s reflection on the 2019 ASSC retreat


I still remember getting the email from our Director of Graduate Research (DGR) asking for volunteers to help with organising the retreat this year and thinking ‘this could be fun’. I wasn’t wrong! I had just started my PhD earlier this year, so for me it was my first time participating in the retreat as well as helping with its organisation. The Committee met several times from April up until the retreat date, to discuss and develop the program.

The driving force behind coordinating the retreat was Jody (Jody Simmons, Project Coordinator in ASSC College), and having the support of other students on the committee who had participated in previous retreats – made everything smooth and fun. During this time, what caught my attention was the importance given to what HDRs wanted from the workshops, as well as the focus on improving the retreat based on previous feedback. HDRs were really at the centre of concern, and our ‘job’ as volunteers was to act as links between our HDR colleagues and the retreat organisers. We got to share our opinions on the type of activities we should have in order to organise ‘custom’ workshops that addressed our needs. Encouraging participation amongst our colleagues was another task for us HDR volunteers. I’d like to think I did a good job on that regard as for this retreat lots of law HDRs participated (well, not lots lots, since there aren’t too many of us in the first place!)

The venue was definitely something! And although I didn’t get to see any kangaroos I did get to play with two big fluffy cats that I wanted to kidnap. On our first day all HDRs had to give a 5 minute presentation on our research and get feedback from our peers. For me, this was the best part of the program of the retreat. While trying to present what your research is about in plain language –and in my case, my non-native language – is challenging, it is also extremely rewarding. I love my topic, but I didn’t think people from other disciplines would be interested as well (after all it is law, you know?) until I found myself in an ethical discussion with colleagues from Education or debating the conduct of States with colleagues from Linguistics!

The second day was dedicated to workshops. They were varied and general enough to interest everyone present. At the end there was a panel of ‘survivors’, recent PhD graduates, who conveyed their experiences and how they managed to get their PhDs done in time. This allowed us all to remember that it is possible to finish, and that many people struggle with similar things.

All in all, the highlight of the retreat was my colleagues, getting to know not only people but their fascinating research shows you how varied PhDs can be and how personal experiences and interests can drive you and shape your investigation. If you get a chance to attend the ASSC Retreat next year you should definitely do it!

Esther’s reflection on the 2019 ASSC retreat


At the 2016 ASSC HDR Retreat at Grange Bellinzona, Hepburn Springs, I watched Anne Brouwer (a member of the organising committee) in admiration as she explained the purpose of our meeting and other details. What struck me most was the flair and confidence in her delivery. It was then and there that I resolved to also partake in events that would allow me to bring out my own confidence. Another two retreats down the line and I had my “moment” this year to stand at the front and introduce details for the 2019 retreat.

As I have participated in a number of these retreats now, I have found that these events are valuable for getting one’s research out there. In this case you are getting your research out there to a broad audience that might be unfamiliar with it. While they may not be in exactly the same discipline, this audience might have the capacity to help shape your research by the different perspectives they bring to it.

The most encouragement I have had in my life has come from people at these retreats. As a result, I have formed lasting ties with other graduate students who I have met in my time away. The retreats have, to a large extent helped me embrace my ‘humanness’ when standing to present my research amidst feelings of nervousness and panic. The ability to do this stemmed from the realisation that my colleagues also experienced the same emotions when it was their turn to speak too.

I have always found the workshops interesting because they have addressed questions I have been battling with. Additionally, the discussions and questions afterwards have provided me with additional insights in terms of what is shared by others.

Apart from just partaking in the retreat, I have derived the most joy by being a part of the organising committee. I have been greatly fulfilled in knowing that I helped bring opinions on board, shape ideas, and above all helped in the overall success of the retreat. The best part is when fellow colleagues thanked me for helping organise a great retreat!

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Esther Desiadenyo Manu-Barfo is a PhD researcher with the linguistics department at La Trobe University. She has a Bachelor of Arts Degree in English and Linguistics and a Master of Philosophy Degree in Linguistics from the University of Ghana, Legon. Her field of studies is Documentary linguistics. She is currently writing a grammar of Dompo, a moribund language spoken in Ghana. She attributes her interest in linguistics to its inter disciplinary nature and its knack to challenge one to critically delve into language issues. Her research interests are in the field of language description with a focus on phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics and pragmatics. She is the vice-president of the Graduate Research Student Society and the Graduate Students representative for the Linguistics Department. She loves to volunteer, travel and sight-see and make new friends.

Silvina Sanchez Mera is a first year PhD student in Law. Her research looks at the International Criminal Court’s practice in prosecuting international crimes committed against child soldiers.


