Professional Internships for PhD Students (PiPs)
PiPs will provide you with the opportunity to apply your training to broaden your skills and networks in years 2 or 3 of the PhD.
You will be required to undertake a placement that is not directly related to your own PhD research and that is not in another academic research setting. You will be encouraged to think, in the first instance, about what type of organisation or activity might match your skill set (and whether it might be in the UK or abroad).
In year 1 of your PhD their will be a Presentation and Q&A event to promote the aims and expectations of this placement, this will include:
- Outlining timelines and requirements for a successful placement
- Planning the appropriate time in your research to take the placement
- timelines for searching/ applying for your placement
- Signing agreements for placements between the host and institution
We will encourage you to be pro-active in considering the type of placement that would suit you, taking advantage of opportunities, such as:
- Careers webinar programme
- Using the NWB partners and associate partners who may have broad links outside of academia and can be used to create initial contacts for placements and invitations for webinar presentations, including in industry, science, communication, public engagement, government, publishing, service and training, marketing and e-commerce, and omics technologies.
- Using the Institution career services
- Using your own initiative and contacting organisations directly.
The Placements will be for 3 months with the flexibility to undertake it full-time or part-time depending on personal circumstances, but importantly an agreed ‘job plan’ must be formulated between yourself, the host of your placement and the Doctoral Training Programme as to the nature and structure of your placement through a project planning pro-forma which will be signed by all parties.
Once on placement, you will be contacted by a member of the Doctoral Training Programme Coordinating Committee in the first two weeks as an initial check in. You will be required to maintain contact with your PhD supervisor, including a once a month Zoom meeting.
At the end of your placement, the Doctorate Training Programme will contact the placement host for completion of a feedback form, you will also complete a BBSRC PiPs report and an internal student feedback form that will collate feedback to help inform the future development of the NorthwestBio PiPs scheme.