Dr Sara Shinton

Organisation

University of Edinburgh

Job title

Head of Researcher Development

Biography

The Researcher Development Team at Edinburgh provides support to all the researchers in the University including doctoral students, research staff, research technicians, principal investigators and research leaders. We also work with senior management to implement new university strategies which relate to our researchers.

Like many colleagues at Edinburgh I’m committed to equality, diversity and inclusion and am developing a suite of online resources to improve access to our support, including new resources with a focus on researcher wellbeing. I’m also a Co-Investigator on two of the recently announced EPSRC Inclusion Matters projects with a focus on the trajectory towards big grant leadership (e_BASE) and disability in science (DISC), as well as being an institutional partner on a third project looking into networking and mobility (VisNET).

For the last 20 years my work has focused on supporting researchers in higher education, principally through training workshops, published guides and partnerships with institutions, funders and professional bodies. I previously worked at the University looking at the emergence of doctoral training cohorts and the impact these have on researcher development.

I am passionate about the transformative effect of education at all ages. I sit on the Management Board of Borders College and am the Director of a community science festival, Bang Goes the Borders, which creates public engagement opportunities for researchers and connects children with inspiring role models.