She holds a Masters in International Law from Bangor University (UK) and a Lecturer position in International Law and Human Rights at the Catholic University of Santiago del Estero, in her hometown (Jujuy, Argentina).

The post Researchers on retreats: The value of being away together (Silvina Sanchez Mera and Esther Desiadenyo Manu-Barfo) appeared first on Research Education and Development.

(Left to right): Emmy Frost (Archaeology), Anna Henger (History), Karen Strojek (Politics), Esther Manu-Barfo (Linguistics), Nicola Linton (Classics and Ancient History), Nicole Pavich (Media Arts & Screen Studies), Paul Northam (Visual Arts), and Justin See (Social Inquiry – Planning). Photo by Greg Muller.

I’ve written before about broadening my research community across disciplinary boundaries, by taking part in conference organisation in the School of Humanities and Social Sciences (HUSS).

Attending and working at university conferences is a great way to meet other graduate researchers and find points of commonality, but it’s not the only way!

Many Schools, and the Departments within them, have graduate student representatives who work with their department heads and graduate research coordinators to improve communications, and the intellectual climate in general, at a local level.

In my roles as a representative for my Department (Politics, Media and Philosophy) and my School (HUSS), I attend regular meetings with other School representatives – all graduate researchers – from the Colleges of ASSC and SHE.

A lot of our discussion is about university policy, infrastructure and facilities, supervision relationships, student wellbeing, and how we might work to improve social and professional networks between graduate researchers.

We come from many disciplines but we share common concerns and practical advice and, sometimes, we discover remarkable links between separate graduate research projects. For example, Susanna Bryceson’s biological science work on fire ecology and the ancient grasses of Gondwanaland (in the College of SHE), overlaps with Jane Urquhart’s anthropological work on fire ecology and Indigenous burning practices (in the College of ASSC).

None of us doubt the value of digital communications between people separated by physical distance. Zoom video-conferencing technology connects us to our fellow representatives on other campuses.

But still…we are here and they are there. Does it matter? We’ve all heard conversations about how hard it can be to attract university students to campus and convince them to keep them coming. We’d like them here in shared time and space, to build productive, sustaining relationships with their lecturers, tutors and peers. Walking on the same ground, seeing the same sights, breathing in the same smells – sharing physical experiences leads to shared memories and (especially if the memories are good) can build stronger relationships.

Our HUSS peers in Bendigo do come here to Bundoora once in a while. To make the relationship fairer, we should go to them sometimes, to walk on their grounds and share the same air.

With the value of face-to-face interactions in mind, my fellow HUSS representatives and I negotiated some funding to take six Bundoora graduate reps to the Bendigo campus for our May monthly meeting.We currently have two representatives in Bendigo: Justin See (Social Inquiry – Planning) and Paul Northam (Visual Arts). After a very productive meeting, we enjoyed a chatty, sociable lunch together, followed by a walking-tour of the Bendigo campus, with Justin and Paul acting as our hosts and guides.

Justin, Paul, and Leonard French | Photo courtesy of Karen Strojek

The campus offers some facilities and attractions that Bundoora doesn’t have. While both have beautiful outdoor spaces, trees, abundant native bird life and the occasional hopping marsupial, our peers in Bendigo are sited on a hilltop, where the outlook is more extended and the Autumn air can be very crisp.

The library there doesn’t just have a lot of books, which HUSS students love. The library walls are crowded with Leonard French artworks. The Education building doubles up as a gallery area for the FM Courtis collection: more than 350 works by notable Australian artists, including John Olsen, Fred Williams and Sydney Nolan. There are surprises waiting around every corner…

The Outdoor Education Centre boasts a sheltered outdoor climbing wall – and our efforts there got everyone laughing (in a good way). We also had a chance to visit the Anthrozoology Research Group DogLab, where guide dogs are trained to aid PTSD sufferers and visitors are welcome.

Finally, Paul gave us a tour of the Visual Arts studios: warm, well-lit spaces for tomorrow’s artists.

None of us will forget this day. The long drive home had us all reflecting on what we’d learned. Sharing experiences with your peers at other campuses is a great way to expand your research community and strengthen your social and professional ties, across geographical locations as well as across disciplines.

If you have an opportunity to meet your peers at another campus, don’t turn it down!

Karen and Anna – on the road to Bendigo | Photo courtesy of Karen Strojek

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Karen Strojek is a PhD candidate in the Department of Politics, Media and Philosophy at La Trobe University. 

