People and Organisational Development run development opportunities that focus on core skills for professional development including communication, career development, and wellbeing, all to support staff effectiveness at Imperial.

The Postdoc and Fellows Development Centre (PFDC)  is a dedicated team that supports research staff at Imperial College London with courses, workshops and development programmes. A selection is listed below but see here the full list of courses available :

• Science Communication: Reaching a Wider Audience – This workshop will prepare you to talk about your work with scientists outside your specialism, media professionals, and members of the public. Through a hands-on activity with professional audio equipment, you will have the opportunity to explore some new skills by participating in the recording and editing of a short radio feature.
  
  
• How to Engage an Audience and Build Confidence- Would you like to engage and hold an audience attention? Would you like to feel confident in front of an audience? This is an interactive and flexible workshop, with plenty of opportunity to practise and ask questions. The workshop will focus on the techniques used by actors to overcome nerves and perform at their best. We will explore and practise techniques in the following key areas. 
  
  
• Personal Pitching: Selling Your Research and Expertise - Using your research as a starting point, here you will hone a series of short pitches (oral, written, virtual communication methods) with the aim of getting people to the stage of wanting to know more about you and your work.
  
  
• One to One Voice Coaching Sessions - Would you like to learn exercises that will reduce vocal strain, improve vocal range, variety, clarity and pronunciation and gain and hold the attention of an audience? Would you like to make a positive initial impact and keep control of difficult situations? In this individualised and confidential one-hour session you will determine the objectives and work on exercises to address your specific needs. 

• School governors' network – Following the launch of the Imperial School Governors’ Network in December 2016, the College has a growing and active group of students, staff members and alumni from all areas of the College, who commit time and competence to support schools.

• Co-Creating Innovative Solutions for Healthcare (CRISH) - CRISH is a free EIT Health short course, which aims to teach multidisciplinary healthcare team members (such as clinicians, nurses, AHP, managers, researchers and patients) to co-create solutions for healthcare, whether for service provision, research, device or other innovation development. Ideally, up to 3 different types of stakeholders from the same team or subject area (preferably including a patient or member of the public) would attend the course together and work on their real-life project. If you're not part of a team, then individuals can also apply to attend and may be grouped with others depending on their area of interest; however preference will be given to those who apply as a group. 
• Public involvement training - The NIHR Imperial Patient Experience Research Centre (PERC) has developed a free online course entitled “Public Involvement in Research” which is suitable for both researchers and most patients/members of the public who may be involved in research or wish to be. For more details on this course and other public involvement training resources please click on the link above.

Imperial Policy Forum can offer a range of support if you are considering submitting a response to any of the below opportunities, including:

• Support in identifying the elements of the consultation/enquiry relevant to your research
• Ensuring that your evidence is submitted in a clear way that meets the requirements of the department or Committee
• Providing useful tips for producing both written and oral evidence
• Promoting your contributions through our social media and comms channels

Check for current training opportunities.