Doctoral Festival Blog
Wrexham University’s membership of the Guild HE Research consortium enabled two of our current postgraduate research students to attend Guild HE’s Doctoral Research Festival which was held at the University of Winchester on 11th and 12th of June 2025.
This residential event was an excellent opportunity for doctoral students and early-stage researchers to engage, collaborate and broaden their horizons in research. Day one of the festival focused on the doctoral research journey and day two’s theme was research engagement and impact.
Ffion Davies, Psychology PhD student, praised the event:
‘I thoroughly enjoyed the experience … it was a chance to meet with likeminded people that had research projects that may not necessarily be within the same domain but who’s work could tie in with the subject area. An example of this would be that I am conducting research around funerals in Wales and there were many people there that were researching different therapeutic interventions such as art and dance.’
Ffion went on to share the benefits of the festival on health and wellbeing as a research candidate:
‘A lot of the lectures at the festival were focused on the health and wellbeing of the researcher and discovering the things that we need in our lives to help keep us happy and motivated during our post graduate research studies.’
Dmitrii Iarovoi, Computer Science PhD student, outlined how rewarding the sessions were:
‘We discussed topics such as research impact, researcher wellbeing, communicating research to non-experts, managing expectations, working with policymakers and government, imposter syndrome, and life after the viva. Talking about your research with other PhD students - especially those outside your discipline or with different levels of understanding - can be both challenging and insightful. It was fascinating to hear how others spoke about their research, motivations, and expectations.
‘Events like this are incredibly valuable during the first year of your PhD journey. They help build knowledge and understanding of research pathways, and provide opportunities to share experiences, make connections, and talk about your own research.’
Ellen Graves, Policy Officer at Guild HE Research who led the event, said:
‘This was an excellent opportunity for doctoral students and early-stage researchers to engage, collaborate and broaden their horizons in research. Focusing on the doctoral research journey and research impact, students took part in in-depth discussions, developed skills and gained insights from expert speakers on a range of topics from wellbeing and supervisor relationships, research communication and engaging with policy.
'The festival creates connections between researchers with shared experiences and contributed to the motivated, warm and inclusive community of PGR students we are building at GuildHE Research.’
As a small but impactful University we value the opportunities which come with our esteemed membership of Guild HE, and how both our research community and our community at large at Wrexham University benefits greatly from this alliance.