Her doctoral research is on the abolition of inheritance taxes in Australia, with a particular focus on gendered patterns of property ownership, political activism, and the changing nature of Australian federalism. 

Karen completed a Bachelor of Arts, with majors in Sociology and Politics, at Griffith University in 2014 and Honours in Politics at La Trobe University in 2015. 

She has extensive experience in the clothing and textile trades and ran a bespoke clothing company from 1999 to 2013. Karen has also tutored in industrial methods in the Fashion Design school at RMIT. She tweets from @KarenStrojek.

The post Extending your inter-campus research community (Karen Strojek) appeared first on Research Education and Development.

What is it about a cup of coffee that can lead to a $48,000 research grant and world leading research?

The answer is that if that coffee is had at a university Early Career Researcher (ECR) event then, more likely than not, emerging researchers will be also talking for the first time with other researchers from outside their discipline where they have exchanged ideas and realised the linkages that exist between their seemingly disparate research interests.

The scenario described above actually happened in October 2015 when we – Dr Samantha Grover and Dr Greg Dingle – were chatting between sessions at the La Trobe University ECR Network Conference in the John Scott Meeting House.

We were there to give presentations on our latest research and explore the potential for collaborating with researchers from outside our disciplines. Sam is a soil scientist, and Greg is a social scientist specialising in sport management. In addition, Greg thinks that the opportunity to have a free lunch should never be missed!

Greg had given his presentation in the morning session with the curious topic of “major sport stadia and climate change”. Over the lunch that followed, we had that coffee, and began chatting about our various research interests. As a soil scientist, Sam is naturally an expert with the natural world and how biogeochemical processes work. Sam’s research canvasses the potential of soil carbon, greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from agriculture and native plant species, and even the impacts of fire on grasslands. This is important work as it expands human understanding of soils and plants, but also because it informs the science that underpins the management regimes in agriculture, and in natural eco-systems.

Greg, as a sport management researcher, is naturally an expert in…sport management! Organisational strategy, organisational culture, public policy for sport, sport events: all key facets of a global industry with importance across national boundaries, languages and a multiplicity of cultures! Greg’s research asks a fundamental question: what does climate change mean for sport? Medicine, engineering, economics and most other disciplines are asking this question, so why not sport?

During our conversation over our respective cups of coffee, the potential linkages between our research interests became apparent. As Sam said many months later, “I could tell straight away that our research interests were so complementary yet so different that this was a rare yet exciting opportunity to bring together our respective research work under the umbrella of climate change”. Sam was right. A lot of sport is played on plant-based playing surfaces. Think grass turf football and cricket fields, hockey fields, tennis courts, and horse-racing tracks. All of these sports facilities require curators who are experts in producing and maintaining high quality grass crops that, at a more fundamental level, are ecosystems. They are complex systems of soils, plants, water inputs, fertilisers, and biogeochemical processes such as microbial decomposition – all interacting to produce the high quality, safe, cost-effective and sport-specific surfaces.

An interesting, yet little understood, feature of the biogeochemical processes that underpin contemporary sports turf management is the potential for plant-based ecosystems to be sources and sinks of GHG emissions. Yes, plants and soil are both sources and sinks of GHG’s. In basic terms, plants and soil can either extract GHG’s from the atmosphere, or release them, depending on a range of variables (temperature, water availability, and fertilisers). In an era of climate change, Sam (as a soil scientist) was able to identify the linkage between sport and GHG emissions.

As the coffee progressed, an important question emerged. All at once, Sam said, “So, what are we going to do about it?” and Greg said, “Would you like to have another coffee?”

Sam and Greg began devising tentative research questions for a potential research project investigating the GHG emissions of grass turf sports fields. The project was cast as a pilot study to be conducted on a small scale, with a possible follow-up study to be conducted later…thing is, we had funding. Sam proposed other soil and plant scientists join the conversation, while a more senior sport management colleague was brought in to offer advice. Getting the right team was critical – Matt and Tony were really supportive. Tony suggested working with David. David suggested bring in Professor Ian.

A series of conversations then followed. It was unquestionably a leap of faith. We were a group of researchers who didn’t know each other that well, researchers from vastly different disciplines and methodological approaches. But the leap has been absolutely worth it.

A successful Sports, Exercise and Rehabilitation Research Focus Area grant for $48,000 followed, and our research was under way.

We have now have data, and results that challenge the conventional wisdom about sport and climate change. Our first paper has been submitted to the Science of the Total Environment journal. A second paper is in preparation based on a case study method. We’re now putting together an ARC Linkage Grant application to extend our research!

It is challenging., though, the research paradigms we share and don’t share – the challenge of multi-disciplinarity? We’re all busy. We’re still figuring out how to take our research forward.

