Professional Development Programs

Research careers benefit from strong networks of enabling relationships, and sustained opportunities for mentoring and sponsorship are important throughout one’s career. Understanding Mentoring is designed to provide tailored guidance for GRs across the University.

In this monthly series, A/Professor Angela Nicholas, Principal Research Fellow in the Centre for Mental Health and Community Wellbeing will facilitate interactive workshops discussing strategies and hacks for how you can work smart during your postgraduate research years and keep a life outside.

Learn how to contribute to effective conversations with your PhD supervisors, positioning appropriately as a collaborator in knowledge generation, preparing and following up from conversations, and knowing how to raise and respond to difficult topics.

Feeling uncertain about your PhD research life? This career development workshop is designed to empower you to gain the clarity and confidence you need to navigate your way to successful completion.

This program will enable you to develop organisational, technical, and problem-solving skills and project management competencies that enhance your abilities to respond to emerging challenges and possibilities during your candidature and beyond your PhD journey.

Generative AI offers a powerful opportunity to enhance research productivity and unlock new ways of working. However, integrating these tools responsibly requires more than just prompt engineering—it demands a strategic approach that balances efficiency with deep critical thinking.

This workshop series aims to introduce a range of contemplative practices to graduate researchers (GRs) so they can identify whether they might be helpful in tolerating the imperfect process of PhD research.

Researchers are increasingly expected to write for audiences beyond academia, whether in grant applications, blog posts, or platforms like The Conversation and Pursuit. This workshop will introduce practical strategies for writing clearly and effectively for generalist audiences

Public speaking about research is a challenge that graduate researchers (GRs) are increasingly expected to address. This program is designed to get help you with both the will and the skill to do so.

Public speaking about research is a challenge that graduate researchers (GRs) are increasingly expected to address. This program is designed to get help you with both the will and the skill to do so.

Welcome to the first steps in becoming a registered Graduate Researcher (GR) Supervisor. Check your eligibility, attend a training session and then complete the GR Supervisor Registration form to finalise your registration.

Welcome to our monthly GR Supervision Development Series. Here we aim to empower, educate, and celebrate the art of supervision. Whether you're an experienced GR supervisor or just starting your journey, these sessions are designed to help you stay current with University policy and best practice, to enhance your skills, and connect with fellow GR supervisors.

The University's Graduate Research Training Policy (MPF1321) requires all Graduate Researcher (GR) Supervisors undertake a refresher course every five years to maintain their knowledge and skills and registered status.

Learn about the Examination of Doctoral Degrees by viva process for UoM PhD researchers.

This program introduces key concepts of research leadership at the University of Melbourne. Although connected to general theory about leadership and teams, it is focused on the aspirations embedded within the Advancing Research 2030 strategy about building a culture of belonging and boldness.

Effective mentoring helps ECRs navigate the challenges that arise at this stage, including the non-linear pathways many researchers follow as they move between fellowship, teaching, industry-engaged, and research-only roles, or step in and out of research for caring responsibilities or other reasons.

These workshops will enable you to develop organisational, technical, and problem-solving skills and project management competencies that enhance your abilities to respond to emerging challenges and possibilities.

Time Management is designed for emerging research leaders to extend and recognise their time management strategies in order to experience greater satisfaction in responding to multiple demands.

​Feeling uncertain and stressed about whether you are 'good enough' to succeed in your research career? Concerned about how much time you spend worrying and comparing yourself to others in ways that don’t make you feel better? Wondering if it’s possible to feel more alive and inspired about your research career?

Communicating research to a broad, and often generalist, audience is a challenge that researchers are increasingly expected to address. This program is designed for emerging research leaders seeking to strengthen their research communication capability.

Empowering emerging research leaders to transform decision-making, streamline workflows, and amplify team impact while driving ethical, high-performance, AI-enabled discovery.

Many researchers collaborate as part of their research, but it can be difficult to understand how it is done. This program will guide researchers to successfully develop and sustain mindfully considered research collaborations, providing inclusive leadership where power is used and shared appropriately.

This program is designed to empower researchers to pursue positive change in the world as research leaders using impact as a guide.

The program is designed to support research leaders to improve their research mentoring practices. Experienced researchers from across the University share knowledge about successful mentoring practices, helping to advance the research leadership and culture of the university and the career development and performance of its research staff and students.

This program is designed to take experienced researchers who are leading teams and building their capacity through the fundamentals of team development and design.

Designed to support senior researchers to strengthen their readiness to prepare bids for major schemes, such as ARC Laureate Fellowships (including Industry Laureates) and Centres of Excellence, NHMRC Leadership Investigator Grants Level 3 and some senior applicants within the Synergy and Centres of Research Excellence schemes who may benefit in track record development.