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Monday 27 October 2025, 13:00-14:30, Online<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n Tuesday 3 March 2026, 13:00-14:30, Online<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n Not sure where to look for literature? Overwhelmed by endless, useless search results? Trying to read but nothing\u2019s sinking in? Confused by your own notes that you spent ages writing? Don\u2019t worry, help is at hand!<\/p>\n\n\n\n In this interactive workshop, we will show you various literature search tools and other resources that you have access to at Westminster and beyond. You will learn tips and tricks to use these to your advantage and find relevant sources for your PhD. You will discover reading techniques that will help you work through your reading pile effectively and efficiently. You will also learn note-taking tips that will help you extract the crucial information from the literature in a way that it can be smoothly integrated into your writing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This workshop aligns with the Vitae Researcher Development Framework descriptors: <\/p>\n\n\n\n Thursday 27 November 2025, 12:00-13:30, Online<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n Thursday 19 March 2026, 14:30-16:00, Online<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n Integration and synthesis of sources in postgraduate writing requires greater skill than at undergraduate level. One must master the literature within a given field, rank and organize sources in relation to one\u2019s research question and deploy those sources strategically and judiciously, emphasizing crucial works and glancing over others. This session looks (briefly) at how to organise one\u2019s research harvest, how to signpost the logical relationships between pieces of evidence and how to rhetorically integrate academic works into one\u2019s presentation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This workshop aligns with the Vitae Researcher Development Framework descriptors: <\/p>\n\n\n\n Thursday 13 November 2025, 11:00-12:00, In Person, Regent Street<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n Friday 6 February 2026, 11:00-12:00, Online<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n There are many useful digital tools that you could be utilising to help with your research process. This session will explore these tools, some provided by the University, some freely available. Bring your laptop along if you wish to try these out during the session.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This session will cover:<\/p>\n\n\n\n This workshop aligns with the Vitae Researcher Development Framework descriptors: Monday 05 November 2025, 11:00-12:00, Online<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n Thursday 05 February 2026, 11:00-12:00, Online<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n By the end of this workshop, you will know how to:<\/p>\n\n\n\n This workshop aligns with the Vitae Researcher Development Framework descriptors: Thursday 13 November 2025, 13.00-14:00, In Person, Regent Street<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n Friday 06 February 2026, 13:00-14:00, Online<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n Zotero [zoh-TAIR-oh] is a free, easy-to-use tool to help you collect, organize, cite, and share your research sources. In this session we will introduce you to Zotero and it\u2019s functionality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This workshop aligns with the Vitae Researcher Development Framework descriptors: Thursday 13 November 2025, 14:00-14:30, In Person, UG02 Regent Street<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n Thursday 11 December 2025, 12:30-13:00, In Person, UG02 Regent Street<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n Friday 06 February 2025, 14:00-14:30, Online<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n Thursday 17th March 2025, 12:30-13:00, Online<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n Meet the AELD team for advice on Library, information searching, and academic skills. Booking is optional. Feel free to drop in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Knowing more about digital accessibility and how to make your work more accessible can help you in many ways:<\/p>\n\n\n\n We encourage you to turn up to all sessions to get the most out of the training, but please also feel free to drop into sessions most relevant to you, or any \/ all you can attend.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Session 1: Introduction to Accessibility, 1st June, 13:00 – 14:30, Online<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Session 1 introduces attendees to the concepts within digital accessibility and why it is an important tool for academic and professional achievement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n Session 2: Accessibility in Writing, 4th June, 11:00-13:00, Online<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Session 2 focuses on the tools and skills for users to improve the accessibility of their written work including improving word documents and PDFs for academic publishing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n Session 3: Design, 11th June, 11:00-13:00, Online<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Session 3 expands on accessibility tools and skills in a wider range of content. This session talks users through making images, data visualisations, graphs, social media and video content accessible to support their written work or participant recruitment campaigns.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n Session 4: Survey\/Design Platforms, 15th June, 13:00-15:00, Online<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Session 4 focuses on additional behaviours that make research participation more accessible, how to engage with disabled users, using accessible survey platforms and hosting more accessible online meetings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n Session 5: Employability, 18th June, 11:00-13:00, Online<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Session 5 concludes the course with a look at how attendees can incorporate their improved accessibility knowledge into employment conversations, highlighting transferable skills and the technical skillset, what sectors accessibility is useful for and how to use it in applications.