Vitae Member news - January 2015

Vitae Regional Meetings

Succeeding in an uncertain research environment: Implications for researcher development

The first Vitae members’ regional meeting will provide an analysis on the implications of UK and European policy on excellence in researcher development. Guest presenters will stimulate discussion with provocations reflecting on challenges and opportunities in the research environment. This is an important networking opportunity to inform future Vitae strategy and activity for our members’ benefit.

Who should attend?

Each member institution may send up to two representatives. These may be the Vitae membership key contacts, or other participants able to speak on behalf of their institution. Furthermore, up to ten additional places per region will be allocated for interested researcher developer staff from HEI member organisations to attend.

 The regional meetings will be held as follows:

• East of England: 6 March at University of East Anglia
• Scotland and Northern Ireland: 12 March at Stirling University
• North West: 13 March at University of Central Lancashire
• Yorkshire and North East: 18 March at Sheffield Hallam University
• South West and Wales: 20 March at Bath University
• South East: 23 March at Southampton University
• London: TBC
• Midlands: TBC

Bookings will open next week. Details will be emailed to the named membership contacts and made available here.

Elections for Vitae Regional Representatives

All Vitae UK member HEIs will have the opportunity to vote for their region’s representative. Information about the nominees and the election process will be sent to each institution’s named membership contacts. Elections will take place online and votes must be submitted by 5pm on Friday, 27 February.

We are still seeking nominations for representatives in the East of England and Midlands regions. If you may be interested, please email us for more details.

CROS and PIRLS

The next wave of the Careers in Research Online Survey (CROS) and Principal Investigators and Research Leaders Survey (PIRLS) will take place from 1 March – 31 May 2015. Information regarding participation, including survey question sets, FAQs, instructions on how to run the surveys, and institutional case studies, will be available by the end of January on the Vitae website.

Participation in CROS and PIRLS is open to all Vitae members and is hosted on the new Bristol Online Survey (BOS) system, which requires that your institution hold a BOS account.

Benefits to institutions of participating in CROS and PIRLS:

• informs policy and practice in researchers’ employment, management and career development
• enables measurement of progress over time and confidential comparisons with groups of institutions or national results
• collects evidence to support institutional submissions, such as for the European HR Excellence in Research Award, implementation of the Concordat and Athena Swan
• gives insight into the research environment element of the Research Excellence Framework

To indicate your interest in participating in CROS and PIRLS, please email us. We will be sending joining information out to all Vitae members by early February. Questions relating to the BOS licences may be sent to this email address.