Category / Guidance

Vitae and the Researcher Development Framework

Guidance, PG research, student research, Training

Vitae logoVitae is an organisation set up to promote career development in both postgraduate researchers and academic staff. Their Researcher Development Framework is intended to help people monitor their skills and plan their personal development. At BU we will be using this framework to format the training on offer for the postgraduate research students and academic staff.

The Vitae website is an excellent resource and the organisation regularly runs free training events for researchers, PGRs and those involved in research development. Upcoming events include Vitae Connections: Supporting Open Researchers.

The Researcher Development Framework (RDF) is the professional development framework to realise the potential of researchers. The RDF is a tool for planning, promoting and supporting the personal, professional and career development of researchers in higher education. It was designed following interviews with many successful researchers across the sector and articulates the knowledge, behaviours and attributes of a successful researcher.

There is a planner available on the Vitae website to help you assess which stage you are at with your skills and a tutorial providing guidance on how to use the framework.

Top 10 tips from researchers on using the Researcher Development Framework (RDF):

1. You might choose to use the RDF for short term as well as long term development. The RDF can be used in planning for your long term career ambitions but also to make a feasible short term plan. It can be useful to imagine your long term ambitions in order to focus your career path however the reality of progressing through to the higher phases may be more difficult to plan. In the short term, making decisions about how to progress to the next phase or what sub-domains are most important for you will be easier. Try to be realistic when setting these short term goals.

2. Use the RDF to highlight your strengths and areas for development and how these might be used to benefit/influence your personal, professional and career development.

3. Use the RDF to highlight your applicable and transferable skills. This is important for career progression within or outside academia.

4. Prioritise those areas which are most relevant. You don’t have to try to develop in all the areas of the RDF at once. There may be some sub-domains/descriptors where there is less relevance in progressing through the phases for you.

5. Draw on experiences outside of work to evidence your capabilities.

6. Progression to the highest phase in a descriptor will not be applicable to everyone but being aware of the possibilities can aid personal and career development.

7. Talk to others to get their views about your strengths and capabilities. Your supervisor, manager, peers, family and friends are a great source of information to find out more about yourself. Talk to them about how they perceive your capabilities. By understanding how others view you, you will be able to make more informed choices about your future.

8. To move from one phase to the next why not explore attending courses. These courses may be run at a local level (within your University) or may only be run nationally or internationally so awareness of opportunities for training is important. Vitae also run a wide range of courses which address many aspects of personal and career development.

9. Some phases may only be reached through experience and practice however good self-awareness and professional development planning will aid the process.

10. Networking is likely to enable you to reach more experienced phases.

 

Research Toolkit holds a wealth of guidance

Guidance

The RKEO team aim to provide you with tools to writing a successful application.  As part of this, you can find all sorts of information in the Research Toolkit on this blog.  Just look up to the top-right hand corner of the blog and you will see the link on the menu bar.

research toolkit

As well as specific guidance on writing sections of research council applications, there is also advice in the form of quick guides for various activities, access to concordat information, as well as advice on ethics and outputs.  Do explore what is available to you and let us know if there is anything else that you would like to see included.

 

 

NERC update to submission rules

Funding opportunities, Guidance

Following feedback from the community NERC have strengthened the guidance on their submission rules. Please refer to the NERC website for more details.  In addition the research grants and fellowships handbook has also been updated.nerc-logo-50th

Please note that these rules will apply for all future closing dates including the forthcoming Highlight Topic, Independent Research Fellowship and Large Grant closing dates. This includes international calls where applicants might be based at an overseas organisation, so Principal Investigators should ensure that all component proposals are aware and meeting the requirements.

The main changes are:

Applicants to a standard, large or knowledge exchange grant call may submit up to one proposal as the Principal or as a Co-Investigator, and one further proposal as a non-lead Principal Investigator or Co-Investigator. Involvement of a UK investigator in a submission to NSF (under the NSF-NERC Lead Agency agreement) counts as a submission as non-lead PI/Co-I to the July NERC standard grant round.  However, the submission rules are also in line with the demand management cap on institutional submission numbers to the standard grant rounds and so you must contact the RKEO Funding Development Team if you are considering applying to this NERC call.