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This workshop series aligns with the Vitae Researcher Development Framework descriptors: <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n Wednesday 26 November 2025, 13:00-15:00, Online<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n Thursday 26 March 2026, 13:00-15:00, Online<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n To achieve a PhD you will need to master critical thinking. The workshop will review definitions and descriptions of critical thinking and will discuss how (and if) the notion of critical thinking changes across disciplines and according to the ontologies and epistemologies of different research philosophies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The workshop will provide tools for critically analysing and evaluating information. Special attention will be given to the analysis and evaluation of research methods considering, among other things, sample representativeness and confirmation bias.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The workshop will help you demonstrate critical thinking in your academic writing by reaching conclusions from evidence, creating meaning, contributing to knowledge and presenting your arguments effectively. This online workshop will be delivered in a friendly and interactive format, and we will welcome your questions and contributions!<\/p>\n\n\n\n This workshop aligns with the Vitae Researcher Development Framework descriptors: Thursday 19 February 2026, 13:00-16:00, In person, Regent St<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Colonial history is a history of commodities. According to Sven Beckert, it is a history of war capitalism \u2013 essentially, deregulated capitalism with big guns. European trading companies turned cotton, sugar, tea, poppies and people into the biggest commodities of the 19th century, using extraction, war, unequal treaties and decimation of land and people to carry out what was a global-scale choreography. Has anything changed today? What will decolonial, feminist, eco, neurodivergent, anti-capitalist practices actually look like? How far would we need to go? While this session will go over some \u2018history,\u2019 please come prepared to do some creative thinking and discussion \u2013 however leftfield \u2013 on some possible answers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n This workshop aligns with the Vitae Researcher Development Framework descriptors: Thursday 11 December 2025, 10:30-12:30, In Person, Regent Street.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n Tuesday 17 March 2026, 10:30-12:30, Online.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n A mind map helps generate ideas before you make a formal plan and can reveal themes, gaps and links between ideas. This workshop will help you to develop a mind map on key words or themes so that you can use it as raw material for your earliest thinking and research. Mind maps are also a fantastic way to get started without the pressure of producing beautiful sentences, as such they can be highly beneficial in defying writer\u2019s block. Additionally, they can also become the basis for creating a possible structure for your ideas!<\/p>\n\n\n\n This workshop aligns with the Vitae Researcher Development Framework descriptors: Wednesday 11 February 2026, 14:00-16:00, Online.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n Research is a cyclical form of structured enquiry that begins with an open-ended question or hypothesis and ends with the creation of new knowledge that answers the question and progresses the field of enquiry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There are several distinct stages in the research cycle that present different kinds of challenge, and the researcher needs to draw on a variety on skills to meet these challenges and make progress in their research. Some of these challenges require a greater emphasis on the critical appraisal of existing knowledge, observations and data, but creativity always works symbiotically with critical thinking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Other challenges are more speculative and open-ended, requiring a greater emphasis on creativity. These include identifying the initial research question, ideas to proceed with addressing the question, and the design of the investigation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This workshop, though covering some aspects of critical thinking, will focus mainly on creativity. Everyone is creative to some extent, but little emphasis has been placed on the importance of creativity in research, perhaps because it is less well understood than critical thinking. This workshop will illustrate how creativity is at the heart of progress in research, and how individual creativity can be nurtured and developed further. It will explore the nature of creative thinking and the factors that both nurture and inhibit it. Some \u2018tools\u2019 for nurturing creative thinking in research will be applied, and a framework will be described in which the various tools for critical thinking and creativity can be applied in a systematic way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This workshop aims to describe the nature and nurture of creativity in the context of doing research. It will describe a framework for creative problem solving and will cover some tools, techniques and behaviours that can help access individual and group creativity. Some of the influences that inhibit creative thinking will also be discussed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This workshop aligns with the Vitae Researcher Development Framework descriptors: <\/p>\n\n\n\n Wednesday 05 November 2025, 10:00-14:00, In Person, Little Titchfield Street<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Starts Monday 13 October 2025, 18.00-20.00, Regent Street and Online<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Download the document for the full schedule and locations:<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n Thursday 16 April 2026, 16:00-18:00, Online.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n When undertaking data collection\/fieldwork through, for example, interviews or questionnaires, we are interacting with our informants. These interactions could be on-site or online. The willingness of our informants to contribute, the way in which they will interpret our questions and answer them, as well as a myriad of ethical aspects will be influenced by their cultural background. You might be doing fieldwork in a culture you are very familiar with or one that you know only from a distance. At the same time, the way you are framing and phrasing your questions or request for information is influenced by your own cultural background (and that of your supervisory team). This workshop is designed to help you reflect on these important aspects, in order to fully consider cultural perspectives and their implications for your fieldwork. The workshop is open to all doctoral students preparing for their data collection who have already submitted or are about to submit their ethics application.