Postgraduate Seminars

Cognition and the Brain Lectures

Cognition and the Brain Lectures will be held in Michaelmas and Lent Term, twice weekly (normally 3-5pm on Tuesdays and Wednesdays), in the Lecture Theatre at the CBU.

This course provides a broad overview of cognitive neuroscience (e.g. intelligence and the frontal lobes), with an overview of all the major areas of cognition (perception, emotion, motor, etc.). Lectures typically last 60-90 minutes, followed by a question and answer session. A full list of the lectures can be found below (timings subject to change if there is lecturer illness).

The Cognition and the Brain Course is also open to the Departments of Psychology and Psychiatry, with students from all three departments attending. 

Medical Research Council Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit
University of Cambridge

15 Chaucer Road, Cambridge, CB2 7EF
www.mrc-cbu.cam.ac.uk

Lectures will be held in Michaelmas Term in the Lecture Theatre at the CBU. Lectures will last 90 minutes, beginning at 15:00, except where noted.

For any assistance please contact Karen Webb Karen.Webb@mrc-cbu.cam.ac.uk

NB: All schedules may be subject to change in the event of unforeseen circumstances

Students will be advised of any changes as soon as possible by email.

Improving Scientific Practices in Cognitive Neuroscience 2025-26

In Michaelmas Term the course "Improving Scientific Practices in Cognitive Science” begins, taught by psychologists and neuroscientists at the CBU and beyond, and designed by Dr Helena Gellersen. These cover current hot topics that include open science, the replication crisis, and philosophy of science. 

Medical Research Council Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit
University of Cambridge

15 Chaucer Road, Cambridge, CB2 7EF
www.mrc-cbu.cam.ac.uk

Lectures will be held in Michaelmas Term, weekly (10am-12pm on Wednesdays), in the Lecture Theatre at the CBU. Each session is planned to be around 2 hours long, 10am-12pm. In sessions with two parts, each is 1 hour unless otherwise stated.

For any assistance please contact Karen Webb Karen.Webb@mrc-cbu.cam.ac.uk

NB: All schedules may be subject to change in the event of unforeseen circumstances

Students will be advised of any changes as soon as possible by email.

• Wednesday 8 October 2025 Part 1: Introduction to Open Science

  Location: CBU Lecture Theatre, MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, 15 Chaucer Road, Cambridge CB2 7EF

  Lecturer: Helena Gellersen

  Follow-up activities: I recommend reviewing the notes you took during your discussions and the core concepts presented in this lecture. Reflect on our discussions: what is good science? How do we fall short of Merton's norms? What does open science mean to you?

  Resources

  Merthon's Norms: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=00btFojQPiU

  Open science and the FAIR principles: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3m6p6w8oOw4

  Optional:

  The Guardian article covering the Bem controversy: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2012/mar/15/precognition-studies-curse-failed-replications

Other practical talks and lectures

As you will soon realise or may have already realised, Cambridge has a never-ending supply of lectures, seminars, workshops and training sessions.  You can participate in pretty much everything that the University offers, which can be a blessing and a hindrance at the same time.  Here, we have tried to select the most appropriate opportunities for you.  Please keep us posted with details of anything helpful so we can add this to the calendar and open the possibilities up to other students. Students should always consult with their supervisor if unsure which courses/talks may be best to attend.

You are advised to discuss training needs and details with your supervisors and pay particular attention to any cancellation/non attendance fees mentioned to any courses you book. More training opportunities can be accessed through the Researcher Development Programme (RDP) which provides a suite of courses, workshops, and events to support research students from all disciplines across the University of Cambridge. This provision is intended to complement that of the Schools and Departments so that research students can develop the skills they need to be successful in their research in the short term and in whatever career they progress on to afterwards.

PhD students will be provided with a Training Logbook. Please keep this updated with all your supervisions and any other training/talks you may attend.

Need help with your stats? Then, book a visit to our Stats Clinic.

Dr Simon White is available to department members to discuss, support, and collaborate on statistical issues/analyses. This has two strands: directly supporting postgraduate students and potential statistical collaborators with all research groups.

This separation is designed so that support and advice can be targeted at postgraduate students. This statistical support will be available to all students across all sites and at all study points (i.e., any year).

Expectations

Support will take the form of guidance and advice to help the student direct statistical aspects of their research project, including identifying additional training needs (computational and statistical). Students can discuss high-level questions on research strategy, potential study design issues, and analysis plans.

