Sustainability Leaders Training Handbook
This page contains more detailed information about the training modules provided as part of the Sustainability Leaders Training Programme.
Core Skills
The Sustainability Leaders Training Programme has been designed around six core skills:
- Research Skills - the expertise to carry out excellent research
- Interdisciplinary Working - an interdisciplinary approach to sustainable solutions
- Policy Engagement - the political awareness to participate in policy debates
- Public Engagement - the ability to share sustainability knowledge with the public
- Media and Digital Engagement - an understanding of how knowledge is shared through the media
- Leadership - the commitment and confidence to become a sustainability leader
You will develop these skills as an ambassador for sustainability at the University of Sheffield. As well as participating in the training programme, Grantham Scholars play an active role in the Grantham Centre, engage with the outside world on sustainability matters and take public roles as activists in sustainability causes. Throughout your PhD, you will meet visitors to the Grantham Centre who come from policy, business and academic backgrounds, to learn how sustainability ideas are created, developed and implemented by research institutions, businesses and governments.
When you leave us, you will know how you can be part of that process. We hope that, by having a voice in the Grantham Centre, you will develop a strong sense of identity as a Grantham Scholar, which will stay with you after graduation as you take our philosophy and values with you into a successful career.
How it works
Grantham Scholars are PhD students, and so research is the most important thing you will do. Your supervisors will make sure that you get the guidance, support and environment that you need to complete an excellent research project. The Sustainability Leaders Training Programme is designed to give you extra skills, in addition to the things you will learn from your research project.
Training Modules
Please see below the training available under the six key skills of the Sustainability Leaders Training Programme.
Research skills
Our research skills sessions give you the chance to improve your research in a broader sense, so that you become a great all-round researcher, as well as a specialist in your subject. You will learn how new research is produced and published, how to think critically about it, and how to place it in the context of other research.
- Get the most from your PhD
A mix of talks and activities to explore how to get the most from your PhD, recipes for successful academic careers, how to get the best from supervision, developing good writing habits, writing for non-specialist readers, how to read journal articles critically, and looking at the peer review and publication processes. This introductory session will also give you the chance to begin working together as a cohort, meet several centre members, and brief you on further upcoming sessions.
When: January in first year
Dates: Induction Day 1: 14th January 2026
Induction Day 2: 15th January 2026
Interdisciplinary working
This interdisciplinary training will give you the ability to engage with research from outside your field and assess findings from different disciplines. It will help you come to balanced, informed, evidence-based conclusions. You will get a good overview of the scientific and technical solutions that can make the world more sustainable, and the social, cultural and political changes needed to put these solutions into practice.
- Methods@Sheffield
These full-day sessions are an introduction to key methodologies used across the Grantham Centre’s academic community. Scholars work in pairs to develop presentations about methodologies very different to their own. The presentations describe the method, outline its current uses, show key research findings using the methodology, and identify local experts in the area. After each presentation, a supervisor leads a group discussion about how these methodologies are used and some of the challenges and the strengths they bring.
The sessions are challenging, but have three important functions:
- as an expert explaining your specialist methods to your non-specialist partner, you will learn how to discuss your work outside of your immediate field
- as a non-specialist presenter to the group you develop ways of explain the approach in a way that everyone can follow
- you will get to see all of the presentations from across your cohort, giving you insights into what the other scholars are working on
When: February in first year
Dates: 24th February 2026
25th February 2026
- Journal Club
This is a monthly Journal Club / Reading Group led by supervisors in semester one and Grantham Scholars in semester two. Each month, the leader of the session hosts a 1 hour discussion around an academic paper from their field. This introduces you to a range of disciplinary perspectives on sustainability, raises your awareness of critical issues and familiarises you with research approaches from other disciplines. You will gain insights into different ways of working, develop the ability to engage with researchers from other disciplines and present research in a form that can be understood by others.
