Workshops

Academic writing and editing skills

Dr Malini Devadas, MD Writing and Editing

Many people find a blank page (or screen) daunting and rush to fill it with a stream of consciousness. Poor structure results from a lack of planning about who the document is for and what its purpose is. In this half-day workshop, you will learn how to get it right from the start, by planning the content and creating text that flows logically. You will create an outline for your document and then start writing the first draft. By the end of the workshop, you will be able to analyse a document’s audience and purpose, create a detailed document plan, and write a draft that follows a logical structure.

Communicating your science - working with the media

Dr Joe Milton, Australian Science Media Centre

Are you interested in how the media works? Do you get frustrated by what you read and see in the news? Do you want to help journalists report your subject better?

This workshop, hosted by the Australian Science Media Centre’s Dr Joe Milton, is designed to increase your confidence and give you the insider knowledge and media skills you need to help you engage more effectively with the wider public through the media.

You’ll learn what makes a story, what drives the news agenda and what journalists need from you. You will also learn some practical techniques to improve communication, avoid jargon and tailor your message to your audience.

Joe will also provide his top tips on planning and preparing for media interviews, and on developing your stories so they can be used across a wide range of platforms, from improving stakeholder engagement and producing catchy funding applications, to social media, public talks and outreach.

Leadership skills, personal development and culture change

Dr Desley Lodwick and Dr Rachel Cameron, STEMM Culture

Recognising the unique challenges faced by early- and mid-career STEMM researchers located in regional Australia this workshop provides an opportunity for professional development focusing on building skills in key areas that are applicable to industry, academia and other areas, and transferable across different fields.

More and more, leaders have to deal with murky systemic problems with no easy answers.  Due to this increasing complexity of organisational life, what constitutes effective leadership has had to change.  Many people in STEMM industries find themselves using strategies and frameworks that do not produce the outcomes they desire.  This is because effective leadership requires more than technical expertise. The focus of this one-day workshop will be to explore adaptive leadership in a complex world and help participants to develop the often counter-intuitive skills needed to be effective.

The day is aimed at developing mindsets suitable for shifting workplaces to being productive, focused and creative communities. However, these are developmental skills. Developing them in others requires a whole different approach than applies to most leadership programs.

Desley and Rachel will do this by:

a) helping you explore how you make sense of yourself and the world and how this might be holding you back from your full potential

b) facilitating an increasingly deeper understanding of relationships and systems.  This dual approach builds capacity for deep awareness, calmness in the face of uncertainty, an increased ability to handle the anxiety of others, decision making that honours the big picture and a collaborative mindset. 

Their proprietary methodology is aligned to leading amidst both the chaos of our connected world and the ordinariness of getting the everyday things done.  It will help you to see hidden systems and values that have been overlooked and the structures that exist or are yet to be formed.

The workshop will help EMCR’s increase their awareness of the shift in direction needed for leading effectively and with an orientation towards action. During the session Desley and Rachel will: 

• Model constructive leadership behaviours,
  
• Stretch participants beyond their comfort zone,
  
• Provide just-in-time learning at the point of need with clear links to emerging goals, performance outcomes and application to work,
  
• Focus on desired behaviour change that lasts longer than the duration of the program, and
  
• Promote experimentation that links actions, observations, reflection and planning and innovative strategic responses.