Subscribe by RSSDatabase of practice

The research Student Induction workshop {programme is a set of 7 workshops specifically designed to help new research students to get off to a good start with their research projects.  It includes a welcome event and specific workshops on various aspects of research student research activity.

This evaluation used a mixed methods approach to determine the initial student reaction to the programme as well as investigating how useful the participants found the workshops in their subsequent research.

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.

Official pre-launch of the International Year of Chemistry 2011. An event held in Grand Central Hotel in Glasgow on January 18^th brought together women chemists from 37 countries using modern communication tools; each country/region will arrange its own event(s) and individual breakfasts will be linked together by SKYPE/video, and by using Twitter.  In addition to networking, the aim is to celebrate the pivotal role of Marie Curie in chemistry, and to reflect on the current landscape for women chemists. 

Following consultation at the Research Staff Forum in March 2011 a programme has been devised and is scheduled to run for the first time in September 2011.  The programme exists as a one day event, but it is envisaged that following the initial event in September online content will be developed to make the Induction Programme available to researchers who need it, when they need it.

Participants in this programme are drawn from projects funded by Strathclyde University’s EPSRC Knowledge Transfer Account and other cognate projects. The programme runs over three consecutive days and includes two three-hour sessions each day. The sessions are presented by staff engaged in research in the broad area of management studies, focussing on different features of knowledge exchange and innovation. 

In March 2011 the first Research Staff Development Forum was hosted by the University’s extended Researcher Development Team: Research and Knowledge Exchange Services, HR, the Centre for Academic Practice and Learning Enhancement (CAPLE), and the Careers Service. This event was aimed at all Strathclyde research staff and provided opportunities for sharing thoughts and concerns, finding out about institutional and national developments, as well as networking with other members of the research community.

This is an online course developed by a consortium of UK institutions to help researchers understand what it means to be entrepreneurial and to develop those skills for success.

This initiative, which seeks to develop potential future research leaders by allowing individuals to gain experience supporting the development of others, is considered an effective way of achieving long term impact and sustainability from investment in researcher development. Derived from existing good practice and responding to feedback from the researcher community, it involves early career researchers being seconded to work in multidisciplinary liaison across the researcher community to develop appropriate training and ensure that the Researcher Development Programme meets the needs of individual researchers.

GRADnews is a monthly e-newsletter aimed at postgraduate research students within the university and features information on a wealth of internal and external career-development related opportunities available to the community.