Research cafe

Research Cafés are the perfect space:

• To present your research to peers and receive optional feedback/presentation tips.
• To meet and connect with others from beyond your discipline/subject-area.
• To enjoy a networking lunch.
• To engage in and learn from a facilitated discussion on a topic relevant to the life, cultures and experiences of PhD education.

Research cafés run according to the following format:

• Delivery of up to three research presentations of no more than 12 minutes each delivered by you, the doctoral researcher, on your work.
• Optional feedback on presentation style and skill to presenters (it is always at the presenter’s discretion if they wish to receive this).
• Break for networking lunch provided by the Graduate and Researcher College (GRC).
• Discussion around the pre-set topics as advertised by the GRC (and highlighted by you as relevant).

The 2024-25 series of Research Cafés:

• Diverse Routes to PhD: Exploring PhD Life as a Parent, Part-Time, International and/or Mature Student
• Collaborating in research
• Change in the PhD
• AI and postgraduate research

If you wish to present your work at the next research café, please email skills@kent.ac.uk.

If you wish to attend without presenting to connect with your peers, hear about their work and engage in the conversation please book via our booking system.

Experience Exchanges provide the opportunity:

• To celebrate the diverse skills and experience our doctoral researchers bring with them and have acquired.
• To encourage greater interconnectedness amongst our cohort at a time when collaboration, community and peer-support feels particularly poignant.
• To provide another opportunity for researchers to harness further experience during their PhD as a facilitator, chair, or trainer.

Experience Exchanges can be relatively fluid:

• Researchers will need to find a way to share and/or ‘train’ on their experience (e.g. presentation, think piece, workshop, etc.) before allowing group discussion and shared learning on it.
•  Sessions will run for 60-90mins and the GRC will manage bookings and timings.
• Researcher Developer, Dr Jess Day, will be present for all sessions and can provide in-session support if relevant/helpful.  

Experience Exchange:

Whether that’s reflecting on your experience of using AI to enhance how you undertake your research, reflecting on how you successfully created networks with external organisations/stakeholders, or, what you know about a particular industry from having worked in it before/alongside your studies, the Experience Exchange will offer a space for collaborative training and learning amongst our PhD colleagues.

Our first Experience Exchange session will look at 'Presenting your Research through Storytelling' and will be run by Richi Mohanty (PhD Researcher) on 27th November 2024, 1-3pm.  

If you wish to run an experience exchange session, please complete the expression of interest form and email skills@kent.ac.uk.

If you wish to attend to learn from your peers please book via our booking system.