When: Monthly throughout the year
Topics: Plastics, Degrowth, Energy Storage, Food Ethics, Circular Economy, Planetary Boundaries, Decolonising The Curriculum, Soil, Anthropocene, Farming
- Sustainability Symposium
A conference to share and discuss research findings from across the University of Sheffield's sustainability community. The programme of talks and posters also includes external guests and university academics, and is designed to challenge the audience with perspectives from multiple disciplines. Previous symposiums have provoked lively debates around the challenges of interdisciplinary working and the central problems of sustainability. Scholars have the opportunities to present their work as posters or talks.
When: October each year
- Internal Seminar and Cake (ISAC)
At each 2.5 hour session, four to five scholars who are approaching the end of their PhDs deliver 15-20 minute presentations on their research and take questions from other scholars on the programme. Presentations should be stimulating and help your development by increasing the breadth of your knowledge about sustainability across disciplines.
Scholars are required to present once in their third year of the programme and to attend all sessions throughout the programme.
When: 5 to 6 sessions throughout the year
- Summer Social
As the Grantham Centre is a virtual centre, spread across the university, this event is an important chance for our community to maintain contact and foster new connections. It is also an opportunity to reflect on the past year and look forward to the year ahead.
Our Co-Directors, Professors Tony Ryan and Rachael Rothman, will give an introductory talk, you will then have the opportunity to chat with them, the wider Grantham team, and other scholars and supervisors over lunch. Supervisors: we would like to tell you more about ways you can engage with the Grantham Centre (including the services and support we can offer, opportunities for collaboration, etc) and hear more from you about ways you would like us to work together.
When: June / July each year
Policy engagement
We want to make sure that great research reaches far beyond academia, into the hands of people who can use our knowledge to make a positive difference and put our sustainable solutions into practice. In these sessions you will learn how policies are made and how researchers can take part in the process to make a meaningful difference in supporting evidence-based policy.
- How policy is made and how to influence it
In this half-day training session we'll be looking at: what is policy? where is it made? by whom - and why?
Through the lens of the Climate Emergency we’ll explore how international treaties become UK targets and then how those targets are converted into policies and strategies. We’ll look at the complex nature of the UK government at various levels and what that means for delivery of meaningful change.
We will identify routes for getting your evidence in front of those people making policy and how that might steer its development, plus we’ll look at alternative routes to influence through media channels, public engagement and methods of participatory democracy.
When: Any year
- Evidence Synthesis for Policy Engagement (How to Quickly Synthesise Research)
This one-day course will introduce participants to the concept of research synthesis and explore simple ways to rapidly bring evidence together to inform decision making. During the day we will undertake a search for high quality evidence to answer a clinical question. We will then look at ways of identifying the findings/key themes from the research and present various methods/tools to quickly bring the results together to form a useful overview of the evidence quickly and effectively.
When: Any year
Public Engagement
It is important that researchers with expertise in sustainability challenges learn how to empower others to make more sustainable choices. Public engagement gives you opportunities to learn, first-hand, how sustainability is understood in the world around you and will equip you with communication skills required to help people from all backgrounds understand the problems our planet is facing, and the steps we can all take to address them.
- Festival of Debate
Scholars organise a series of public talks and discussions in their second year in conjunction with Festival of Debate, by bringing key sustainability organisations and thinkers to the University. We aim for a balanced programme of speakers representing, for example, local, national and international organisations, and the public, private and charity sectors. Scholars are given support to organise and run the day's programme, introduce the speakers, chair discussions, and promote the event before and after. As well as giving you experience in organising and leading events, these sessions are an opportunity to hear what people outside the university think about key sustainability issues.
Find out more about our Festival of Debate 2025 events here.
When: Second year
- Outreach activities
Scholars work in teams or on their own to develop or take part in outreach activities to deliver by your third year. The activity needs to be about communicating your sustainability work to a non-academic audience. Outlets for delivery are potentially very diverse, and include: Annual festivals of science, engineering or social sciences, SusSEd Events, Festival of the Mind, Pint of Science, PubhD Sheffield, Café Scientifique, Festival of Social Sciences, Cheltenham Science Festival, FameLab, Sparking STEM, The Brilliant Club, Climate Fresk, working with local schools, music festivals, local museums and more. See further outreach opportunities here. We also advertise some more outreach opportunities in our weekly training updates.
