Vitae News: Building researcher development networks virtually, HREiR resources, online research with researchers - April 2020

Welcome!

Welcome to the April Vitae News. In keeping with video meetings becoming the current norm, this month’s edition focuses on some interesting virtual events and activities for researcher developers, doctoral candidates, and research staff. Stay safe, from all of us at Vitae.

Building researcher developer networks virtually 

Connections: Getting to Grips - the virtual adaptation

Our flagship event Connections: Getting to Grips, aimed at researcher developers who are new to their role, is taking place on Thursday 14 May.

The whole team having been working hard to deliver this exciting new style format online event and look forward to welcoming you. 

Dr Kate Jones, Head of Learning and Professional Development at Vitae, has written about the virtual adaptation of this event and the benefits that virtual participation can bring.

Read the article

#Vitaechat on mental health of researchers

After the success of our Twitter chat in March, we are planning to host a further #vitaechat to coincide with Mental Health Awareness Week, around the mental health and wellbeing of researchers.

The #Vitaechat will take place on Tuesday 19 May, from 12pm until 1pm UK time.

It will be focused on the Mental Health Awareness Week's theme of 'kindness' and what that means in the academic context. 

Everyone with an interest in researcher development is welcome to join us. Look out for announcements of panellists soon!

Find out more about the #Vitaechat

Vitae Researcher Development International Conference 2020

Due to current restrictions to work and travel, we are working with the venue, speakers, event partners, and our workshop peer-review panel to explore options for moving the Vitae conference online in 2020.

We are therefore extending our call for content deadline until 17 June 2020 and will provide further updates soon.
  

Visit the conference webpage

Online resources for HR Excellence in Research Award 2020 submissions 

To follow up on our recent member webinar in relation to the HR Excellence in Research Award process and the revised Concordat to Support the Career Development of Researchers (Researcher Development Concordat), we have created a new handy web page. 

It contains information about submissions for this year including a new action plan template for aligning to the revised Researcher Development Concordat, along with other useful resources such as a Concordat mapping document and slides and the recording from the webinar itself.

Download resources

Supporting doctoral candidates and research staff

New Last few days of Covid-19: Impact on researchers UK survey

There has been an excellent response to the Covid 19: Impact on Researchers survey that is being conducted by the Student Mental Health in Higher Education Network (SMaRteN) with Vitae to understand how doctoral researchers and research staff in the UK have been affected by the pandemic.

We have had over 4000 responses and will be releasing some of the interim headline findings soon. The initial 1,000 responses revealed that over 90% have commented on the challenges they face, while half have also commented on benefits from the lockdown.
 
The survey has been extended until Sunday 10 May as we want to encourage more doctoral researchers and research staff to respond so that we can do more detailed analysis.
 
Please encourage your researchers to respond.

Complete the survey

Are you a postgraduate (PhD) researcher currently using the Vitae Development Framework (RDF)? 

We would like to hear from postgraduate researchers (PGRs) as part of a new research project about PGR experiences of using the Vitae Researcher Development Framework (RDF).

The project aims to understand the adoption and use of the RDF as a career development and guidance tool for PGRs.

PGRs who currently use the RDF are invited to complete this short five minute online pre-interview screening survey, which will help us to ensure that the research is inclusive of different types of PGRs. Those selected will be contacted to arrange an interview that will last for approx. 45 minutes.

Find out more & complete pre-screening interview

New 'live lecture' dates announced in conjunction with the Intellectual Property Office (IPO) 

Following the success of the IP for research sessions this year, we are pleased to announce that a further two live lectures via webinar will be taking place in June.

The lectures aim to increase the knowledge and skills of doctoral candidates and early career researchers in the UK and can help maximise the impact of research.