Career and Relevant-to-Industry Skills Programme (CRISP) - Annual Report 2023

News & events

Career and Relevant-to-Industry Skills Programme (CRISP) - Annual Report 2023

15 April, 2024

Preparing our graduates for their careers after their time as postgraduate students is one of the key drivers for CRISP. Throughout the year, events are organised and designed together with the central MacDiarmid Institute, investigators and a team from MESA to provide training beyond the PhD. This year we had several events which included:

  • How to Budget and Spend for Research Success
  • Building your Personal Effectiveness
  • Deep Tech Hackathon
  • The Product Development Lifecycle
  • Landing Your First High-Impact Job
  • Technology-Market Fit
  • Tiriti o Waitangi Training

We aim to provide a range of topics for students to select from that align with their potential career choices. All our events are run by external facilitators and relevant experts making for an exciting and insightful learning experience for our graduates. These events allow us to make stronger ties with external partners, benefiting both students and the partners, who make connections with our future alumni and see first-hand the skills of employees with PhD and research-intensive experience.

CRISP events

From our Product Development Lifecycle workshop - one set of insights about why a company needs PhD graduates (Resene presenter):

  • They can carry out projects, independently.
  • They usually have faster business uptake.
  • They already know how to conduct a project.
  • They usually have better scientific perception (than other science and technical graduates).
  • They are more likely to develop long-life products (commercial life in-market).

These insights reflect the opinions of managers who have previously employed at least one PhD graduate.

Congratulations to the Institute on your amazing engagement, hard work, intelligence and problem-solving skills - I was hugely impressed at your effort and the results in such a short timeframe.

Ben Reid Facilitator of CRISP Deep Tech Hackathon