The moral of the story? Our experience speaks to the value of ECR Network and RED events, and their capacity to stimulate multidisciplinary research. You just never know where a cup of coffee will lead you.

So, if you are still wondering about the power of coffee, go try one. Just make sure you do it at an ECR event!

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Greg Dingle is a Lecturer in Sport Management in the Department of Management, Sport and Tourism in the La Trobe Business School, and an associate of the Centre for Sport and Social Impact at La Trobe University. Greg’s expertise is in sport management, climate change, sport and environmental sustainability, and Education for Sustainability (EfS). He tweets from @gdingle1.

Sam Grover, based at RMIT University, is a soil chemist by training. She is particularly interested in integrating soil science with other disciplines to solve real world problems around climate change and sustainability. Her current research focuses on safeguarding the carbon stored in peatlands, with projects in Australia, Indonesia and China.

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We share a lab identity. We are connected. But how well do we actually know our lab colleagues outside of the work sphere? What are their interests? Who are their partners? How much have their kids grown since they last popped in for a visit after a childcare pick up?

In the Hulett and Poon labs, where I’ve been fortunate to work as a postdoc for many years, we make it a point to take time out at the year’s end to reflect and celebrate our collective successes (from grants, conferences, awards, publications to student completions). This could be over lunch (that could span much of the afternoon), a day trip to the zoo (we’ve visited all Victorian attractions by now), or a picnic after a memorable ride on Puffing Billy.

Members of the Hulett and Poon labs. Photo courtesy of Fung Lay.

In 2015, we had an offer by a PhD student who had completed Honours in the lab the year prior (Georgia Atkin-Smith, now a successful postdoc in the lab) to host a camp-out at her family home in Quantong. This started a new tradition of the “lab weekend retreat”. The initial motivation, which still holds true today, was simple: Let’s have fun and get to know each other better.

What are the machinations of pulling something like this off?

It takes research (e.g. where do we go, how much it will cost each person), planning (e.g. what are the sleeping arrangements, what will we do when we get there) and execution (e.g. drivers, shoppers, cooks). Fortunately, these are skills that our group have in spades.

A couple of members will take the lead and do the scouting for the idyllic venue, using those much-practised skills of research by internet. Once decided, the budget for accommodation and food is set (very reasonable for a weekend away and covered by member themselves), and designated shoppers are tasked to do the big shop for the weekend ahead. Topping the shopping list is ensuring there’s enough bacon and eggs to cover our breakfasts!

On the Friday of the adventure, most of us invariably gather at work. Downing the pipettes early, we’d proceed to pack the cars with luggage, food and people, before making our way to retreat central for a weekend of R&R and team bonding.

Assignment of duties on-site are generally self-appointed. For myself, I gravitate to the BBQ (where I once put on a spectacular fat-fire show for the team) and cooking the mountains of eggs for breakfasts.

The only agenda for the weekend is to mentally unwind, relax and enjoy just being in the moment.

So, who actually comes to these retreats? The answer is simple – the ‘lab family’. This includes lab heads, postdocs, research assistants, graduate researchers and honours students, as well as undergraduate students who volunteer in the lab. Importantly, partners and immediate families are invited, as are lab alumni. Such is the culture of the Hulett and Poon labs that ‘once a member of the lab, always a member of the lab family’.

Lab residential retreats – 2015-2018. Image courtesy of Fung Lay.

We’ve been running these retreats for the last four years. Our destinations have included a camping experience, complete with bonfire and marshmallows, at the Atkin-Smith family home (2015), to stays in large single dwellings in Rosebud (2016) and Eildon (2017), to a quaint a set of cottages in Deans Marsh in December 2018.


Such excursions from the norm certainly enrich and support a more holistic side to the whole research team endeavour. The ability to share laughs over beverages and well-cooked home meals with the chance to connect at a more personal and social level, beyond that which may exist at the workplace, are invaluable. The positive flow-on effects for team cohesion, relatability and morale become evident.

For finishing Honours (especially those continuing to PhD) and new members, it reinforces that the lab culture is strong and that support will be there for them in the years ahead. The partners and children also get to know where and with whom their loved ones spend much of their days.


Research is not a short-term pursuit so enjoying where you work, with the people you work with, is key to success and positive outcomes.

So, could you and your group benefit from a retreat (over a day or weekend) to mentally disconnect from the hustle and bustle so that you can recharge and reconnect? It may be the spark that sets your research alight!

Photo courtesy of Fung Lay.

