Promoting Engagement, Collaboration, and Discussion in DIVERSE Students

As a large research project that extends from coast to coast across Canada, there are many graduate students and post-doctoral fellows, which we refer to as Highly Qualified Personnel (HQPs) involved in the DIVERSE project. Across the 6 themes, DIVERSE currently has 20 grad students involved, across 6 different universities. Many of our HQPs have never met in person, but they are all integral pieces of the project – without our HQPs, our research would not be happening! To facilitate communication, discussion, and learning for our HQPs, our Project Coordinators Madeleine and Kathryn have spearheaded the organization of bimonthly virtual meetings for the HQPs to meet, ask questions, and learn. It also allows the Coordinators to update the HQPs on upcoming events such as conferences, DIVERSE meetings, and possible courses they could take that would be of interest.  

Earlier in May, the HQPs & Coordinators met to hear from DIVERSE’s own Clément Hardy, who shared how to build effective, engaging, and aesthetic research presentations. Clément has won multiple awards in the past for his own presentations, and it was clear why through this meeting. Many of the HQPs remarked that the training session was very useful. This is one of the reasons why we have these meetings – to allow HQPs opportunities for learning skills or tools that they wouldn’t have received information on otherwise.  

In future, we hope to create more autonomy for the HQPs, by launching an “HQP Committee”, which would functionally have a similar role to the current meetings, without the facilitation directly by the coordinators. For now, HQPs are encouraged to reach out to the Coordinators and provide suggestions for meeting agendas, training sessions, and/or workshops. It’s very easy to work in silos on a project like this when HQPs are spread out so far from one another, but thus far these meetings have created a space for our HQPs to see directly the importance of their role in the project, as well as connect with each other.

Another way in which students are integral to the project is through our communications and events such as our webinars. As more students progress in their research in DIVERSE, we will be asking them to present at our DIVERSE webinar series on their research, which will provide opportunities for partner engagement as well as constructive feedback from academics. For other communications materials, the HQPs provide the DIVERSE team with updates on their research progress, activities, presentations, and field work 3 times per year, so that we can regularly share updates on all the activities happening with the project.

DIVERSE is very lucky to have so many students who are all hard working and dedicated to their research. We look forward to seeing their upcoming accomplishments and discoveries as they work with us. To learn more about our awesome students, click here.