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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.

Research has shown that the well-being of employees is critical to the performance of both the individual and their organisation. However, no-one has thoroughly assessed the factors affecting the well-being of doctoral researchers. All the investment going into transferable skills development programmes will not yield optimum results if researchers are adversely affected by well-being issues that are neither understood nor quantified adequately. This led us to develop an innovative well-being assessment, specifically for postgraduate researchers, based on a clinically approved methodology and including a wide consultation amongst stakeholders.

We have developed a bespoke questionnaire to capture the views of late-stage, science, engineering and medical discipline PhD students on a programme of transferable skills development.