King's College London is committed to developing the next generation of researchers and to helping them achieve their potential, before, during, and after their time with us.

To make sure our doctoral research students and research staff get the most out of their time at King's, we offer a wide range of training and development opportunities that will help you develop your career in research.

Each year the King's Doctoral College delivers hundreds of courses free of charge to doctoral students to hone their research skills, along with other transferable skills, such as include project management, communication and entrepreneurial training.

The university is also committed to making the Doctoral Training Centre experience the model for PhD study.

Find out more about the King's Doctoral College and the training and development opportunities it offers.

The Centre for Research Staff Development - provides professional development support for research staff to achieve their potential, before, during and after their time at King’s, with active support from the most senior staff in the university.

The CRSD also supports research staff networks that operate across King’s, both at faculty and school level and maintains two-way communication with research staff, ensuring that key information is provided about events, careers, funding and training, and that research staff have platforms to contribute their views and feedback.

Research Staff at King’s are postdoctoral staff, research assistants, technicians and teaching fellows, in fact all those other than PhD students who are engaged in research and who do not yet have an independent, permanent academic or managerial position.

Leading Researchers is a development course established in 2017 as part of the King's Research Strategy; co-designed by King's with external facilitators, 64MillionArtists, it has proved so effective that 64MillionArtists now work with several other Russell Group universities to deliver a version of the course to their academic communities.

The King's Leading Researchers course brings together a cohort from across the 9 King's Faculties who are typically recent Professors, or on a trajectory toward a promotion to Professor in the next 1/2 years. All are research active, and selected because they are on the cusp of strategic research awards; those who have completed the course have gone on to significant grant capture wins which they attribute to inspiration and techniques gained during their time on the course.  The course considers leadership behaviours, sharpens the cohort's focus on their personal research trajectory, and gives them plenty of interaction with a range of speakers, including King's own research leaders from across our range of research disciplines. In addition to the six-day in-person course, the cohort has regular virtual spotlight sessions on particular areas of need, and all cohort members are offered confidential 121 coaching. Since 2017 the Leading Researchers course has taught more than 150 colleagues.

Course members have gone on to significant research achievements, from research leadership positions within King's at departmental and Faculty level, research leadership positions within UKRI, and strategic awards including ESRC Centres, Chan Zuckerberg awards, NIHR awards of more £6m, and awards from across UKRI, Leverhulme and Wellcome funding schemes.

King's encourages applications from those with diverse experience, and recognise that research excellence and strategic grant capture varies between disciplines. For more information please contact the King's lead for the course, Dr Camilla Darling via camilla.darling@kcl.ac.uk

Internal colleagues can read more information on the intranet pages. 

We are proud to be a founding signatory of the Technician Commitment.

In 2017, we pledged our commitment to ensuring visibility, recognition, career development and sustainability for our technical services staff, who play a vital role in the success of our university.

Find out more about King's and the Technician Commitment

King’s Academy offers a range of professional development opportunities tailored to the learning needs of early career researchers undertaking teaching for the first time as well as the development of more experienced academic staff and clinical educators.

Find out more about the King's Academy programmes.

The King’s Future Leaders Programme is designed to develop individual leadership skills and capability to deliver the university's aspirations through increased self-awareness, reflective learning and applying the learning in practice.

The King's Doctoral College runs training for new doctoral supervisors and refresher courses for experienced academics to ensure that all research students receive outstanding supervision during their research degree.

More information and booking details can be found on the King's Doctoral College Hub under Supervisor Professional Development (login credentials required).

We place great importance on encouraging academic staff to seek opportunities to refresh and develop their knowledge, skills and thinking in contributing to the advancement of their subject and the objectives and interests of King’s as a place of learning. 

King's offers the opportunity for eligible staff to apply for leave of absence for approved academic purposes.

Such academic study and research leave may be paid or unpaid, may be for short or extended periods of time, and may include secondments to other institutions.

• Centre for Research Staff Development
• King's Doctoral College