Thesis Boot Camp

Are you a final-stage PhD student, planning on submitting your thesis in the next six - nine months? Are you struggling with the writing-up battle? Always putting off writing tasks until tomorrow? We have just what you need - the Doctoral Academy Thesis Boot Camp! 

The Thesis Boot Camp is an intensive writing residential for late-stage doctoral researchers, taking place over two days at Gladstone's Library in Wales. It provides an encouraging, distraction-free environment to enable you to make significant progress on your thesis. Dedicated to getting words down on paper (or a screen), the Boot Camp can help you get over that final hurdle, or kick-start your writing progress again if it has stalled. 

Dates and times

The next Thesis Boot Camp will take place on 27-28 September 2023 (with a pre-Boot Camp workshop on 26 September, 10:00-12:00). 

Thesis Boot Camps take place at Gladstone's Residential Library. They start at 9:30 on day one and finish at 16:30 on day two, with catering and one night of accommodation provided. 

Eligibility and application process

Places are limited to 16 participants due to the size of the venue, so we are unable to guarantee all applicants a space. 

Your application for the Boot Camp will be prioritised if you:

  • are in the later stages of completing your research degree at LJMU and are planning to submit your thesis in the next six to nine months
  • have completed your data collection and a significant share of your data analysis before the start of the Thesis Boot Camp
  • are able to clearly identify how you would benefit from an intensive period of drafting a particular section of your thesis
  • are able to commit to the full Thesis Boot Camp, including the pre-camp workshop
  • can provide details of an academic referee (a member of your supervisory team) to support your application. Your referee may be consulted to support your application if we get more applications than spaces available and a selection process is required
  • have not previously attended a Thesis Boot Camp at Gladstone's. 

If you don’t quite meet all the criteria but feel that you would benefit from the boot camp, do still apply. We will consider your application if we have enough places available.  

Apply for the Boot Camp using this form by Monday 21 August.  

Venue and travel

Gladstone's Library is the UK's only residential library. It is located in Hawarden, Flintshire, just over the Welsh border. You can find out more about the library here. 

Participants will need to make their own arrangements for getting to and from Gladstone's Library. Timings have been designed to line up with the train times from Liverpool. If driving, there is plenty of parking on site. See this page for more details on travelling to the venue. 

Programme

The programme will be delivered by LJMU Doctoral Academy staff. It is based on the Thesis Boot Camp model designed in Australia in 2012 by Dr Peta Freestone and colleagues, which has been successfully implemented at numerous universities across Australia, New Zealand, the UK and Ireland. 

Please note that this is NOT a taught course about how to write a thesis. Facilitated sessions will focus on goal setting productive writing, and strategies for maintaining focus, and an information session on submission and assessment processes. There will be designated time for group discussion and goal checking, but much of the two days will be spent putting productive writing strategies into practice and focusing on achieving the writing goal that you set for yourself beforehand.

LJMU Thesis Boot Camp feedback

Quotes from previous participants:

"The Thesis Boot Camp breathed new life into my PhD thesis write-up"

“Thoroughly enjoyable and productive… I feel reinvigorated in my research”

“Getting away from all distractions was fantastic and very worthwhile”

“The Boot Camp was brilliant. I think it has changed how I will approach my thesis from now on. It’s got me out of the rut I was in with writing and it’s helped me think about my writing practices and how I can change them to be more productive.”

"I achieved more than I thought I could over the two days. I feel that being around fellow researchers as well kind of 'spurred' me on to be more focused as they were also my motivation. It was such a valuable experience I wish I could do it again. I now feel much more motivated and have lots of tips to make writing more manageable and time-effective. I would thoroughly recommend this experience to any researcher."

"Alongside the writing, the collegiate atmosphere is worth the two days alone. A PhD can be a very insular and lonely experience and after these two days I have a renewed sense of why I am doing this research."

Further information

If you have any queries, please get in touch with Victoria Sheppard (v.m.sheppard@ljmu.ac.uk) and Jo McKeon (j.m.mckeon@ljmu.ac.uk) in the Doctoral Academy.