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This workshop aligns with the Vitae Researcher Development Framework descriptors: This training takes place in person, across two workshops on 27th February and 6th March 2026 (9am-4pm).<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The workshops build on one another, guiding you through the process of designing an empirical study and analysing the findings with basic statistics as well as more advanced statistics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Places are limited and allocated through an application process.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Workshop 1 \u2013 Design of Empirical Research Studies with Human Participants<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n This workshop aims to give a broad overview of designing empirical research studies with human participants, covering research questions, sampling and required sample size (power analysis), choice of variables and measurement techniques, as well as design of experimental and correlational studies. It also provides a theoretical basis for techniques which may be practised during practical exercises.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Workshop 2 \u2013 The Basics of Statistical Analysis<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n This workshop aims to provide an introduction to basic methods used to analyse data from empirical studies with human participants, describing the key features of the data in a study with scientific language. It explains how to compute descriptive statistics and create graphs to visualise quantitative data as well as how to test hypotheses, covering the most commonly used types of inferential statistics and their assumptions. This workshop will be run with the software package SPSS. This workshop will be run in a modular fashion, where some of those aspects shown in parentheses will be covered, depending on Doctoral Researchers’ needs and wishes in this teaching year.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
1.3 Organised; 2.2 Research Methods; 2.3 Information and Data Literacy; 2.5 Critical Thinking and Analysis<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\nEffective Use of Sources in Your Work<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n
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2.3 Information and Data Literacy; 2.5 Critical Thinking and Analysis; 3.5 Research Integrity and Ethics; 4.2 Research Outputs<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\nDigital and Technological Capabilities<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Digital and AI Tools to Help with Your Research<\/strong>:<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
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1.7 Responsible; 2.3 Information and Data Literacy; 2.4 Digital and Technological Capabilities; 3.5 Research Integrity and Ethics<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\nIntroduction to RefWorks (Referencing Management Software)<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n
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2.2 Research Methods; 2.3 Information and Data Literacy; 2.4 Digital and Technological Capabilities; 3.5 Research Integrity and Ethics<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\nIntroduction to Zotero (Reference Management Tool)<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n
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2.2 Research Methods; 2.3 Information and Data Literacy; 2.4 Digital and Technological Capabilities; 3.5 Research Integrity and Ethics<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\nQ&A with the Academic Engagement and Learning Development (AELD) Team<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\nDigital Accessibility Series<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n
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2.3 Digital and Technological Capabilities; 3.4 Open Research; 4.1 Communication; 4.3 Knowledge Exchange and Public Engagement<\/p>\n\n\n\nCritical Thinking and Analysis<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Critical Thinking and Argumentation<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n
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1.7 Reflexive; 2.5 Critical Thinking and Analysis; 2.6 Creativity and Innovation; 4.1 Communication<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\nColonial Pasts and Colonial Presents; what will decoloniality actually take?<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n
1.7 Reflexive; 2.5 Critical Thinking and Analysis; 4.1 Communication; 5.1 Research Culture<\/p>\n\n\n\nCreativity and Innovation<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Using Mind Maps to Generate, Visualise and Structure Ideas<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n
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1.4 Curious; 1.8 Motivated; 2.5 Critical Thinking and Analysis; 2.6 Creativity and Innovation<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\nThe Creative Researcher<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n
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1.4 Curious; 1.6 Adaptable; 2.5 Critical Thinking and Analysis; 2.6 Creativity and Innovation<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\nResearch Methods<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Research Methods in<\/strong> Social Sciences, Humanities and Architecture (SHAPE)<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\nSchool of Arts Research Methodologies Workshop Programme (CREAM)<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\nUndertaking Data Collection and Fieldwork – An Intercultural Perspective<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n
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1.4 Curious; 1.9 Responsible; 2.2 Research Methods; 5.1 Research Culture<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\nResearch Methods: Quantitative<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Quantitative Methods and Analysis Training Series<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n
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