PGR Josie Horton reports on how the day went:

The PGR symposium, which took place on Wednesday 12^th July provided a wonderful opportunity for PGR students across the school to come together, to build connections, to learn, and to discuss our research. The day kicked off with a workshop run by Realise Bristol, which was all about managing our stress and wellbeing during our PhDs. This was a greatly informative and interactive session, where we were able to chat together about some of the wellbeing challenges of doing a PhD and were given useful tips and exercises which we could use in our day to day.

Following this, Dr Lindsey Pike from Policy Bristol led a workshop on how to Communicate our research with a wider policy audience, including helping us to think more deeply about who are stakeholders may be and the best ways to engage them. This workshop was a hit amongst the PGRs who attended, with many noting how relevant and applicable it was to the aims of their own research. I certainly left this workshop with greater confidence and understanding of how I might go about policy engagement.

After a delicious lunch (we were certainly catered for well throughout the day) the PGR presentations began. We heard from a range of students for all PGR year groups. The speakers included Harry Benson, Made Yaya Sawitri, myself (Josie Horton), Bintu Mansaray and Jizhao Niu. This was a fantastic opportunity to practice our presentation skills in a supportive environment and to receive valuable feedback from peers and colleagues. It was truly fascinating to see the vast range of topics covered by PGRs in our department!

For our final session of the day we were joined in-person by Dr Victoria Rivera Ugarte and Dr Remco Peter and online by Dr Ivan Farias Pelcastre and Dr Julian Molina for a careers panel. Each participant had a very different career background including taking academic and non-academic routes. They spoke about their career journeys, offering us advice and answering questions from the PGRs. This was a brilliant end to our formal sessions leaving us with space to reflect on our own post-PhD plans.

Of course, no conference would be complete without post-conference drinks, so we ended the day in the sunny 8 Priory Road garden where wine (and soft drinks) were supplied in abundance! What a wonderful way to end another fantastic SPS Symposium.