You are asked to get involved, share ideas, and help shape the QUADRAT DTP into what best fits your needs. The QUADRAT team will support your needs and requests in whatever way we can, from administrative support to resources to financial support. It is important to us that QUADRAT is what you want and need it to be.

You are all ambassadors of QUADRAT and we rely on you for that. You will be asked to help promote the DTP, engage with prospective students at the interview stage and beyond; and help at events where possible. Your own social media activity, particularly on twitter, is a useful tool for sharing your researcher experiences and this also creates a useful resource for prospective students, so there are lots of ways of getting involved!

Explore the Digital Footprint Guide for some ideas to help you get started.

 

Student Representatives

Each year group will have 3-4 student representatives, ideally one per school, to be a go between the cohort and QUADRAT management. Student rep recruitment will take place in Late-October to Early-November 2020. Student reps will attend some of the QUADRAT board meetings and feedback to the DTP Coordinator at monthly meetings.

The role also involves gathering information and blog posts from the cohort, identifying news articles and events for twitter and the website (content collection) and posting on Twitter.

A formal call for applications will be launched at a later date with a more detailed explanation of the role, application and selection and process. Watch this space!

 

QUADRAT Blog

We have set up a QUADRAT blog for our students and the wider academic community. We post informative pieces about the DTP and events we have lined up, as well as asking you to contribute on a variety of topics such as training, field courses, research activities, lab/field work, cohort activities and much, much more. You can submit anything that you feel would be relevant to this community. National awareness days that are relevant to your research areas, such as Shark Awareness Day, National Tree Week and National Marine Week are also great topics for the blog as spreading awareness is vital to the success of much of our research.

This is a valuable resource for new and prospective students as well as being a great opportunity for you to introduce yourself to an extensive research community, broaden your skill sets in sharing your science in various formats and to different audiences when showcasing your research.

Blog writing is a skill which will help you to share your science and participate in outreach activities. It can lead to new collaborations and can spark an interest in others.

GET INVOLVED: https://www.quadrat.ac.uk/blog/

 

QUADRAT News

We aim to promote our students and their work, our values, our academic community and their contributions to society, our partners and stakeholders, and much more. If you are proud of a recent achievement or you come across an interesting article or publication, or you’re working in the lab or in the field, we want to hear about it! Please send your news to quadrat@abdn.ac.uk or Tweet us @QUADRATdtp

QUADRAT encourages students to use social media to develop social and professional networks and stay aware of the latest happenings in environmental science. QUADRAT maintains a Twitter feed – retweeting, tagging and use of #natureonourdoorstep is actively encouraged!

Twitter is a great platform for PhD researchers at all career stages – you can share what you are doing, your publications, your lab or field work, and grow your network across the sector. You will find out about events, webinars, conferences and training which is taking place, and you can quickly and easily learn from and ask for input from other like-minded researchers. We would encourage you all to get yourselves a twitter account, start sharing what you are working on and building a global network – and please engage with and tag @QUADRATdtp!

 

Carbon Footprint

It is vital that we are considerate of our carbon footprint both individually, and as a DTP. As a result, we are always looking for new ways to minimise and offset our carbon footprint – we will need your help to do this! We have already taken the following steps:

  • All catering is entirely vegan and vegetarian
  • We do not use any single use plastics (biodegradable veg-ware is used if absolutely necessary)
  • We provide students and supervisors with a re-useable water bottles, travel mugs and tote bags at induction and ask that you bring these to events and meetings to minimise waste
  • We encourage our students and supervisors to travel in as environmentally friendly a way as possible (particularly avoiding planes where applicable)
  • We intend to purchase an area of protected rainforest for carbon offset
  • We are putting funding into peat protection projects for carbon offset
  • We encourage the cohorts to get involved with tree planting and beach clean projects, and aim to develop a formal, local tree planting arrangement for carbon offset (cohort building activity)

Please feedback any ideas you have – your ideas can help us to have a bigger impact!

We are considering is prizes for the lowest carbon footprint (calculated using flight miles, number of flights, mode of transport, offset activities etc) and for the most imaginative means of transport, and a possible competition scheme regarding your transport choices. We do however understand that money is a factor, and you may not always be able to justify the costs of the most environmentally friendly transport. We encourage you to share your ideas and experiences amongst yourselves. We would love to hear your thoughts on these ideas!