The White Rose Social Sciences Doctoral Training Partnership (WRDTP), brings together the Universities of Bradford, Hull, Leeds, Manchester Metropolitan, Sheffield Hallam, Sheffield and York to deliver cutting edge social science training to postgraduate researchers.
Upcoming training activities
We have an exciting and varied programme of training activities coming up before the end of this academic year. Highlights include:
Conducting sensitive research sessions
We are very pleased to offer two online sessions in late April 2023 on conducting sensitive research. Dr Kate Brown (University of York) will offer a session on working with vulnerable participants on 25th April 2023, which will be jointly hosted by the ESRC Vulnerability and Policing Futures Research Centre. Professor Kate Reed (University of Sheffield) will offer a session on conducting research on sensitive topics on 27th April 2023.
Communicating your research for impact series
Throughout May 2023, we will be offering a series of online sessions around the theme of communicating your research for impact. The series will include sessions on:
- Making impactful conference presentations, 12 May 2023
- Creating podcasts about your research (two sessions planned, one focussing on questions of content, and the other on technical considerations), 3 May and 17 May 2023
- Effective ways to use qualitative data in research reports, 10 May 2023
- Disseminating your research using social media platforms, 11 May 2023
- Getting started in academic publishing, 25 May 2023
- Creating powerful academic posters, 30 May 2023
Look out for further announcements about these sessions in the coming weeks!
Wellbeing and resilience sessions
We are also delighted to once again offer a short series of online sessions focussed on academic wellbeing and resilience in May and June 2023 from experienced trainers Catriona Ryan and Hugh Kearns. Planned sessions are as follows:
- Academic writing: reduce anxiety, 4 May 2023
- The balanced researcher, 25 May 2023
- Creative thinking in research, 6 June 2023
- Stress reduction techniques, 9 June 2023
Summer conference in Leeds
It is also time to mark our annual summer conference in your calendar, when we hope you will join us for an exciting day of presentations and discussions (as well as an opportunity to meet fellow doctoral researchers from across the DTP institutions). This year’s conference takes place in Leeds on 20 June 2023, and will be organised around the theme of ‘reflecting on the war in Ukraine’. Further information about the day, including travel arrangements for students outside Leeds, will follow soon.
Bookings for all sessions/events in April-June 2023 will be opening soon.
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Upcoming opportunities for funded students
We will soon be announcing the second call for applications to the various additional funding schemes available to ESRC funded doctoral researchers. This includes schemes which provide funding for – company internships; difficult language training; overseas fieldwork expenses; overseas institutional visits and RTSG top-ups. You can find further information here.
DTP student experiences
Find out more about research experiences of students across the DTP.
Ruth Churchill Dower (Manchester Metropolitan University) invites us to consider the possibilities of arts-based methods and their relevance for researching children who cannot speak. See their article here.


KEDA Field Centre
The University of Sheffield KEDA Field Centre is available for use by research staff and students. KEDA is a grassroots organisation focused on sustainable environmental and social development in the Kilimanjaro region of Tanzania. The Field Centre is ideally located and equipped for, researchers, postgraduate students or independent travellers who want to explore this region. For more information, please visit sheffield.ac.uk/social-
Recent cohort training events
Open Scholarships and Data Management, 8 December 2022
This event featured talks and workshop activities on research data management, open access scholarly resources and open access publishing.
Recordings from this training can be found here. Please ensure you are logged onto the VIRE before accessing this link.
Advanced Methods showcase, 18 January 2023
Close to 100 students joined us in Sheffield for our annual Advanced Methods Showcase event. The aim of the event is to provide doctoral researchers with an introduction to a range of advanced quantitative and qualitative methods and analytical techniques that are commonly used in social science. This year’s event featured talks on the challenges of recruitment in qualitative research; structural equation modelling; reflexivity in research and quantitative intersectional analysis.
Recordings from this training can be found here. Please ensure you are logged onto the VIRE before accessing this link.
