We endeavour not just to train students to be good scientists, but to equip them with additional skills that will enhance a career in academia or provide opportunities to apply their training in other areas.
Institute training
We encourage all postgraduate students to make full use of the range of development opportunities we offer.
The Institute provides a number of training opportunities with a focus on the requirements of PhD or MPhil study and beyond, such as oral communication, critical reading and scientific writing.
Our Core Facilities run technical training courses on a range of topics, including statistics, bioinformatics, microscopy and other research areas.
Students are also required to participate in the Wednesday Lunchtime Seminar Series. Each week, students share their research with the Institute and are provided with written feedback by two Group Leaders to help develop their presentation skills.
Students also have the opportunity to take part in a wide range of events from lab tours to creating science festival activities and speaking at public events.
With the help of the Core Facilities, I could learn new techniques very quickly and was shadowed by an expert as I was performing them. Additionally, the people in the building are all very helpful and passionate about what they do!
Katrin Heider, Rosenfeld Group
Researcher Development Programme
The Researcher Development Programme provides a suite of training courses, workshops and events to support research students from all disciplines across the University of Cambridge. The programme helps students prepare themselves in 15 competencies that will be valued by both academic and non-academic employers in an increasingly interdisciplinary and international context. Sessions run throughout the year and cover research expertise, career progression, personal effectiveness and engaging others.
Talks and seminars
The Institute hosts experts from around the world in our seminar series and students are encouraged to attend. Our Seminars in Quantitative Biology offers a forum to present computational approaches to cancer research and genomics and are held monthly. The speakers in our Seminars in Cancer series are leaders in their field from a wide range of disciplines.