This support is not used regularly for incremental analysis steps nor as surrogate supervision meetings.

There will be no expectation to develop new statistical methodologies or approaches, nor will any analysis be run for the student. As such, there is no expectation for formal recognition in the thesis/dissertation; however, an acknowledgement would be welcome. Any resulting publications should acknowledge the support (Dr White and this support are funded by the NIHR BRC Mental Health Theme).

Moving beyond the scope of this support

Suppose the scope moves beyond high-level advice or requires substantial/regular meetings. In that case, a discussion with the supervisory team (and potentially the Postgraduate Education Committee) will be necessary to establish the statistical needs and resources required by the student and their project.

Moving beyond this support strand may involve formal recognition within the thesis/dissertation team, a formal collaboration (to fund time attributed to the project), and authorship of research outputs.

Dr White has reserved one hour weekly for this support (plus preparation time). Meetings will be 30 or 60 minutes, depending on complexity, and will (typically) be at the Herchel Smith Building or Institute of Public Health on Wednesday or Friday afternoons or by Zoom. Supervisors are welcome to attend, or the meeting can be one-on-one (with the student responsible for reporting back to their supervisory team).

Supervisors or Students may arrange an appointment by emailing Dr White directly (sw539@cam.ac.uk).

Preparation

To ensure the meeting is productive, this Booking Form must be completed and submitted at least one week before the meeting. The form will provide background to the research project and current research issues. It may also be beneficial to attach a brief report (max 3 pages). However, pages of unannotated analysis output are not helpful—nor will they be read.

Suppose the meeting is to discuss a specific analysis. In that case, the student should bring the relevant analysis output to the meeting. There will be little time to run analyses on data during the conference.

Departmental Lunchtime Lectures (Psychiatry)

Dates: Every Thursday in Term

Time: 12:30– 1.30 pm

Venue: Herchel Smith Seminar Room or via ZOOM

Here, you can access some recordings of previous speaker interviews.

Video & Audio: "Department of Psychiatry" (cam.ac.UK)

Website: http://talks.cam.ac.uk/show/index/56022

Department of Psychiatry Talks Stream 

Zangwill Club

Dates: Every Friday during Full Term

Time: 4.30 pm – 5.30 pm

Venue: Department of Psychology Lecture Theatre

Website: http://talks.cam.ac.uk/show/index/6342

The Department also hosts Behavioural Neuroscience Seminars and Social and Developmental Psychology Seminars. The MRC-Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit holds weekly seminars, the Chaucer Club, at the MRC-CBU on Chaucer Road on Thursdays throughout the year. International and national speakers present current research on a wide range of topics related to brain and cognition at these colloquia. Students may attend these seminars to supplement their postgraduate education in discussion with their supervisors.

Chaucer Club

Dates: Every Thursday during Full Term

Website: http://talks.cam.ac.uk/show/index/6772

Chaucer Club talks are currently taking place online on Thursdays at 2 pm. Attendance at live talks is restricted to MRC CBU staff, students, and the University of Cambridge academic community, including alums. Users must use a Zoom account registered to a *cam.ac.uk or *cantab.net email address.

How to Conduct Clinical Research

The How to Conduct Clinical Research event will be held in November 2025 as a hybrid event at the Herchel Smith Building - more details to follow by email soon.

Statistical Methods for Cognitive Psychologists (Michaelmas 2025)

Level: This is a course planned with the needs in mind of a graduate student starting as a PhD student at the MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences.

Style: The presentation will be as fairly formal lectures, each aiming

• to outline a particular class of methods,
• to give examples of it being applied to realistic situations,
• to indicate how to implement it using software available at CBU.

Lectures will be given by Peter Watson Peter.Watson@mrc-cbu.cam.ac.uk and take place on Thursdays from 11:00-12:00 in the West Wing Lecture Theatre.

StatsCourse2025 - CBU statistics Wiki

Cambridge Methods In Cognitive Neuroscience Day

The next Methods Day will take place on November 24th. We are currently working on the schedule.

MethodsDaySchedule - Methods

University of Cambridge Training

This site provides a central point for staff and students of the University and its Colleges to search for and book onto a variety of training courses run by participating University training providers.

...and lastly, one of our current 2024/5 MPhil students has kindly compiled a list of talks and lectures which he found exceptionally useful:

lecture_list_mphilstudentsuggestions.docx

lecture_list_mphilstudentsuggestions.docx