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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.

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.

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.

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.

Open competition to fund projects relating to research staff development

We have developed a PGR progress tracking system called ‘MyPGR’ which is an online tool capable of managing and monitoring PGR students. The system provides a record of interactions between students, supervisors and professional services staff. It also allows for the prompt provision of management information related to PGR students. The system will be operational for all students on MPhil/EdD/Phd programmes from commencement of the 2010/11 academic year.

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.

Several ‘Careers in Academia’ workshops have been held, covering all subject cohorts, in which the steps needed to secure an academic position were discussed. The workshops were supported by the staff from the careers unit as well as senior and junior academics from across the university.

Programme of workshops available to research staff, mapped to Loughborough Skills Statements and Concordat Principles

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.