Wageningen Graduate School Courses

Below you can find a list of competences, skills and career oriented courses which are organised by Wageningen Graduate Schools (WGS) in which the 6 Graduate Schools of Wageningen University (EPS, PE&RC, VLAG, WASS, WIAS and WIMEK) are formally organised. All courses are intended for PhDs and postdocs, except the courses Professional in Supervision and Effective Leadership Styles which are intended for staff supervising WU PhD candidates. Please click on the course name for more information about the course and dates at which the course is given.

1 PhD Competence Assessments

• Competence Assessment
  Gives insight in competences as organising capacity, analytical thinking, collaboration and personal characteristics

2 Writing and Presenting courses

• FLOW CHART to support you to decide which writing or presenting course you should follow

• Academic English for PhD candidates
  Intensive 12-week course that improves your academic English, prepares you for the RATEr (when required, this is an English proficiency test) and teaches you the fundamentals of scientific writing.
• English for IELTS and RATEr
  Development of all language skills: listening, speaking, reading and writing.
• Developing my Research Vision
  Having a research vision is crucial, especially for those who want to proceed in science and must demonstrate a clear research vision, an (international) visibility and ambition for a tenure track.
• English Pronunciation & Fluency
  A practical approach to improve your speaking skills in English language. This course is announced via WGS, but one cannot receive WGS subsidy for the course.
• The Essentials of Scientific Writing and Presenting
  Presents an overview of how to effectively write and present scientific information
• Efficient Writing Strategies
  Putting your thoughts on paper
• Posters and Pitching
  Want to learn how to sell your ideas and yourself in a poster presentation? Want to know how to design an appealing poster and to enticingly pitch your poster to an audience?
• Reviewing a Scientific Paper
  To obtain insight in the aspects of reviewing scientific papers
• Scientific Publishing
  Providing insight and awareness in the process, rules, ethical aspects of scientific writing and publishing
• Storytelling
  In this one-day workshop, participants will craft a story to describe their research projects
• Scientific Writing
  Assisting you if you are currently writing an article or a dissertation
• Writing Grant Proposals
  Teaches you how to write a project proposal for funding
• Writing propositions for your PhD
  Workshop on propositions of the PhD thesis, including a lecture on propositions and possibility to submit your own (draft) proposition.
• Presenting with Impact
  To improve and practice oral presentations of your own work

3 Communication skills courses

• Bridging across cultural differences
  Key tactics for a global career: learn how to apply the understanding of cultural difference to improve your day to day interactions.
• Communication with the Media and the General Public
  Provides you with the necessary ideas and skills to communicate your work to non-scientists
• Critical thinking and argumentation
  Training to debate and speak in a clear, convincing and effective way
• Debate training and practice tournament
  The road to debating in science.
• Effective behaviour in your professional surroundings
  To assist you in building and empowering your attitude, behaviour and position in your professional surroundings
• Interpersonal Communication for PhD candidates
  Designed to help you to improve your communication and negotiation skills, but not to help you to improve your English language skills
• Making an Impact! How to increase the societal relevance of your PhD research
  Enabling to understand the rationale of collaboration with practitioners and policymakers and to learn practical techniques for collaborative knowledge generation and impact activities
• Mobilising your - scientific - network
  Offers you the essential tools to create a network through a variety of introductions, discussions and assignments

4 Project and Management skills courses

• Brain friendly working and writing
  Learn to increase your productivity by using the BrainFriendly working method.
• Brain Training
  Increase Reading Speed + Brain Rythm + Memory Boost
• Brain Training follow-up
  If you participated in the Speed Reading or Brain training course you can participate in this follow-up course.
• Project and Time Management
  Planning, control, monitoring and management of the research project and time are essential in accomplishing the PhD
• Research Data Management
  This course consists of lectures and practical assignments that cover various aspects of managing research data: from organising your data files during data collection to publishing your final dataset.
• Searching and Organising Literature
  Make effective use of scientific information sources in the Wageningen University & Research Digital Library and EndNote

5 Courses on teaching

Skills in teaching and supervising course are offered by Educational Staff Development

• Orientation on Teaching for PhD candidates
  This introductory course is meant for PhD candidates who want to explore the art of teaching within university settings
• Teaching and supervising Thesis students
  This course is intended for PhD candidates, postdocs, and academic staff who are or will be supervising students during their BSc or MSc thesis

6 PhD Well Being

• PhD Peer Consultation - a powerful tool to tackle PhD challenges - Reviews previous participants

  "I think the PhD peer consultation is very useful. During our meetings, we were trained to use one systematic method to explore our issues or problems and try to solve it. After the training, we used and will use the method to listen to others’ problems. Sometimes, we have experienced the similar situation, but have different solutions. So we share our issues, opinions, experiences and possibilities to answer questions."

  "I liked the PhD peer consultation very much. It was good to have instruction from a coach at the beginning. The different methods for problem solving that we learned during these first three meetings always worked very well."

  "The most remarkable thing about the PhD peer consultation is: we got a more clear view, about our problem and it was actually not as bad as we think."

