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Researchers are key members of academic staff. They are central to the College’s status as the leading centre for veterinary research in England, as well as its global aspirations. Beyond this, the College recognises that researchers make many other important contributions, for example in undertaking valuable research support, teaching and supervision duties, and as a vibrant group within the wider RVC community.

Following the launch of the Concordat to Support the Career Development of Researchers, the College developed a Concordat Code of Practice and Guide which demonstrates the Colleges commitment to the provision of timely and effective support for Research Staff and their chosen career paths.

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.

A programme accredited by the Institue of Leadership and Management (ILM), covering both theory and practice of management and leadership. It is designed for Research Staff who are interested in developing these key skill areas, both to support their current roles and their career development – whether in academia, industry, business or other contexts. Format: induction and taster (60-120 mins), seven one-day workshops over four months, a two-day residential intensive with a computer business game simulation, directed reading and discussion via an online forum, two written assessments.

A number of Research Staff Societies have been set up by research staff at the University of Edinburgh. These have been started by motivated research staff in several Schools and Research Institutes. The Researcher Development Programme has worked closely with the societies providing help and support. This society development was recognised by being shortlisted for the Times Higher Awards 2008.

An Academic in the World was a series of four half-day workshops ran as 2 day events on 22nd March and 23rd April 2010. The idea for the series of workshops arose out of outcomes of a previous White Rose residential event, “Making your Impact in Academia” aimed at research staff in Arts in Social Science.

This is a brief summary of the organisational model that we have adopted in order to work more closely with Schools, Faculties and Departments and 'partner' with them in understanding and providing for the needs of their particular staff in a ‘bespoke’ way where appropriate. This positions us better to target our resource towards meeting real needs, while striving for enhanced alignment between UCL’s research strategy and individual aspirations. This new model also enables us to work more closely in partnership with other key people deployed at a Faculty or Department level, such as Research Facilitators, Research Leaders, HR Consultants, Faculty Managers etc.

Developing research funding applications is a multi-stage process including; refining the question and methods, finding collaborators, identifying appropriate funding sources, knowing what makes a successful application and who to get advice from, costing the bid and writing the application form. This project seeks to address some of these stages. The specific objectives are: 1. To create a series of short video clips/ audio recordings featuring staff from Department of Health Sciences, covering: • Features of successful applications. These will spotlight on senior staff who are panel members for some of the major health research funding bodies. • Staff experiences of applying for external funding. These will contain reflections of staff who have applied for research funding, both successful and unsuccessful. These resources will be stored on the Health Sciences Staff Intranet (on a web page dedicated to the project) with links from both research and teaching related pages. An online survey will give people who access the resource an opportunity to feedback their views on its usefulness. 2. To establish a Learning Set of early to mid career research staff to facilitate the development of skills in writing research funding applications. Early to mid career researchers will present research ideas to the learning set for discussion or commenting on applications in progress. The group would meet once a month and maintain an email list of members that could be contacted for advice when needed. The project team will be supported by two senior members of staff (Karen Bloor and Karen Spilsbury) and has been approved by Head of Department (Professor Christine Godfrey) and Chair of Departmental Research Committee (Professor Nicky Cullum).

ADEPT is a career development and employability service for doctoral researchers. One of the key features of the service is the involvement of doctoral researchers in the design, promotion and delivery of the services. The service provides career management support to help doctoral researchers with the transition from their PhD to the next stage of their career. Tailored provision is developed to meet the needs of doctoral researchers in each of the five Colleges.

This Forum allows research staff the valuable opportunity to join discussions, hear developments, share practice and network.