Academic Year 2025-26

Welcome to the Doctoral College Training Page for UL PGRs. 

Details of many of our PGR training and professional development opportunities can be found below:  

Doctoral College Training for PGRs, Autumn and Spring Semesters, 2025-26 

UL Doctoral College is committed to providing our postgraduate researchers (PGRs) with the chance to enhance their research skills, competencies, and professional development and career opportunities, during their time at the university. 

As well as our weekly webinar series on research skills, the Doctoral College provides annual Summer and Winter Schools in Generic & Transferable Skills, on-campus Orientation for incoming PGRs each September and January, as well as an extensive programme of workshops and seminars dedicated to improving aspects of research and other skills required for doctoral studies. 

UL Doctoral College is part of the DOC TALENT4EU consortium, a Horizon-Europe funded project which is aimed at enhancing the employability of PhD candidates. One of the tasks of the Doctoral College in the pilot phase of the project was to design and create an online course dedicated to Enhancing Communication and Negotiation Skills for PhD Candidates. 

Teaching Workshops for PGR Tutors

The UL Centre for Transformative Learning (CTL) will offer workshops throughout 2025-26 aimed at PGRs who are new, or relatively new, to teaching at UL, e.g. ‘Introduction to teaching in Higher Education’, 'Writing Your Teaching Philosophy’. The workshops focus on key areas related to teaching in Higher Education and provide a set of ideas and methods to help prepare PGRs for a new role in relation to developing their approach to teaching and learning. 

CTL also provides online modules from which can be of great benefit to UL PGRs engaged in teaching:  (i) Essentials for teaching and learning online (ii) Essentials of e-moderating (see more details below). 

Essentials for teaching and learning online

PGRs at UL can register for the “Essentials for teaching and learning online” programme, developed by the REAP Project, a collaboration between UL, MIC and TUS.

This short course, which takes about 7 hours to complete, is aimed at those who are new to teaching.

The course offers theoretical background to best practice in teaching and learning, along with practical strategies and resources to help tutors and teachers.

Research Integrity 

  • UL offers online Research Integrity Training through the Epigeum training portal. All research students should undertake Research Integrity Training.
  • Click on this link to find out how to access the programme, along with guidelines around usage, content, and data protection. 

NVivo and SPSS available for PGRs via Topdesk

NVivo and SPSS are now available for all PGRs online.

NVivo helps you discover more from your qualitative and mixed methods data. 

SPSS (“Statistical Package for the Social Sciences”) is a very useful programme used for statistical analysis. 

NVivo Workshops for PGRs

NVivo two-day workshops for UL PGRs are provided throughout the academic year. 

  • Day 1: Introduction to NVivo (no limit on numbers of UL PGRs)
  • Day 2: NVivo Intermediate Level Expression of Interest form (limited to 20 PGRs)

Library Resources for UL PGRs

As a currently registered PGR or prospective applicant, you can familiarise yourself with some library resources and supports to identify some of the critical skills you will need to carry out the research required for your thesis. e.g. information/source appraisal and academic referencing.   

The Glucksman Library runs a series of workshops throughout the academic year which have particular relevance for PGRs, such as, 'Doing a Literature Review Using the Library's Resources', 'Critically Evaluating Sources', and 'How to use EndNote Web for your academic referencing'.

Details of all such workshops can be found at the Library Events Page

Transferable Skills workshops 

Throughout the academic year, GPS coordinates transferable skills workshops for postgraduate research students as required. Workshops taking place during the academic year 2025/26 include:

  • Questionnaire Design
  • Survey & Sampling
  • Introduction to SPSS
  • Basic Statistics
  • Exploring Relationships & Regression Theories
  • Working with Long Documents

For further information on the above workshops please contact Anne O'Dwyer, Research Training Coordinator, Doctoral College, at anne.odwyer@ul.ie or doctoralcollege@ul.ie 

LinkedIn Learning for UL PGRs

All postgraduate researchers at UL can access thousands of courses and videos developed by LinkedIn Learning to help you add to your range of skills, training and career development. 

To help you, take a look at the excellent open-access platform developed by King’s College London, Centre for Doctoral Studies, mapping LinkedIn Learning resources (videos and courses/modules) against the Vitae Researcher Development Framework (RDF). 

PhD Writers Group (Regional Writing Centre) 

The UL Regional Writing Centre (RWC) supports PhD Writers’ Groups by offering PhD writers a quiet, distraction-free space for writing  and by sharing knowledge of how writers’ groups can be motivating and productive. The RWC also offers PGRs various workshops and training events throughout the academic year. More information about these events can be found at the RWC website 

Doctoral College Webinars - YouTube Recordings

Click on the above to find links to Doctoral College webinars on Research Skills. 

PhD pULse - The podcast series about doctoral research at UL

Listen to our excellent doctoral researcher community speaking about the research they are undertaking at UL. 

UL PhD Research Video Podcast Series 

Watch interviews with UL PGRs and faculty for some great insights about their research journey at UL. 

DOCTORAL COLLEGE PAST EVENTS

Three-Minute Thesis Final for UL PGRs, 2025 

The Final of the 2025 Three-Minute Thesis competition was held during Research Week and featured 12 excellent finalists who won their way through to the decider after very competitive faculty heats. Have a look at how our PhD candidates summarise their research and its impact in just three minutes. 

Three-Minute Thesis - Previous Finals 

Watch previous finals of the highly-acclaimed Three-Minute Thesis competition in which UL doctoral candidates talk about their research and its impact in just three minutes! 

Three-Minute Thesis Final for UL PGRs, 2024 

Three-Minute Thesis Final for UL PGRs, 2023

Three-Minute Thesis Final for UL PGRs, 2022 

Picture This! competition for UL PGRs - Communicating Research

Read about the Picture This! competition for UL PGRs, who are asked to photograph a representation of their research along with a description of the photo in a 60-word caption. Judging of the competition takes place during UL Research Week each year. 

Previous winners of Picture This!  

2025 - Ava Loiacono (Irish World Academy of Music and Dance) 

2024 - Mathuriga Thevapalan (Irish World Academy of Music and Dance) 

2023 - Sidra Zulfiqar (Irish World Academy of Music and Dance) 

2022 - Mary Curtin (Kemmy Business School) 

Doctoral College Summer and Winter Schools in Generic and Transferable Skills 

The Doctoral College Summer School in Generic and Transferable Skills (18 ECTS) takes place each year between May and August. It consists of a Residential Week (in separate face-to-face and online formats) for UL PGRs followed by a series of online activities in three different blocks, with each block consisting of two separate modules over a four-week period. 

The Doctoral College Winter School in Generic and Transferable Skills (18 ECTS) takes place each year between January and April and follows the same format thereafter as the annual Summer School. 

PGR Orientation, Autumn Semester

Orientation for incoming and existing PGRs takes place in The Pavilion, UL North Campus in September and January each academic year