As part of our mission to promote excellent research in a multidisciplinary environment,
we are committed to training scientists and maximizing the impact of our research on
society.
Coordinated by the Academic Office, with the collaboration of other departments, complementary training focuses on our PhD and postdoctoral researchers. However, community-wide training activities are also implemented.
Training activities
We offer a wide range of regular training activities (courses and workshops) beyond the bench that seek to develop and strengthen the core complementary skills required for a successful research career. Our training programme addresses mainly transferable skills but also includes more technical courses. Training activities fall into the following categories:
1. Career Development
Workshops to improve researchers’ knowledge, skills and experience, enabling them to leverage their science and open up career opportunities beyond academia.
2. Innovation Series
IRB Barcelona’s Innovation Department is actively involved in the design of innovation-related training activities (either delivering them or facilitating contact with experts). Training is designed to enhance a wide range of both hard and soft skills associated with entrepreneurship and business development.
This section includes workshops and training activities, which fall into four axes, namely
Technology Transfer, Entrepreneurship, Value Proposition, and Innovation.
3. Communication
Workshops on communications skills aim to help PhDs and postdocs to improve their oral/writing communication not only when addressing a scientific audience but also the public in general.
4. Scientific-Technical Training
Technical and scientific skills workshops seek to improve researchers’ abilities and knowledge with respect to specific techniques, computer skills, etc.
5. Personal Career development
Each PhD researcher is supervised by a Thesis Advisory Committee (TAC), composed of three members. This committee is responsible for tutoring, monitoring and guiding the PhD researcher in all aspects related to the thesis and career development. The TAC is intended not only to provide support and guidance on scientific issues but also to address any individual concerns that may arise.
Furthermore, following the principles of the European Charter of Researchers, as of 2020 IRB Barcelona is implementing a set of measures to reinforce career development in a personalised manner. In this regard, in 2019, various members of the Human Resources and Academic Affairs Department received specialised training as 'Career advisors' and are now developing individualised career development plans for PhD researchers, thereby helping them to identify, acquire or strengthen skills that will serve to enhance their employment prospects.
Activities Timeline
The workshop will introduce participants to the field of experimental histopathology by reviewing the basic concepts of pathology (macroscopic and microscopic lesions/tissue evaluation), and the routine and specialised histological techniques used to obtain and process tissue samples. Notions of digital pathology, image acquisition and processing will be also covered.
Moreover, several examples of the applications of histopathological studies to biomedical research will be presented.
The session is addressed mainly to PhD researchers and users of the Histopathology Facility (previous registration requested).
The Advanced Digital Microscopy Core Facility is organising a 13-hours course on Advanced Optical and Fluorescence Microscopy, including Image Analysis.
The course will focus on basic technological and methodological topics related to Next-Generation Sequencing (NGS) technologies, to help you move forward with your genomics and transcriptomics projects.
This workshop led by Cecilia Gorriz (digital designer) will be focused on how to create and edit a scientific thesis with Adobe Indesign.
This workshop led by Cecilia Gorriz (digital designer) will be focused on how to create and edit scientific images with Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator.
The course “How to succeed in your PhD II”, which has been exclusively designed using VITAE’s framework in close collaboration with BIST offers a blend of experiential and reflective learning opportunities to support researchers in the middle stages of their PhD journey. Participants will be involved in 4 days of activities spread over 2 weeks relating to the key themes of Purpose, Bravery, Permission and Courage.
Scienseed is giving a comprehensive, hands-on training workshop to help you become proficient writers of scientific literature. In this workshop, you will:
Learn about the bigger picture of peer-to-peer communication Learn the basics of scientific argumentation in a research abstract Set the basis for writing a scientific articleThe workshop will provide a general description of the unit, an introduction to basic statistical concepts, an overview of research integrity topics and research data management, and hands-on experience of bioinformatic tools available on the web.
The “BIST- Leadership in Action” course for post-doctoral researchers, which has been exclusively designed using VITAE’s framework in close collaboration with BIST, provides the opportunity to focus on developing skills for successful self-management and development to progress in your professional career.
What can you do to make yourself a more effective doctoral researcher and get the most out of your PhD?
BIST centres by using the VITAE’s framework, have organised an interactive and intensive two-day course: “How to succeed in your PhD?”, which has been designed for you as first year doctoral researcher and will look at practical ways to increase your effectiveness and meet the challenges of your PhD.
This workshop will enable senior researchers to master the challenges related to the interpersonal aspects of doing science and to confidently fulfil their leadership role.
The programme will enable you to build effective relationships by boosting your communication skills and changing your mindset to positively impact your results.
The first session will concentrate on the well-established methods of classical transgenesis and gene-targeting via embryonic stem cells, and will include examples of how to produce a range of mutation types; for example over-expression models, gene knock-outs and point mutations, both constitutive and conditional.
The second session will address more recent developments, such as the use of gene-editing nucleases, their advantages and limitations, and novel methods of gene transfer.
The workshop will introduce participants to experimental histopathology by reviewing the basic concepts of pathology (macroscopic and microscopic lesions/tissue evaluation). Routine and specialized histological techniques used to obtain and process tissue samples, and notions of digital pathology, and image acquisition and processing will also be covered.
Moreover, several examples of the applications of histopathological studies to biomedical research will be presented.
The session is addressed mainly to PhD researchers and users of the Histopathology Core Facility.
Leadership in Action is a three day; activity based; residential training course. Working in the Montserrat Hotel and Training Center, will practice your leadership skills and gain an insight into leadership theory. Working with Postdoctoral staff from across the seven BIST centres, you will have the opportunity to gain insights from follow researchers across the disciplines and at different stages in their career. Your focus is to develop your leadership style so you are more impactful and effective in your workplace.
This workshop led by Cecilia Gorriz (digital designer) will be focused on how to create and edit a scientific thesis with Adobe Indesign.
This workshop led by Cecilia Gorriz (digital designer) will be focused on how to create and edit scientific images with Photoshop and Illustrator.
What can you do to make yourself a more effective doctoral researcher and get the most out of your PhD?
BIST centers by using the VITAE’s framework, have organized an interactive and intensive two-day course: “How to succeed in your PhD?”, which has been designed for you as first year doctoral researcher and will look at practical ways to increase your effectiveness and meet the challenges of your PhD.
The mission of the Biostatistics/Bioinformatics Unit is to conduct collaborative research and to provide consultation and quantitative research resources to all IRB Barcelona research groups.
We assist scientists by providing both short and long-term consultancy services in the following areas:
• Experimental design • Data analysis • Assistance with statistical methodology in own or others’ research • Software: help in using software, development of software to meet special data analysis or study design needs
On 26 November 2019 IRB Barcelona will host the first EMBO research integrity workshop in our institute. The workshop is divided in two sessions, a morning session from 9:15 to 10:30 open to the entire community, and an afternoon session addressed to senior researchers, including members of Committee for Research Integrity, Group Leaders and members of the Postdoc Council.
Given the relevance of the topic IRB encourages everyone to attend the open informative session (details below), which will be held at the “Caparrós” Auditorium.
Please note that IRB Barcelona plans to continue organising future training events in research integrity and related activities, and also that we are open to ideas and suggestions on how to promote research integrity at IRB.