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Dr Fung Lay is a lecturer and research supervisor in the Master of Biotechnology and Bioinformatics course and an honorary research fellow in the Hulett lab in the Department of Biochemistry and Genetics at La Trobe University. 


He has had 26 years of continued association with La Trobe University, gaining BSc(Honours) and PhD (molecular biology and protein biochemistry) degrees and extended postdoctoral research years in the laboratories of Professor Marilyn Anderson and Dr Mark Hulett.


In addition to research and teaching, Fung enjoys sports. He is an honorary life member of the La Trobe University Taekwondo Club and an avid dragon boater with the Chinese Youth Society of Melbourne.

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Kylie Mirmohamadi (HuSS) participated in the panel convened by James Burford about ‘writing together’ during #LTUacwrimo in 2018. 

The presentations from all participants were thought-provoking and reflected the diverse ways that researchers collaborate (or not!) when writing. 

Kylie generously wrote this post for us, based on her panel notes. 

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What follows is a reflection on the practice of collaborative academic writing, and the way that I have experienced it in my work with Professor Sue Martin (College of ASSC’s APVC-Research).

For this post, I’m going to leave aside the much larger issue of how collaborative writing is perceived and received within the politics of academic publishing.

I’ll begin with a few observations from other people that illustrate the often-unacknowledged personal dimension of writing together, and also its gendered aspects.

For me, and I’m sure also for Sue and for Katie Holmes (with whom we have also collaborated), writing together academically is a gendered and a feminist activity. Although this is not always the case with collaborations, ours have been productive of, and pursued within, patterns and modes of female friendship. Those friendships that Kayleen Schaefer sees as captured in women’s late-night request to each other to ‘text me when you get home’, which she shows is not only about safety, but also about solidarity, affection, connection, and holding an ongoing conversation with each other (Text me when you get home, 2018).

And these things are all deepened when we pursue together intellectual work; that labour which Mother’s Day cards continue to tell us falls outside the marketing parameters of women’s work. This is not to say that we have not also spent a lot of time talking about those other types of labour, literally, about childbirth, but also about housecleaning, parenting, recipes, and the all-important selection of outfits for academic conferences…

At the Feminist Writers Festival in Sydney last year, Kerryn Goldsworthy chose as one of her Legacy Books, Dymphna Cusack and Florence James’s 1951 novel Come in Spinner. She was interested, among other things, in its status as a co-written women’s text, and this sent me to the novel. In her Introduction to the 1988 edition (Cusack had died in 1981), Florence James writes that the ‘gestation period’ of Spinner was when the two women shared a rented cottage on a bush holiday in 1938, looking after three girls aged between nine and seven – Cusack’s niece and James’s two daughters. In that cottage, they wrote stories for their Four Winds and a Family in easy collaboration – each choosing a story, writing it up, and then editing each other’s work.

The account she gives of their collaboration over almost two years on the manuscript of Spinner, reveals a more fraught experience, punctuated as it was by financial insecurities, time constraints, and health concerns. In the Blue Mountains, when Cusack was often ill and also feeling the pressure to begin on Southern Steel, James writes:

Dymphna was subject to recurring bouts of acute neuralgia and could not stand using a typewriter. But she could dictate to my typing when she was well enough, and when she was not I got on with my own writing. Working hours extended from the children’s departure for school until lunchtime, after which Dymphna rested and I edited and caught up with the housekeeping.

Of the new 1988 edition, James conjectures, ‘What fun Dymphna and I would have had working on it together. By happy coincidence, I was able to take a cottage in the Blue Mountains for the months I spent shaping this new Come In Spinner, often remembering the time when we were writing together and our friendship through all the years’ (Dymphna Cusack and Florence James, Come in Spinner, HarperCollins, 2013 [1988; 1951]).

What struck me here was James’s insistence on the entwined nature of their collaboration: children and typewriters, illness and editing, past shared experience and the often patchworking labour of the putting together of a manuscript.

And fun. The enjoyment of company and a shared purpose. Something we rarely talk about in ‘professional contexts’that has marked all my collaborations.

More relevantly, perhaps, Susan M. Gilbert and Susan Gubar have reflected on the collaborative writing of their classic 1979 academic study The Madwoman in the Attic. They determined, in their introduction to the year 2000 edition, to deconstruct the unitary voice which made them famous, by writing each in their own voice. They wanted to show, Gilbert writes ‘that behind the hyphenated yet superficially monolithic authorial entity known as Gilbert-and-Gubar there are and always have been two distinct, if deeply bonded, human beings’ (The Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman Writer and the Nineteenth-Century Literary Imagination, 2000 [1979]).