Please note that your outreach activity needs to be either related to your PhD or to sustainability in general, and it must take place during your PhD (any activities you did prior to your PhD do not count). Also please note that attending conferences doesn't count as an outreach activity in this context.
You are encouraged to apply for external funding for public engagement projects as you learn how to effectively organise and promote an event.
When: Anytime before July of third year of PhD
Media and digital engagement
Our Grantham Scholars know how to work online and with traditional media. In these sessions you will learn how to tell your own sustainability research story, find the right place for you to share it, and get it heard by the people who need to know about it.
- Media engagement training
Introduction to promoting your research through the media.
This one-day training course provides advice on how to communicate your research to the media. You will be given advice on how to create stories from your research that will be of interest to the media, how to engage with journalists and how to prepare for media interviews.
When: First, second or third year
- Communicate with Confidence
This one-day session run by VOX Coaching will equip you with practical communication skills to help you strengthen your confidence, become someone to whom others want to listen and achieve greater and more consistent impact and influence. The session will help you find a communication style that’s authentic, engaging and persuasive – one that you can ‘flex’ to suit the context. It will help you develop the clarity, assertiveness and personal presence to interact more successfully with others and in front of an audience.
When: First, second or third year
- Infographics
Learn how to create infographics from the Director of The Slow Journalism Company. The 2 x half-day sessions cover the following areas:
Discover how to find compelling stories in data
Understand how to take those stories and turn them into beautiful infographics
Analyse examples of best and worst practice
Gain a strong understanding of the five fundamental types of infographic
Be introduced to the best free infographics-creation sites
Get an insight into the future of data visualisation
The outcome will be using knowledge gained in this workshop to develop and produce an infographic about a sustainability issue. You will have access to the tutors to help you develop this.
When: First, second or third year
Leadership
Great leaders can make the biggest difference. On completion of the training programme, you will be able to develop the planning, communication and people skills that all leaders need and develop a leadership approach that suits you when heading up a campaign, project or team.
- Leadership skills development workshop
This short course is designed to provide a structured environment for the development of skills relevant to leadership. It consists of three main parts that target distinct categories of skills relevant for leadership (leading the self, leading individuals and leading collectives). It aims to act as a springboard for the participants' development; a starting point for a lifelong journey of intentional and objective-driven development as a leader.
The course provides participants with a framework for deciding the kind of leader they aspire to be and equips them with practical skills and tools on how to work towards their own leadership targets. Each part is accompanied by practical exercises as well as a reflection component.
Before and after the course, participants will complete an online leadership self-assessment tool, Leader Development in Action (LeaDiA), which provides research based insights of their leadership capacities and their development. The survey is a compulsory element that must be completed to take part in the training.
The workshop consists of:
- Introduction - What is leadership? What distinguishes successful from unsuccessful leaders?
- Leading the self - Developing as a leader through self-awareness, self-monitoring and self-regulation
- Leading individuals - Building relationships, supporting and guiding through interpersonal interaction
- Leading teams and collectives - From effective team member to effective team leader
- Closing session - Reflections and setting personal development targets
When: First, second or third year
Applications now open for 2026 cohort
We are now recruiting our next cohort of scholars to start in January 2026.
To apply now, please seek approval from your PhD supervisor in the first instance. The deadline to submit an application form from both the PhD student and supervisor is Friday 31 October 2025 at 1pm. Places are limited.
Apply for the Sustainability Leaders Training Programme
To find out more, please attend our upcoming Sustainability Symposium on Wednesday, 8th October in Firth Hall - where we'll have an information desk staffed by the Grantham Centre team to talk to prospective applicants (and their supervisors).
For those that were unable to attend the Sustainability Symposium, we are hosting two online Q&A sessions where you can learn more about the training programme. Please book onto the relevant session below.