In-house communication training for universities and research organisations

Focus: know yourself, strategies to bridge gaps

Become a better communicator by knowing your behaviours – and the behaviours of others. This workshop focuses on understanding what communication is, how it works, where it can go wrong, and how knowledge of your own personal communication style can help you develop strategies for dealing with people who are different to you.

Focus: emotional intelligence

Emotional intelligence, also referred to as EI or EQ (emotional quotient), is based on the notion that our ability of understand our own emotions and those of the people we interact with is the key to better performance in both our professional and private lives. This workshop is designed to not only help you become more aware of your own emotions and their impact on your performance, but also to identify and adapt to the emotions of others.

Focus: giving effective feedback, coping with feedback

Feedback is an important part of working with others. Good feedback minimises conflict, gives individuals a chance to reflect and learn, and can lead to improved productivity. Our feedback workshop is designed to teach participants a simple process for giving feedback whilst offering them a number of opportunities to practise and receive feedback from others, and participate in real-life discussions about handling feedback in all its forms.

Focus: how to initiate and participate in rich conversations

Conversations are an important part of human relationships - both work and social. But working out how to have a good conversation isn't always easy. This workshop is all about how to have conversations, and if you’re already having them, how to have BETTER conversations! We’ll look at 6 beliefs for better conversations, 10 strategies for better conversations, and share ideas about how to start (and end!) conversations. This is an interactive workshop, and participants should expect to converse.

Focus: building facilitation skills, meeting management

By following a set of simple facilitation principles and using standard tools and activities, anybody can grow into a confident workshop facilitator. This workshop equips scientists, researchers, and leaders with simple techniques and processes for facilitation so that that they can help groups get more done, faster, and in a way that gets all the voices in the "room" - virtual or otherwise!

Focus: international skills, cross-cultural communication

Increasing your cultural awareness and building cultural intelligence can help you avoid misunderstandings that sometimes occur when working
with people from different countries and cultures. In this workshop, we’ll cover what culture is and why it matters, YOUR cultural style, and strategies for becoming more culturally intelligent.

Focus: speaking and presentation delivery skills / oral communication

This workshop focuses exclusively on public speaking and presentation delivery skills. We'll work with voice, non-verbal communication, stage presence, and power language. Small groups ensure lots of individiual feedback, so that participants can develop strategies to reduce nerves and to build on their natural skills to speak and present confidently and authentically in any situation.

Focus: slide design

Death-by-Powerpoint (or whatever presentation tool you use) is still very much in evidence in scientific and research presentations. In this practical session, we'll focus on how to design slides that complement your presentation instead of detracting from it. Participants will learn the basics of good design theory, how to visualise data on slides, and how to tell a visual story that holds your audience's interest.

Focus: finding and telling science stories

This fun and practical workshop shows participants why stories work and helps them use narrative and story structures to make their research easier to understand and actionable. You'll learn a handful of useful frameworks, and use our story templates to plan, structure and deliver stories without dumbing-down your message.

Focus: crafting your elevator pitch

Whether participants want to have a quick response to the dreaded "so, what do you do?" question, or need a short, sharp introductory statement to use in meetings and networking events, our elevator pitch workshop will be of use. Participants will learn how to craft their pitch, how to modify it based on audience, and will have opportunities to practise their pitches on peers. Lots of feedback and interaction.

Focus: networking skills

Sometimes, it's not what you know but who you know... Our networking workshop for scientists and researchers is designed to help participants understand why networking matters, the different routes for networking in science, how to devise strategies to connect and network, and how to show up as the best version of yourself when a networking opportunity presents itself.

Focus: media, interviews, multi-media

Whether you are working with a print journalist or a documentary maker, you need to know how to share your research on your own terms. We'll work on understanding what the media expects from you, how to craft messages that are true and interesting, and how to manage the practicalities of things like interviews and more.

Focus: communicating science, communicating climate change

Communicating science to the so-called "general public" is becoming an increasingly important part of the role of scientists. The challenge is that communicating with non-experts requires a different way of thinking and communicating. Our short workshops and semester-long teaching programmes can help.

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Focus: tailor-made communication training

Do you have a particular set of needs that you want to address? We can work with you to create a tailor-made workshop or training series that incorporates some or all of the different interpersonal and practical communication skills training that we offer. Let's set up a time to speak and explore the possibilities.