But they also comment on their personal connections and intellectual connectedness. They had a shared sense of humour (Gubar writes that an early joke about tea made them ‘[g]iddy with the hilarity upon which our future friendship would be based’), as well as shared experiences of motherhood, and team teaching an accelerated senior seminar, complete with a rather disastrous visit from the poet, Denise Levertov. They also conducted long late-night phone calls about the necessity of reading women’s texts together, as part of a female literary tradition, rather than compartmentalised by periodisation and the conventions of graduate-school courses.

But enough of the emotional stuff for now, which I see as the scaffolding of my academic collaborations. Some people do perfectly well without it, others could see it as unnecessary, others might see it as impeding the process even.

But, to me, this context not only strengthens the construction as it is being built, it works towards the integrity and the solidity of the final, written, product.

Here’s a brief sketch of our collaborative methodology:

• After Sue and I have chosen a project (and this is usually the result of a process in which I come up with a million mad ideas and Sue recklessly agrees to embark on one of them), we sit down to think about what an article, or a book, might look like. What is its scope, argument, details of its subject matter and so forth? 
• We divide up the sections or chapters, which usually just naturally fall within our individual areas of expertise or interest.
• We both carry out research (though I project manage and build a database as part of my employment – and I should emphasise that without this financial support from the ARC and other sources we could not have been so productive together)
• We write our individual sections or chapters.
• We read and discuss each other’s work as it is being written, but very important joint conceptual work is again carried out when we have a draft manuscript and can look at the work as a whole. Here we ask ourselves different questions such as: what is the overall tone and argument of this work, and (very importantly in jointly-written work) is it sufficiently present and developed in each section or chapter?
• We work on the manuscript as a whole, again usually individually, but we have regular meetings to discuss our progress in this, as we have done all along the timeline.

In conclusion, I offer these practical guidelines for successful academic collaboration.

1. TRUST each other. You are both going to put your names to this, and stake your professional reputations on it. You both own it – all its strengths and weakness, mistakes as well as brilliant insights. Most of this is trusting each other’s judgement. If either Sue or I feel strongly enough to argue for a change, inclusion, or deletion, then the other one will usually agree, because we trust that this will enhance the final product.

2. DEVELOP STYLISTIC COMPATIBILITY. This happened for us naturally, but even if it didn’t, to be able to develop a joint style makes editing so much easier. We are so used to it by now, that we can splice text into each other’s sentences, and I don’t think the stylistic seams show at all.

3. BE CLEAR ABOUT YOUR ROLES. For example, who is doing the bulk of the background research? It doesn’t make sense to double up by both doing it. I’m usually paid to do this, and take extensive notes for Sue’s reference, which I annotate and organise in a way to make her access easier.

4. ACCEPT EACH OTHER’S METHODS AND PROCESSES. I write very clean manuscripts, whereas Sue will make notes to herself as she writes, and then come back to fine tune and clarify.
As long as you both end up in the same place, which is, of course, a coherent and accurate manuscript, then it doesn’t really matter how you got there.

5. PLAY TO YOUR STRENGTHS. One of the great advantages of collaboration is that you each can work on your areas of strength and rely on the other to prop up any gaps in your knowledge and expertise. When this works well, the sum is definitely greater than its parts.

When Paul Salzman launched our book, Colonial Dickens, back in 2012, he very generously noted the length of the list of newspapers and other primary sources in its bibliography. But, as he shared a corridor in the same university with Sue at the time, he also noted that, in the months leading up to the book’s publication, he would frequently hear the sound of us laughing during our meetings together.

So, if I could sum up my experience of writing together academically, I could think of no better conjunction than ‘words’ and ‘laughter’.

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Kylie Mirmohamadi has published widely in Australian and British historical, cultural and literary studies. 

Her most recent book is The Digital Afterlives of Jane Austen: Janeites at the Keyboard (Palgrave Pivot, 2014). She has co-authored and co-edited a number of books including – with Susan K. Martin – Sensational Melbourne (Australian Scholarly Publishing, 2011) and Colonial Dickens (Australian Scholarly Publishing, 2012). 

Kylie tweets from @vic_reader.

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Emails. Every academic’s worst nightmare — or are they?

Spending time on emails is sometimes positioned as the enemy of real academic writing, such as writing theses, articles or book manuscripts.

It doesn’t take long to come across descriptions of email from academics that sound like a review of a thriller movie.

