There are many conferences organized throughout the year, nationally and internationally. The easiest way to check which conferences are being held all over the world is to use the CADC International Astronomy Meetings website.

The biggest and most general UK meeting is the National Astronomy Meeting (NAM) organized by the Royal Astronomy Society. In 2009 the UK will host the Joint European National Astronomy Meeting (JENAM) which will be held in Hertfordshire from 19th to 23rd April 2009.

The website will also have information about some schools. But the best thing to do is to get informed by your supervisor about which schools you should attend so you don't miss the application deadlines.

Some of the schools are:

• NEON schools (observational and archive school), held in Europe, financed by the European Union (every summer).

• CONSTELLATION schools, part of the formation plan of the Early Researchers of this European network.

Normally schools are not repeated.

There are free courses on PhD and transferable skills at the University of Exeter for post-grads and post-docs. You will need your University of Exeter username and password to register for those courses. See the GradSchool workshops for a list of the available courses and dates.