Research resilience: Thriving for part-time PGRs

Session outline/ plan

Balancing research with significant life commitments can feel overwhelming—but it doesn’t have to. This interactive workshop provides practical strategies for time and energy management, mindset shifts, and planning/writing techniques to help you make consistent progress without sacrificing well-being. Learn how to protect research time, use fragmented moments effectively, and apply proven approaches for writing—even during non-optimal times. Leave with actionable tools to integrate your research into your busy life and produce high quality research outputs.

Learning Outcomes

By the end of this session, participants will be able to:

• Learn techniques for protecting research time and managing competing priorities

• Learn strategies for using fragmented time and low-energy moments productively

• Implement protected time-blocking strategies to prioritise research.

• Apply macro and micro planning techniques to organise and process research tasks effectively

• Learn a variety of strategies to transition in and out of more cognitively demanding tasks.

• Adapt your mindset and working pattern to suit any schedule even at non-optimal times of the day.

Participants will leave the session with an actionable plan to schedule your first protected research blocks and a toolkit to keep your research moving forward—no matter how busy life gets.

Presenter information:

Dr Sally Hoare, PGR Researcher Developer (The Academy)

This ONLINE session is available to PGRs from the University of Liverpool. When registering for this event please ensure you use your University email address as non-University email registrations will be removed due to capacity restrictions, thank you.

Joining details will be sent 2 days and 2 hours before the session begins to the email address you registered with.

Please note - if you are unable to attend, you can register to be sent the resources from the session only by choosing a non-attending ticket.

The Researcher Development Framework (RDF) attributes developed during this session are relevant to the following sub-domains:

1. Researcher

1.1 Development-focused
1.3 Organised
1.6 Adaptable

2. Research

Knowledge and Practice
2.2 Research methods

Research Management
3.2 Project management
3.3 Risk management

Accessibility Adjustments and Alternative Format requests: If you require any accessibility adjustments or have any questions about this session, please contact the Academy's RD team Researcher@liverpool.ac.uk at least 7 days before the session date so that your requirements can be referred to the facilitator(s) who will make every effort to address them where possible.

Academy Researcher Development Inclusivity Statement: The Academy is committed to providing an environment which recognises and values people's differences, capitalises on the strengths that those differences bring to the institution and supports all staff and students in maximising their potential to succeed. In line with the Academy's firm commitment to equity, diversity and inclusion, we offer all postdoctoral and research-related opportunities to develop and network irrespective of a researcher’s gender, ethnicity, age, self-identification, disability, religious affiliation, or any other criteria used to separate and define.

Academy Code of Conduct: All events organised or facilitated by The Academy follow a Conduct of Conduct irrespective of the number of participants or session format. The Academy thanks all participants in advance for your cooperation to help ensure a safe and constructive environment for everybody. The Code of Conduct is available at: https://www.liverpool.ac.uk/researcher/development/conduct-events/

Important: We take your privacy very seriously and will only use your email address to send you information about this session. Thereafter, we will contact you only where you have given us permission to do so. After that, you can opt-out at any time of receiving our communication by simply sending an email to researcher@liverpool.ac.uk

Stay in Touch: For the latest news and information about research staff development opportunities and resources follow PGR Development on BlueSky & LinkedIn. Further details about the University of Liverpool's Researcher Development activities can be found on the Researcher Hub: https://www.liverpool.ac.uk/researcher/