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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).

The Social Media sessions demonstrated a successful integration of a student-led initiative within a formal graduate training provision. The initiative underlined the importance of engaging PhD students in their own learning and training needs, in both sharing expertise with peers and in contributing to their own professional development. In doing so, it demonstrated to other postgraduate researchers how they might utilise their own areas of expertise to develop further student-led initiatives.

The Jubilee Graduate Centre (JGC) has been exclusively developed for postgraduate students and early career researchers. It works closely with Schools on the Jubilee Campus to develop Faculty-specific training and careers events for PGRs/ECRs focusing on transferable skills, and which reflect the requirements of the Funding Councils.

Glasgow’s researcher development initiative aims to develop and support a vibrant community of researchers who can participate in meaningful engagement with researchers from other fields, policy makers, the wider public, and the local community and business sector. This has been achieved through our flagship ‘Making an Impact’ event which connects researcher training with opportunities to put what has been learnt into practice in real scenarios. ‘Making an Impact’ ran 3 times in the last academic year and was well attended by early-career researchers from all disciplines, as well as prospective PhD students. The overarching aim of the event was to help researchers to consider how their research and how they as researchers can have an impact on the local community, Government policy or the economy. Each event had two distinct sections as well as networking opportunities: Part A: Presentations from PhD alumni These were designed to help participants consider the wide range of career opportunities open to them and identify possible routes into these. Many speakers brought examples of how they are continuing to work closely with academia, thus enabling researchers to understand how their research could be used to inform work in museums, policy, social enterprise and spin-outs. These talks have cemented relationships between local organisations and the University. For example, discussions are now underway between a current research student in Adult Education and one of the Social Enterprise speakers about possible research collaboration. Following the presentation from a representative of Glasgow museums, a current researcher was invited to visit and meet curatorial staff to help clarify her career goals. Part B: Presentations from current research students Current researchers presented their work, considering how best to convey its value and interest to an audience outside of their own field (including the external speakers). Pitching their talk at the correct ‘level’ was particularly challenging for many students but they appreciated having an ‘outsider’ perspective as well as finding out about research methods and practice in other fields and areas where they might collaborate or learn from each other.

Schools and Research Institutes across the Faculty of Engineering and Physical Sciences are invited to bid for funds to host inter-disciplinary conferences organised and presented by postgraduate researchers and research staff; skills training in presentation, poster design and event management is offered to support the organisers and participants.

A fund for researchers within the Faculty to apply for, to cover costs of attending external events which develop their transferable skills.

A half day workshop intended as a starting point for any researcher interested in applying for independent research funding.

An interdisciplinary postgraduate-focused research conference designed to develop communication skills, team work and innovation as well as fostering international cooperation.