  "It was amazing to see that often the problems that we brought into this meeting emerged to be something completely else than we thought before. This also happened to me and I was able to solve my problem because I was made aware of what my actual problem was."

  "I wished I would have been able to follow the PhD peer consultation training at the beginning of my PhD. I think these kind of sessions provide a platform for cross-chair-group interactions between PhD candidates which is required for general problems since it is not always easy to discuss these kind of problems within a group since everybody knows each other."

  "I also always learned from the topics the other participants brought into our meetings and I think I will profit from it in the future when I might encounter similar things. Moreover, it felt always good to me to be able to help someone else and to hear that my opinion and help is valued. I always left our meetings with a good feeling."

  "All in all, I am very happy and think this peer group is very helpful and also will also give benefit to other PhDs."

  A way to learn from issues and challenges in everyday work with a group of colleague PhD candidates
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• Stress Identification & Management
  Giving insight and learns you how to deal with, avoid and tackle stress

7 Ethics courses

• Ethics in Plant and Environmental Sciences
  This one day course focuses on ethical issues that are encountered when doing research in plant and environmental sciences.
• Ethics for Social Sciences Research
  One-day seminar on dealing with ethical issues in human subjects research
• Philosophy and Ethics of Food Science and Technology
  Series of six discussion sessions including hands-on dealings with ethical, philosophical, and societal issues surrounding science
• Scientific Integrity
  This 1 day-course focuses on an array challenges related to scientific integrity.
• Scientific Integrity & Ethics and Animal Science
  This 3-days course aims at WIAS PhD candidates and consists of 2 modules: 1) Scientific Integrity (1 day) and 2) Ethics and Animal Science (2 days). NB: Module 1 Scientific Integrity can be followed as a separate course by non-WIAS PhD candidates. If you are not a WIAS PhD candidate, instead of registering for this course of 2 modules, please register for the course Scientific Integrity.

8 Career oriented courses / Assessment

• Career assessment
  Individual assessment for PhDs who have questions concerning their personal competences, career opportunities and next career step
• Career Perspectives
  Meant for PhDs in their third or fourth year who want support in defining and taking the next step in their career.
• Career Development for Postdocs: Science and the Alternatives
  Supports in making career choice in science or beyond and making a plan of action how to reach the desired goal.
• Career Orientation - Reviews previous participants

  "It helped me reflect and build self confidence about I want to do, the skills I already have and what needs to be done. It helps me to understand the different approaches to look for jobs and personal attitude to develop"
  "It helped me to get a clearer picture of what I want and that I can take an active attitude to finding my next job"
  "I was in a moment of great confusion and trying to ‘orientate’, so it was really helpful"
  "It gave me tools to start thinking in a very pragmatic way about job-options, and how to contact the right people to get these jobs"
  "I attended a Career Orientation course given by Hertz in the Fall of 2016. It helped me put the interesting pieces of my personality, motivations, skills, and objectives together to formulate the career of my dream. I enjoyed making a collage of my career path using random pictures. It was to me like making sense out of a puzzle. It was very interactive, informative, and exploratory. I looked forward to each course day with much interest and expectations. Now I know what are of priority in my next job(s). I therefore recommend this course to you."

  Meant for PhD candidates and postdocs who are orienting themselves in what future career to choose, in or outside of science.
• Getting on Track with your VENI application
  This programme aims to provide the skills and competences needed to develop a high quality VENI proposal.
• Preparing Your VENI pre-proposal
  This course provides you with the skills and competences needed to develop a high quality VENI pre-proposal.

9 Other courses

• English for IELTS and RATEr
  This course prepares you for the IELTS or RATEr exam
• Infographics and Iconography
  A one-day course in understanding, designing and using infographics, icons and illustrations.
• Introduction to The Netherlands
  Presentations and discussions on the acculturation process and on Dutch culture
• Introduction to WUR Library for PhD candidates
  Introduction to the tools and services of the Library relevant to the first steps of your research
• Last Stretch of the PhD Programme
  Issues and questions: what must you do first, who is responsible, printing your thesis, do's and dont's.
• Scientific Artwork - Vector graphics and images
  This two-day course will help you create beautiful and functional scientific graphics.
• Adobe InDesign
  This two-day course in InDesign will help you create beautiful but also functional print and web layouts.

Staff courses on PhD Supervision

Trainings are strongly recommended as element of Tenure Track

• Effective Supervision of PhD candidates (with actor) 1. Starting up
  First one-day workshop out of a sequence of three workshops for supervisors of PhD candidates. Supervisors can follow each one-day workshop separately
• Effective Supervision of PhD candidates (with actor) 2. Managing progress
  Second one-day workshop out of a sequence of three workshops for supervisors of PhD candidates. Supervisors can follow each one-day workshop separately
• Effective Supervision of PhD candidates (with actor) 3. Finishing the PhD project
  Third one-day workshop out of a sequence of three workshops for supervisors of PhD candidates. Supervisors can follow each one-day workshop separately
• Professional in Supervision for PhD supervisors
  Focus on communication styles, coaching formats, leadership, cultural issues, distance based supervision and personal needs