Graduate School: Our Research Community

Our Department’s core business is research. The Graduate School integrates graduate students into the research community – both within the Department and also more broadly. Through the Graduate School, both MA students and PhD researchers have opportunities to engage with the ideas and research of academic staff and students alike.

The Graduate School is an inclusive community of MA, PhD, and academic staff. Within the Graduate School you can:

• Engage with the ideas of others, including academic staff
• Present your own research
• Attend events with visiting scholars
• Participate in the White Rose Doctoral Training Centre

The Graduate School is governed by the Graduate School Committee which encourages student participation in its deliberations through Graduate School Masters and PhD representatives. We also have annual ‘surgeries’ in which PhD researchers can speak informally with the Director of the Graduate School about the Department and the PhD programme.

Your development as a researcher

All postgraduate research students in the Department have the opportunity to develop a Doctoral Development Programme - a personalised programme of activities and training, designed by you and your supervisors to build your skills and increase your employability.

Doctoral Development Programme

Events and activities

There’s a lot going on in the Graduate School, so you’ll find plenty of opportunities to get to know your fellow students, as well as the Department’s academic staff. Our varied programme of events includes:

• Masterclasses: academic staff present ‘big ideas’ for debate;
• Teach-ins: addressing topics of major contemporary interest, such as the US presidential elections or the Eurozone crisis;
• Research Training Groups: regular Wednesday afternoon events where PhD researchers can present work-in-progress, invite visiting speakers, or hear what academic staff are researching;
• Activities organised by our Research Centres;
• Annual PhD Colloquium: a day-long event in which PhD researchers present papers to an audience of fellow PhDs and academic staff;
• Politics Society events.

Masters degrees
PhD research

White Rose Doctoral Training Centre

The Graduate School is part of a social science doctoral training network with the University of Leeds and University of York. This means that all PhD students at Sheffield can consider themselves part of a regional community of doctoral researchers. Students have opportunities to participate in White Rose colloquiums and thematic workshops in all three universities.

Facilities

Our Postgraduate students benefit from use of an exclusive study suite here in the Elmfield building. Following a re-fit during summer 2012, postgraduates will have access to 25 dedicated workstations, along with plenty of quiet study space and a social area.