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The University of Birmingham Graduate School website brings together all information offered to doctoral researchers by the University Graduate School (this covers both the University Graduate School and the Research Student Administration teams). The website is meant to offer a ‘one stop shop’ for all doctoral researcher information at the University. Upkeep of the website is the responsibility of the University Graduate School Projects Officer (Marketing and Events). New developments for the website are supported by the University’s systems and web teams.

The courses and workshops outlined in our programme are designed to meet the needs of all groups of staff within the College and offer a wide variety of development opportunities in five key areas:

• Health & Safety

• Information Technology

• Leadership & Management

• Skills & Knowledge

• Wellbeing

In our 2009/10 training programme, we introduced a section specific to the development of researchers, in response to principle 4 of the Concordat. This section has continued to develop following feedback received from research staff, line managers and principal investigators.

Research staff may also attend any of the other Staff Training & Development courses offered in the programme.

The University of Strathclyde has a long standing reputation for education, research and teacher training in science, engineering and technology disciplines. In seeking to further enhance that reputation by achieving an Athena Swan Bronze Award, we wish to demonstrate how the university is allying its search for academic excellence with a concern for equality of opportunity and inclusiveness across the institution. The Athena Swan project has been instrumental in awareness raising across the University, and the engagement of staff at all levels within the institution in considering current and future practice.

A UK-wide process enables UK HEIs to gain the European Commission’s ‘HR Excellence in Research’ badge, which acknowledges their alignment with the principles of the European Charter for Researchers and Code of Conduct for their Recruitment. The UK process incorporates both the QAA Code of Practice for Research Degree Programmes and the Concordat to Support the Career Development of Researchers to enable institutions that have published Concordat implementation plans to gain the ‘HR Excellence in Research’ badge. The UK approach includes ongoing national evaluation and benchmarking. This award recognises the positive actions that the University has taken to support the career development of researchers and the actions in place to implement the principles of the Concordat to Support the Development of Researchers. 

The document is based on a gap analysis performed in November 2010 which sought to map existing policies and evidence of good practice to the Principles and Clauses of the Concordat.  Actions were then identified where further work was required to ensure complete compliance, and responsibilities assigned. Actions highlighted are where new approaches or changes to existing approaches will be developed, identifying how these will happen and setting timescales.  These new approaches will then be implemented and reviewed at regular intervals.