While the courses taught at the university are highly relevant for your research, there are other important skills to learn. Such skills, which will have great impact on you as a researcher and for other aspects of your professional development, are addressed in special courses and workshops that SSRI arranges on a regular basis. Some of these courses are primarily targeting PhD students, while others are more suitable for postdoctoral fellows that are shaping a career in academia or industry. In order to avoid conflicts with the schedule of regular university courses, the SSRI portfolio is geared towards intensive, workshop-oriented teaching formats. Usually, the courses are taught by external personnel that counts internationally recognised specialists in the relevant fields.

Norwegian for Foreigners

Target audience: The primary targets for this course are new employees at Simula without prior knowledge of the Norwegian language.

To assist the foreign employees in their acclimation to Norway, Simula offers group-based language training. The course is taught by well qualified instructors from an external company specialising in this type of education.

Communicating Research in Science

Target audience: The primary targets for this course are research trainees and PhD students, but the lectures are open to all levels of students and scientific staff at Simula.

Even the scientifically best research is worthless if it is not communicated properly. In accordance with Simula's high standards for quality, we are determined that the PhD students associated with SSRI should learn to communicate their ideas and results in an effective and professional manner. The course consists of two parts:

Research Writing for Scientists and Engineers

Research Writing for Scientists and Engineers is a twelve-hour course to help scientists and engineers improve the way that they document their research in journal papers, conference publications, dissertations, and research reports. The course, which includes eight hours of class time and four hours of critique sessions, has four goals: (1) to teach participants the differences between strong and weak structures, language, and illustrations in research documents; (2) to make the writing process more efficient for participants; (3) to give the participants a jumpstart on a research document they have to write; and (4) to make participants more effective editors of research documents.

Research Presentations for Scientists and Engineers

Research Presentations for Scientists and Engineers is a nine-hour course to help scientists and engineers make their research presentations more understandable, memorable, and persuasive. The course, which includes five hours of class time and four hours of critique sessions, has three goals: (1) to teach participants effective strategies for structuring their research presentations; (2) to have participants completely rethink the design of visual aids (and, in particular, presentation slides); (3) to have participants analyze what would be the best delivery style for themselves; and (4) to have participants learn how to translate the passion for their research into confidence during a presentation.

Communicating Research in Science includes lecture, discussion, exercises, and critical examination of excerpts from actual research documents. Portions of this course are regularly taught at AREVA, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Pennsylvania State University, Sandia National Labs, Simula Research Laboratory, the University of Illinois, and United Technologies.

The course instructor is Michael Alley, Associate Professor of Engineering Communication at Penn State University. He has published three books on communication of scientific results. The content of the course is based on The Craft of Scientific Presentations and The Craft of Scientific Writing, both published by Springer.

Writing proposals for Scientific Research

Target audience: The primary targets for this course are researchers, postdoctoral fellows, and PhD students in the second half of their project periods. The lectures are open to all levels of students and scientific staff at Simula.

Writing Proposals for Scientific Research is a four-hour course to help scientists and engineers make their research proposals more effective and particularly more persuasive. The course has three goals: (1) to teach participants how to analyze the audiences of proposals; (2) to teach participants how to organize a research proposal; and (3) to teach participants winning strategies for writing research proposals. The course culminates with the participants making a short presentation of a research project.

Portions of this course are regularly taught at Pennsylvania State University and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, and Simula Research Laboratory

The course instructor is Michael Alley, Associate Professor of Engineering Communication at Penn State University. He has published three books on communication of scientific results. He is also an experienced author of, and consultant for, research proposals submitted to public agencies, as well as to industrial companies.

Innovation and Entrepreneurship 

 Course description is not yet ready

Research Management  

Course description is not yet ready