2010 is an important year for the researcher development sector. We need to continue to build upon all our great achievements so far in 'Building an evidence base for the impact of Researcher Development activities' towards the target of providing the best possible report we can, as a sector, to the Vitae 2010 September conference (6 and 7 September in Manchester). With a difficult economic climate and an inevitable uncertainty regarding future funding, we will all have discussions about the future ahead of us. Having available to us all the best possible evidence base may well prove crucial whoever the discussions are with. With a change in government this year, 2010 is the year to really develop the evidence base.
Reporting timescales:
Friday 23 April - A call will go out to the sector for impact evidence for inclusion in the Vitae 2010 conference report.
Friday 4 June - Final date to submit evidence for inclusion.
Monday 6 September - Vitae 2010 conference report published.
Evidence of impact can also be sent at any point in the year to the email address t.p.bromley@adm.leeds.ac.uk
Information to put forward:
The 'Rugby Team Impact Framework: one year on' (that many across the sector contributed to) is the best place to look in terms of the type of information needed. Nothing is too small or too large! Anything, from an interesting point raised on workshop evaluation forms, to fully fledge evaluation studies is valuable. It would also be good to gather more case studies of impact from researchers on the lines of the case study examples from Essex University (see ‘Case study 5' in the Rugby Team Impact Framework: one year on).
Even given the funding challenges we all face, there can be optimism that there will be positive funding outcomes for the sector. It is clear with the evidence that we have so far that the sector has a demonstrable positive impact, but we need to continue to build! Over the next 6 months let's make the evidence base the best evidence base we can possibly gather!
There are over 100 institutions in the UK. Just one contribution in respect of impact evidence from each institution would present a significant additional evidence base!
Keynote presentation slides from the Vitae policy forum 2010 (Edinburgh 6 and 7 Jan 2010) are available on the policy forum web pages. In the presentation ‘Building an evidence base for the impact of researcher development activities' key emergent impacts suggest researcher development activity:
- improves research outputs, grant writing success, fellowship success and performance in research
- enhances the postgraduate researcher and supervisor experience
- enhances employability
- enhances and increases the public understanding and outreach activity of researchers.
Apart from the Rugby Team sector led work above, there will also be another active year building upon and developing the range of other initiatives including:
- Postgraduate Research Experience Survey
- Careers in Research Online Survey
- RCUK Cohort study
- Concordat Benchmarking activity
- Vitae career stories
In terms of support for evaluation of impact, previous reports are available from the Rugby Team website. Also available from the SRHE is, ‘Evaluating Training and Development Programmes for Postgraduate and Newer Researchers' (see http://www.srhe.ac.uk/publications.gpi.asp)
In totality there is potential for 2010 to be a year in which an outstanding body of evidence for the impact of researcher development activity can be built. It is in our hands!
Dr Tony Bromley
Senior Training and Development Officer, University of Leeds
Co-ordinator Vitae Yorkshire and North East Hub
Member of the Rugby Team