Detailed event overview and background
Vitae and ARMA are providing for the first time a unique opportunity to enable research managers, researcher developers and researchers to come together in a dynamic ‘Open Space' discussion centered on identifying collaborative ways to help produce better research and excellent researchers.
Researcher developers and research managers have important, different and at times overlapping interactions with researchers, influencing them informally or formally, developing their personal and professional skills, and enhancing success in research. Yet all share a common cause - making research and researchers excellent. There are big challenges in this increasingly complex, rapidly accelerating and yet unpredictable world of change, and it is important that professional services and the academic community work together to meet current and future needs.
In recognition of the potential for research managers, researcher developers and researchers to work collaboratively towards excellence in the research agenda, especially in relation to REF and Pathways to Impact, Vitae and ARMA are hosting this ‘Open Space' to stimulate discussion between all three stakeholder groups, to gain further understanding of how working closely together can add more value to research. The purpose of this event is to explore and build collaborative working relationships. Bringing together a fine balance of key stakeholders, researcher developers, research managers and researchers, the Open Space will form a perfect medium to explore and emphasise everyone's needs and identify how partnerships may look for the future. Invitation to attend is open to researcher developers, research managers and researchers.
The Vitae Researcher Development Framework encapsulates the knowledge, skills and capabilities of researchers as a foundation for researcher career development in the 21st century, informing institutional researcher development strategy and enabling individual researchers to explore their strengths and opportunities as professional researchers. The Vitae PDP planner helps researchers analyse their personal career development needs to form the basis of discussions about developmental needs with staff supporting researchers such as researcher developers, research managers, PIs, supervisors and employers. Aspects of the Vitae Researcher Development Framework such as research governance and organisation, engagement influence and impact for example, provide an intersection between the roles of researcher developers to enhance researchers' capabilities and the daily interactions between research managers and researchers.
Research Managers and Administrators play an increasingly important role in facilitating institutions' and individuals' research endeavours. They have specialist technical knowledge and skills, and are able to provide help, guidance and advice across the research project lifecycle. The ARMA Professional Development Framework (PDF) for research managers and administrators scopes out the knowledge, skills, behaviours and activities required across the full range of research management and administration roles, including for example, developing proposals, managing project finance, knowledge exchange and business development, and supporting postgraduate researchers.
As an open space event, participants will be guided to define for themselves the topics they would like to discuss on the day. All attendees will have the opportunity to understand the methodology of open space, a skill they can take away and implement in their places of work. Facilitated by Dr Kevin Byron, Researcher Development and Enterprise Education Coordinator at Queen Mary University London, this will be a dynamic opportunity to define needs and identify collaborative opportunities.
The grand challenge for this Open Space is to explore similarities and differences in language, roles and responsibilities along the research pathway, and to seek out ways of working together proactively to achieve research excellence. Through developing relationships and networks, and exploring those skills that they feel are essential to research excellence and innovation now and in the immediate future, participants will gain a greater understanding of:
- how they can work together to add value to research strategy for sustainable excellence by partnership in researcher development, supporting research activity, and helping to build researcher capabilities
- skills, roles and responsibilities of professional colleagues which are complementary to their own
- ways to communicate their own skills, roles and responsibilities to colleagues in research and research management and administration
- how to establish new mutually beneficial partnerships to achieve common goals
- how to shape and influence thinking around the future of researcher development and research support