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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.

Your Career, Your Move is an annual, one-day, conference style event aimed at research staff. It has a focus on career development. A limited number of places on YCYM are available to late-stage PhD students and researchers from other institutions in the East of England region.. YCYM features a combination of presentations, workshops and panel sessions. The YCYM brand is intended to be identified in a broad sense with career development for researchers,with each year's YCYM having a particular theme. The three YCYM events run to date have focused on Developing Your Career via: 1. Success in Publishing, Using the Media, Winning Research Funding and Making the Transition to Research Manager. 2. Making an Impact- being enterprising both within the institution and without. 3. The Changing Research Landscape

A new post (August 2009) offering careers guidance and information to research staff and fellows across the School of Arts & Humanities and the School of the Humanities and Social Sciences at Cambridge University (= 39 Faculties and Departments, c. 450 potential clients). Staffed by a careers adviser (0.5 FTE) and PA (0.4 FTE).

A 2 hour interactive workshop for science and technology postgraduates in the final stages of their PhD, to help them decide whether a postdoc is the right career move for them.

Career Pathways is a collection of case studies outlining the careers of Essex PhDs and research staff. It is available from our web pages as a pdf and some of the case studies are used in our career and professional development courses. The case studies were based on telephone interviews, which were subsequently transcribed and written up.

A collaborative training activity delivered by representatives from the Graduate Development Programme and the Research Office at the University of Cambridge, targeted at a key transition point in researcher development from postgraduate to postdoctoral level.

In this 3 hour session, we invited an expert panel comprising journal editors, funders, academics, journalist and a science communication charity to discuss peer review with our PhD students and postdoc - looking at peer review from the academic community’s point of view and how the public gauges if scientific evidence is robust or not.

The event exposed the diversity of long term permanent academic roles that are available to postdocs which we believe is an area that is under explored.

The Researcher Development Programme delivers a range of themed sessions and supervisor-led activities designed to support researchers' skills development, increase their personal effectiveness and provide advice on planning and managing their careers.