For instance, we’ve seen words like “dread“, “anxiety” and “out of control” used to describe academic inboxes. The Thesis Whisperer even wrote a post on how to avoid Death by Email (hint: limit your email time, use a timer, turn off notifications, and come up with a strategy to manage your inbox). We know that emails build up. They often need to be thought about, replied to, actioned or deleted. And in our increasingly internationalised universities, emails not only now arrive by day, but also by night. Ooof. It’s enough to give anyone an elevated heart rate. Depending on the day, our inboxes might even give us a good jump-scare!

While we know these feelings well, and negotiate them regularly, in this blog post we want to re-position emails as an important form of academic writing in and of themselves. To do this, we lift the veil on our own email correspondence to explore how and why emails might matter for academic writers.

Before we set off, let us just say that this post won’t be covering another popular topic on writing on emails, which focuses on email etiquette. If you’ve come here looking for some advice on that, you can take a look at this, this or this!

It can be tempting to position emails as the enemy of “real writing”. We feel, however, that this position underestimates the powerful role that email can play in our becoming as colleagues, scholars, collaborators and friends.

For instance, we might use email to reach out to editors of journals to inquire about the suitability of our manuscripts for their special issues. In 2017, Britt and Cecile Badenhorst were special issue co-editors of an issue on ‘Playful approaches to academic writing’ for the Canadian Journal for Studies in Discourse and Writing/Rédactologie. Jamie received a call for papers via an email from a ListServ. Although intrigued, Jamie wasn’t sure whether the idea he had in mind would be a good fit for the issue. He wanted to write about some contemplative teaching practices that he and his colleagues at Thammasat University had been playing with. So, he emailed Britt and Cecile and shared his idea. They both responded with enthusiasm and encouraged him to send in a manuscript. He did — and it ended up being published! Part of this was made possible by Jamie’s initial email, but this email paid off in ways Jamie did not expect. In fact, once Britt even sent Jamie a coffee voucher to thank him for some urgent review work that required a fast turn-around! Conversations about the topics and questions raised from the special issue were continued long after the publication of the issue.

Email has played an important role in Britt’s development as an academic. Through it, she’s learned how to negotiate and arrange the peer review process. She’s learned how a well-crafted email can open a door to a bigger conversation that has led (in some circumstances) to further collaboration. After the special issue of the journal was published, for example, and Britt’s work as co-editor was finished, she was tasked with completing her comprehensive exams. Comprehensive exams are typically more a North American thing, though they vary across doctoral programs. In her case, she had to write three papers in response to three questions. She had 90 days to complete the writing and reading for this project. The hardest part about this process, at least for Britt, was that she was expected to write without speaking to her committee. Like most people, Britt finds that she builds knowledge in relationship and conversation with others. Although she was writing every day for her exam, she felt stuck. In fact, it was her email to Jamie that allowed her to break through her writing block.

Britt had inadvertently come across an article Jamie had written on the topic in which she was interested. As she puts it, “I really had to put two and two together — I didn’t even realise it was the same Jamie that I had been in contact with for the special issue! But when I did, I felt more comfortable emailing him.” She drafted a long email that responded to the article Jamie had written. In it, she summarised some of his main arguments, extended the discussion a bit further, asked some questions, and shared an article she thought might be of interest to Jamie.

After she hit ‘Send’, she realised that she had unintentionally drafted a rough outline. She quickly copied and pasted the body of the email into a word processing document and used it as a framework for what eventually became one of her exam papers.

We know that academic writing is really just a bunch of really long, drawn out conversations—after all, we cite each other, respond to each other, try to contribute when we can, and perhaps even seek to nudge the direction the conversation takes. Kenneth Burke has famously written about academic discourse as a conversation in a parlor. It had not occurred to Britt before that emails can be one place where this conversation happens, and that academic writing — articles, chapters, etc. — can act like a record of the conversation that has taken place.

Jamie replied to Britt’s email to offer his own thoughts, and over the next year and a half a wonderful correspondence about mutual areas of inquiry and curiosity began to flower. We talked about how we might conceptualise the field of writing studies, doctoral writing research and possibilities for future collaboration. We have influenced each other’s thinking and development by sharing articles (our own and those written by others), podcasts and calls for papers, as well as feedback on drafts. We often discuss thorny issues in our fields and scheme about ways to overcome them. Our emails eventually moved into videocalls, introductions to other colleagues, chats on Twitter and our most recent work together to develop a book proposal (with our colleague Cecile Badenhorst) for a collected edition on ‘Imagining Doctoral Writing’.

