The Researcher Development Programme 2025-26 launches this week, with September to December online and in-person workshops open for bookings.
Organised by the Sussex Researcher School, the RDP covers the skills you need to be an effective and successful researcher throughout your research degree and beyond.
The most in-demand Core workshops run throughout the year, with induction/reinduction sessionsrepeated in October and February. Other workshops are organised into two-month bands that map to Vitae’s Researcher Development Framework (RDF), a tool to help you identify your training needs:
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Learn – Knowledge and intellectual abilities (November and December)
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Grow – Personal effectiveness (January and February)
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Realise – Research governance and organisation (March and April)
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Thrive – Engagement, influence and impact (May and June)
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Core – cuts across RDF domains (year round)
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Induction (October and February)
This helps you find the sessions you need right now, plan your time effectively, and focus on particular skills alongside other PGRs, leading to a richer learning experience.
This year we’ve switched our listings to Eventbrite, meaning a smoother booking process. We’re also working to make our sessions more accessible, and you’ll be asked if you have any accessibility needs when you sign up. We’ll work with our facilitators to make sure everyone can engage with our workshops. Contact researcher-development@sussex.ac.uk if you want to know more.
The Autumn schedule includes workshops on literature searching, planning your thesis, editing, writing creatively, managing your data, positive mental health, and our PGR Essentials series giving new researchers a head start.
There’s also a monthly one-day writing retreat for all researchers, holding facilitated space for intensive writing in a supportive environment.
Register now via the scheduled workshops page, and take a look at the all RDP workshops pages to browse by theme, with an overview of every session on offer this year.