Training

SCENARIO offers a wide range of excellent and innovative training in quantitative environmental science, research skills and a wider set of professional skills in preparation for a leading role in science, industry, the public sector or academia.

Based on feedback from SCENARIO students who have completed their PhDs, 8 out of 10 students find the training offered by SCENARIO is very good or excellent.

“The variety of external speakers arranged for training sessions was excellent. Generally, all the training courses were beneficial for completing a PhD”

Calendar of SCENARIO events and training for 2024-25

Research intensive training – reaching the research frontier

From the start of their PhD, SCENARIO students are immersed in an excellent research environment within a research group.  Many have a supervisory team that spans several research areas and we encourage collaboration with our many partners.  Host departments/institutions will hold seminars and discussion groups which students are encouraged to attend.  The Walker Institute training and seminars are also open to SCENARIO students.

A wide range of MSc modules at the University of Reading and the University of Surrey are available to SCENARIO PhD students. Students can chose from the full range of modules at the University of Reading and the University of Surrey.

Within the Scenario weekly email, we will include information on courses run by our strategic partners and other NERC funded DTPs on topics including data assimilation and science communication. The funding from these courses would come from your Research Training and Support Grant and it is important to discuss these opportunities with your supervisor before committing funds from your budget to these.

Students are encouraged to take part in one Summer School (or Winter School) during their PhD.

“The masters modules that I took in my first year provided me with a really firm base for my project”

Cohort Building and Networking

Students meet regularly together for SCENARIO seminars, lectures, short training courses, workshops and social activities.  Topics for our meetings are decided during cohort discussions and in the past have covered such areas as big data, data ethics, social media, writing for non-expert audiences and careers workshops.

The student-led Joint DTP Conference brings together students and supervisors from SCENARIO, the SSCP NERC DTP at Imperial College and the London NERC DTP, along with external partners, to celebrate our students research.  The 2024 Conference Micro to Macro: Changing Environments at Every Scale took place at the University of Reading in September 2024.

“Good practical workshops, conferences and opportunities to interact with industry”

Professional and Skills Training

The University of Reading and University of Surrey have Researcher Development Programmes which offer generic skills training. The programmes run courses on, for example, how to write a thesis, publishing papers and interacting successfully with your supervisor.

Computer Training

Training in scientific computing is both necessary and valuable at the beginning of a SCENARIO PhD.  As part of our induction programme, students are offered an Introduction to Scientific Computing with Python.  This is followed by two pathways to suit different programming needs:

Pathway A for students with projects that involve a substantial amount of research computing has half day taster workshops on design, testing and code management.

Pathway B for students starting PhDs that will be less computationally intensive has a three day introduction to programming in R.

We also run 2 optional four day intensive software development courses that focus on the most important and relevant elements of software engineering for scientists, crucial amongst which are usability, maintainability, accuracy, and readability. These are the foundations of professional code development skills. We will teach and demonstrate the benefits of good initial design, thorough testing, algorithm re-use and code progression, the ideas of elegance, abstraction, performance and scalability.

“The software development course helped me to code properly”

Business and Innovation Training

The Innovating for Sustainable Development 3 day residential course is run jointly by SCENARIO and Imperial’s SSCP DTP.  First year students from both DTPs are expected to attend.  The course brings  together PhD students with NGOs, policy makers and business to seek solutions towards the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.  Students work in teams to develop innovative solutions to problems posed by the SDGs and pitch their ideas at the end.

Tiger Teams are small group of experts with a diverse set of skills and knowledge, assembled to tackle a small but complex problem. In this training event, the problems will be provided by industrial partners of the Scenario or the FoodBioSystems DTP. Each Tiger Team may produce a new data set, internal document, or even a short paper depending on the needs of the problem provider. Students will get a chance to solve a problem as part of a team, develop and discover new skills, and work with a commercial or industry partner on an issue relevant to them.

Policy Training

The COP Climate Action Studio gives SCENARIO students the fantastic and unique opportunity to participate in the UNFCCC Conference of Parties (COP), both in person and remotely. The COP Climate Action Studio has run since 2016 and gives participants valuable exposure to the latest ideas and trends in climate policy, as well as enhancement of the understanding of working with individuals from different disciplines and sectors. COP CAS is run in conjunction with the University of Reading’s Walker Institute which has status as an Observer organisation.

Find out more about COP29 and COPCAS here.

“…an amazing experience. It really demonstrated to me the multi-faceted nature of climate change as a problem, and the role of climate science within that”

Engaging with Decision Makers is also run by the Walker Academy, at the Walker Institute. The course encompasses a facilitated training programme that capitalises on the Walker Institute’s strategic relationships. Participants will benefit from direct contact with a range of guest speakers from government agencies, NGOs and academia. Over the course, topics covered will include co-production and communication, synthesising evidence from across disciplines, policy influence and stakeholder mapping, power dynamics, and how to achieve policy impact through your PhD. This collaborative course allows students to utilise the ‘Engaging with Decision Makers Toolkit’ and take away at least 1 practical tool and a mini guide that can be used as a refresher.

“What was the most valuable aspect of the training? Learning new tools outside of lab work. Gaining insight into the other side of research and how you can create impact . Some knowledge on policy , co-production , stakeholder mapping, pathways to impact and the enabling environment . I enjoyed the interview training and personalised feedback .”

“I will definitely integrate a lot of the tips and tricks that I was taught in the lesson – I particularly like the conversation around talking about our project to the general non-expert public, I believe that will be very useful whenever I have to engage with decision makers. .”

POST Fellowship – SCENARIO and Imperial’s SSCP DTP have a special arrangement with the Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology (POST) so that at least one student per year to take up a Fellowship in Westminster. Each fellow works for 3 months on an area of science or technology policy, producing outputs such as reports or briefing notes, as well as engaging directly with Select Committees.

Placements

Placements are great opportunities to gain experience outside academia.  As well as policy placements such as POST, we will support applications for placements with industrial partners, and a high proportion of SCENARIO students have CASE partners who offer industrial placements as part of their CASE agreement.

“It was great to work in a new/different environment… (it) taught me a lot about how science is applied in a business/corporate/industrial manner”

Our Partners

Many of our partner organisations offer fantastic training opportunities:

 

Undergraduate Research Experience Placements

Each year we host a number of undergraduate students as part of NERC’s Research Experience Placement Scheme.  Applications for 2024 are now closed but you can get an idea of the type of projects we might offer on our webpage Scenario DTP REP 2024.

Notices