But, overall, perhaps the sweetest part has been in sharing the mundane things that remind that we are living and breathing human beings, not just brains. Things like the weather (always exciting, what with Britt being in Canada), our pets, our academic lives, as well as our losses and low points. We both enjoy the collegiality and generosity of our exchanges. As an early career academic, Jamie has been so grateful for the opportunity to connect to an emerging scholar like Britt, whose knowledge and expertise has extended his own. And as a doctoral student, Britt has found connecting with Jamie to be an immensely enriching (and unanticipated, but wholly welcomed) growth experience that has added to the process of “becoming doctoral”.

In conclusion, we’d like to reaffirm our argument that emails are a form of writing undertaken by academics. While it can be tempting to position them as the enemy of the real stuff, we have found that emails have been an absolutely crucial part of our becoming as colleagues, scholars, collaborators and friends. Emails shouldn’t be underestimated for their capacity to bring people together as collaborators and intellectual workers.

We’d love to hear from you! Please feel free to email us and continue the conversation!

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James Burford is a Lecturer in the RED (Research Education and Development) team. His primary research areas are academic writing, doctoral education, academic mobilities and gender and sexuality studies. Jamie seems to love all things meta. When he was a PhD student, he did a PhD on what it feels like to write a PhD and, when he was a mobile academic, he researched academic mobility! Alongside his work at La Trobe, Jamie co-edits the research blog Conference Inference with Emily Henderson. Jamie tweets from @jiaburford.

Brittany Amell is a PhD student in the School of Linguistics and Language Studies at Carleton University (Canada). Her primary research areas include the research, theory, and pedagogy of academic writing. Like Jamie, Britt also seems to love all things meta. Her PhD research is focusing on the writing that she and other doctoral students do for their degrees. She works as a writing coach and consultant with undergraduate and graduate students from Carleton. Britt tweets from @balloonleap.

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The one conference that those working in Graduate Research Schools tend to think of as an essential one is the Quality in Postgraduate Research (QPR) event.

It’s held in Adelaide every two years, and it’s THE conference for those working with graduate researchers and higher degree candidates more broadly.

Why?

The whole program – all two and half days of it – is devoted to presentations, roundtables, and forums about graduate research experiences, processes, environments, and supervisors. The talks range from major research project findings that aim to influence policy around graduate research, to sharing local processes and pilot programs from particular contexts.

Our keynote speakers came from the United Kingdom, South Africa, and locally. The opening keynote was given by Australia’s Chief Scientist Alan Finkel, and reflected on the qualities
of the twenty-first century scientist, and the opportunities of a new generation.

And we were there at QPR! Very there, actually!

La Trobe’s RED team presented across four sessions, on the topics briefly outlined below:

Dan Bendrups talked about the findings of an empirical, ethnographic study of the impact of doctoral education on professional creative arts practice. His work discusses the motives for undertaking doctoral study, and will provide a basis for considering how this study translates into the pragmatic realities of professional work in the arts sector.

The work draws particularly on the experiences of candidates who were already established creative and performing artists before commencing doctoral study, it will describe the impact (or lack thereof) of the doctorate on their professional practice.

Tweet by University of Melbourne Library’s Jennifer Warburton about Tseen’s talk.

Tseen Khoo (me!) talked about the ways that the RED team undertakes the complex task of developing our researchers’ social media literacy and the inherent challenges of these programs.

It focuses particularly on how the process of developing an effective, professional set of social media skills for researchers often requires a strong understanding of academic contexts, clarity of an individual’s purpose and identity in the space, and articulated support pathways to grow this expertise within the time-frame of the candidature.

Jeanette Fyffe presented across two sessions. The first, with another La Trobe scholar Margaret Robertson (Education), reported on a case study of a department in a large Australian university that has an ethos of shared responsibility for doctoral supervision focussed around an annual supervisor “Away Day”. The paper described the features that sustain the department in its approach to developing doctoral researchers and supporting colleagues in their supervisory practice.

The second session was a forum, led by Jeanette, that was dedicated to discussing some of the findings from the major national project “Reframing the PhD for Australia’s future universities” (Barrie, Peseta, Fyffe, Mantai, and Kiley). For this session, the focus on the concept that a doctoral curriculum might be conceived as four intentionally designed learning spaces (that is, the research project, supervision, intellectual climate, and courses/workshops), and how candidature milestones might also be conceived as a curriculum proxy. For all the information about this project, check out their website: Reframing the PhD.

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Dr Tseen Khoo is a lecturer in research education and development with the RED team at La Trobe University. Melbourne. 


She has held research-only fellowships at the University of Queensland and Monash University, and was a research grant developer at RMIT University.


Tseen created and manages the Research Whisperer with Jonathan O’Donnell. 


She’s on Twitter at @tseenster.

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