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Our team has three members. Rosalind Beaumont is the Interdisciplinary Training Lead at the Institute of Advanced Studies (IAS) of Durham University. Chung-Yen Cheng and Zander Simpson (joining at the end of March) are the PGR interns. This team is supported by NINE DTP and IAS, with the goal of designing training courses for doctoral students and their supervisors who are doing interdisciplinary research.

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We have held an information gathering session with supervisors near the end of last year. Using the data gathered in that session, we created a workshop in early March this year to train the supervisors to become better supporters for interdisciplinary research. This was a trial workshop, which means the results will be evaluated then we will revise the content and potentially make it something regular that NINE DTP can provide for their students.

So we are doing the same to PGRs -- we have held information gathering sessions in March, and now we are holding a workshop based on what we have heard from students and literature.

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There will be two stages of evaluation. One is at the beginning, and we will use Mentimeter for it. The other one is at the end of the workshop, and we will use three methods.

1. Mentimeter

2. Inkpath feedback

3. Comments on Padlet

The goal of evaluation is to see if the workshop fulfills its aims.

Please leave your comments about the workshop below -- if you want to leave them anonymously, open this padlet in incognito mode. Don't forget to react to other comments that you agree with!

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I'm an Interdisciplinary Training Lead and Project Lead for this ESRC-funded project between Durham's Institute of Advanced Study and NINEDTP.

I am also a Senior Lecturer in Education and Researcher Development at Newcastle University.

Having worked across disciplines and contexts in the area of academic and researcher development for a number of years, I'm fascinated by interdisciplinary learning and research, and how it can be best supported - and that's why I'm leading this project!

Much of my practice in recent years has focussed on the co-creation of learning experiences with students and how valuable co-creation can be in different ways. It's why we have recruited two PGR interns and also are seeking your views to inform and guide what we create. Thank you in advance for your contribution - it is greatly appreciated.

You can read more about my work, scholarship and professional interests:

https://www.ncl.ac.uk/school-x/staff/profile/rosalindbeaumont.html

and

https://www.durham.ac.uk/staff/rosalind-m-beaumont/

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(react or comment on other profiles if you find them interesting!)

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(react or comment on other profiles if you find them interesting!)

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Name: Chung-Yen Cheng

Institution: Durham Uni

Pathway: Human Geography

Year: 2nd year PhD

Email: chung-yen.cheng@durham.ac.uk

Research topic: Understanding people's experience with holistic medicine in Northeast England and Taiwan.

What drew me to this training: I have struggled to find a 'home' in my department because few people in my department do health/medical geography research. I have found some like-minded people outside of my department and institution but I wouldn't say I have found my 'community' yet. So hopefully this workshop can reassure me that I am already doing well.

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Name: Zander Simpson

Institution: Durham University

Pathway: Health, Well-Being, and Society

Year: 1st Year PhD

Email: alexander.simpson@durham.ac.uk

Research Topic: Geophagy - the deliberate ingestion of soil - in the UK as a gut health practice with links to the gut microbiome.

What Drew Me to This Training: I've found it challenging and exciting to try and bring together anthropology and microbiome science in my PhD so far - and I'm keen to meet more PGRs doing similar work to bring different disciplines into conversation!

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It’s the first team supervisory meeting for Jessica and she’s looking forward to undertaking her PhD project which will draw on medicine, software design, and sociology to generate better outcomes for those with hearing issues. She did her master's in computer programming at the university and Computer Science is her ‘home’ department.

She’s keen to know more about her supervisory team and what they can offer her around how to get started on her research.

After 10 minutes she feels a bit lost as one supervisor has jumped ahead to thinking about methodology and is talking in depth about clinical trials. She did A-level biology but doesn’t know very much about health research.

The supervisor from a sociology background suggests drawing on ethnography as part of the research design. The other supervisor interrupts him and re-focuses the conversation on the importance of clinical trials.

At the end of the meeting Jessica is a bit worried about how this project will unfold, whether she’ll be able to manage the biological aspects and how to manage the advice from different supervisors.

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Imagine that Jessica has just related this to you over a coffee:

What themes or issues can you identify that relate to (i) being a doctoral student in general, and (ii) being an interdisciplinary doctoral student?

What questions would you ask her? What suggestions might you make?

And, if you could, what advice would you give individual supervisors and/ or supervisory team?

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Cheng is a human geography PhD student who studies people's embodied experience with extreme rainfall in rural England. His background is in human geography, and he plans to conduct interviews to collect data.

Mid-point in Year 1, he realises his potential participants are likely to be geographically scattered, which may make it more challenging to identify general patterns from his data. To overcome this, he decides he needs to find research participants from an established community in a more tightly defined physical area.  He’s not sure how to go about this as he isn’t local to the area.

Around the same time, by chance he reads about a research team collaboration (multi-university and Met Office) carrying out field work in the summer to observe and collect extreme rainfall data as part of a Science, Technology & Society Studies (STS)-focussed project around climate change mitigation infrastructure.  And they are looking to hire student interns to conduct daily weather briefings for the team. Chung-Yen applies and is accepted as an intern (despite having limited meteorological knowledge).

Cheng is excited as this presents an opportunity to broaden his knowledge on wider research on extreme rainfall, how meteorological knowledge is produced & communicated, and the impact of the surrounding social-political context around climate change. He decides he wants to explore how he could conduct some of his PhD research as part of the work.  He brings his idea to his supervisory team, who are broadly supportive but lack familiarity with ‘hard’ science-based research. As the other project takes a more quantitative approach, they advise him that he’ll need to have well-worked out arguments around the value of using a qualitative approach such as Participatory Action Research if he is to convince the other project’s principal investigator (PI) to provide permission.

Cheng’s first year review is coming up shortly, and he’s feeling the pressure to demonstrate the feasibility of his research. If he can’t convince the PI, he’ll need to find another "community".

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Imagine that Cheng has just related this to you over a coffee:

What themes or issues can you identify that relate to (i) being a doctoral student in general, and (ii) being an interdisciplinary doctoral student?

What questions would you ask him? What suggestions might you make?

And, if you could, what advice would you give his supervisory team?

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The activities will achieve the outcomes, and the outcomes combined together will fulfill the aims.

Aim:

1. To aid self-recognition as an interdisciplinary researcher;

2. To build confidence in communicating interdisciplinary research to others;

3. To support navigating the opportunities and challenges in an interdisciplinary doctoral landscape;

4. To practice collaborating effectively in an interdisciplinary team.

Outcome:

1. Identifying and developing supportive interdisciplinary networks with one another and key stakeholders (including supervisors, industry partners, etc.)

2. Navigating the ambiguity and uncertainty of interdisciplinary research

3. Articulating their research to different audiences.

4. Developing strategies for effective relationships with supervisors

Activity:

0. Introductory Activity

1. Communicating Interdisciplinary Research - elevator pitch practice

2. Case Study Workshop

3. Experience Sharing Panel

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Anas N. Almassri, AFHEA, is a PhD Candidate at the School of Education and a Teaching Assistatnt there and at the School of Government and International Affairs. Anas’ research follows qualitative critical realism and is focused on the political sociology of international higher education. Funded by the Economic and Social Research Council through a NINE DTP award, his current doctoral research investigates the student experiences and peace-relevant effects of international postgraduate scholarships to Palestinians. More broadly, he is interested in philosophically-engaged approaches to critical, practice-informing research on international higher education, including its role in promoting multi-level relief, resilience, and development in contexts of conflict. Anas holds a BEd in Teaching English Language (IUGaza), MA in Arab Studies (Georgetown), and MSc in Conflict Prevention and Peacebuilding and PGCE in Research Methods (Durham). Anas currently serves as the Executive Editorial Assistant of Frontiers: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Study Abroad, and he is an Associate Editor of the Journal of International Students and a Georg Arnold Fellow with the Airbel Impact Lab of the International Rescue Committee.

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Anas N. Almassri https://www.durham.ac.uk/staff/anas-n-almassri/

Daniel Jones https://www.dpjonesphoto.com/home

@danielpjones.bsky.social‬ on BlueSky

Zander Simpson https://www.durham.ac.uk/staff/alexander-simpson/

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1. What communities/networks did you have during your research? How did you access or create them? Were they interdisciplinary, or were you the one that is interdisciplinary, or both? ​

2. What’s it like bringing multiple perspectives together to create/ discover new knowledge? ​

3. Do you think you needed to juggle more ambiguity and uncertainty given the interdisciplinary nature of your research (than a mono- or multi-disciplinary PhD)? If yes, how did you cope with it?  ​

4. Who have been the intended (or unintended) audiences for your research? What kind of impact(s) do you believe you had through sharing your findings with your audience? ​

5. What is it like working with PhD supervisors from different disciplines? What worked well? What did you do when things didn’t go as expected? ​

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Vitae 3MT® 2024 Finalist, Jo Baker, Newcastle University

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Name: Joe Ventress

Institution: Northumbria University

Pathway: Psychology (with Computer Science)

Year: 1st year PhD

Email: joe.ventress@northumbria.ac.uk

Research topic: Using theories of Joint Action to understand, explain, and predict pedestrian yielding behaviours.

What drew me to this training: The challenge I’ve face thus far navigating my PhD journey! There seem to be academic norms that vary across disciplines, which can be confusing. This is particularly noticeable when I’m reading across psych & compsci. I’m also keen to understand more about how I can use the interdisciplinary nature of my PhD as a strength, both in my future work, and in securing employment post PhD.

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Name: Claire Castles

Institution: Queen's University Belfast

Pathway: Sociology

Year: 1st year PhD

Email: ccastles02@qub.ac.uk

Research topic: The social construction of whiteness in the context of NI evangelical missions

What drew me to this training: I have an interdisciplinary research topic and supervisory team from sociology, history, and human geography. I love working across disciplines and what it can bring to my project, but it's sometimes a struggle to cover all the different literature and keep everyone happy!

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​

3MT guidelines emphasise motivation, significance, design, and impacts of the research​

Engaging opening ‘hooks’ (Carlson and Wilmot, 2006)​

Knowing what makes you and your research special!​

Having a defined target audience (De Villiers Scheepers et al., 2021)​

Presenting a clear identity with authentic delivery (Mou-Danha et al., 2019)​

Communicating what you want out of the interaction

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Your Motivation

Topic's Significance

Value of ID research

Methods + Partners?

Research Impact

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It was very interesting to hear about others' research across such vastly different areas - I liked how they explained the problem they were dealing with in a way that I could understand as a non-STEM researcher

I was proud that I forced myself to do it because my initial reaction to these situations is to run and hide

(Claire Castles)

I really liked hearing about how people came to their research topics/their backgrounds and about how that shaped their research

(Meg Russell)

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Q1: For Anas - how did you manage to secure the editorial role on the journal you mentioned as a PhD candidate? Did you start out submitting, peer reviewing, etc?

A1: The journal is published by a small nonprofit whose Facebook I had been following when just advertised for the role. I have done a bit of research, and it seems that some journals advertise for such editorial assistant roles (perhaps under other titles sometimes).

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Just a reminder we all keep learning - if you had nothing to learn you woudln't need to do a PhD - so it's ok to say you don't know, so long as you can work out a way to find out (Alex)