Large grant proposals will only be accepted if an outline proposal has previously been submitted and invited to proceed to the full proposal stage.

There is further information on the NERC website confirming submission deadlines, proposal attachments, font sizes and margins.

Reminder that EoI are required for NERC standard grants round January 2016

Funding opportunities, Guidance

nerc-logo-50thFollowing on from my previous blog post informing you of NERC’s demand management measures, this is a reminder that only one application can be submitted to the January 2016 standard grant round.  Therefore, expressions of interest are required by 21st August.  All details of the competition process and the form can be found here.

Media training for ESRC-funded researchers

Guidance

Media training is changing at the ESRC.ESRC

Having taken on board extensive feedback from their delegates they are moving their media training forward to focus on the practical elements of working with the media.

They now offer a one day-long media training session that provides the opportunity to develop practical media skills in a safe environment.

They believe by concentrating their resources this way they will be able to give maximum opportunity for researchers, no matter what stage of their career, to develop their skills and feel comfortable handling media interviews. Whether a PhD student, postdoctoral researcher or senior fellow, the new practical media training session provides the guidance needed to engage the media with confidence – and plenty of opportunity to practice.

For more information, please see the article here.

The course will be taking place in different locations throughout the year. The forthcoming course dates are:

  • 17 September 2015 – London
  • 15 October 2015 – Cambridge
  • 30 October 2015 – London
  • 12 November 2015 – London

Book a place on a media training course.

For further information on any aspect of ESRC media training days please contact esrcmediatraining@esrc.ac.uk

Updating your Staff Profile Pages? Here’s a handy tip!

BRIAN, Guidance, staff profile pages, Training

StaffProfilePages

 

 

For starters, to change information on your Staff Profile Pages, you will need to log onto your BRIAN account to do so.

Any information added or amended on your BRIAN account usually requires an overnight automated refresh for it to appear on your Staff Profile Pages the next day.

Here’s the tip – if you want to see the changes made straight away, there is a button on your Staff Profile Page which you can click to prompt the refresh to take place instantaneously.

Scroll to the bottom of your Staff Profile Page and you will see this in the left hand corner –

refreshIt’s very discreet but it’s there.

Click on the ‘Refresh now’ button and it will refresh your page and you can see the changes made instantly.

 

 

*Please note that any information entered in the ‘Overview’ section under the Profile tab will not appear on your Staff Profile Pages. If you wish to update your background information, there are fields under ‘My Professional Activities’ which will allow you to do so.

Please see below a series of ‘How to update your Staff Profile Pages with BRIAN’ training sessions available during the following dates:

2pm to 3.30pm, 20 August – C203 Christchurch House, Talbot

2pm to 3.30pm, 15 September – S102 Studland House, Lansdowne

1.30pm to 3pm, 28 October – C124, Christchurch House, Talbot

2pm to 3.30pm, 9 November – TBC

2pm to 3.30pm, 15 December – C203, Christchurch House, Talbot

Please get in touch with OD@bournemouth.ac.uk to book a place.

 

OpenAIRE2020 National Open Access Desk

Post-award, Publishing

jisclogoBack in July, Mafalda Picarra from JISC wrote a blog post on the Jisc Scholarly Communications about OpenAIRE2020 National Open Access Desk. If you are involved in or are interested in an EC Horizon 2020 project, this blog post will be of interest to you.

Since the start of the OpenAIRE2020 project in January, Jisc became the UK National Open Access Desk (NOAD). This means that Jisc is now providing support and information to help UK HEIs and researchers to comply with the EC’s Horizon 2020 programme OA policy, the Open Research Data Pilot and the FP7 Post-Grant Open Access Pilot.

Jisc has been working closely with UK national associations – SCONUL, ARMA, RLUK and UKCoRR – to ensure that information about the EC’s Horizon 2020 OA policy and the Pilots is disseminated through the most appropriate channels to multiple stakeholders. Back in June, the national associations sent a first communication to their members. Today, we will disseminate more detailed information to HEIs research librarians, research managers, open access contact points and EU research, policy and funding teams on the EC’s OA policy and the two pilots.

In a nutshell, the Horizon 2020 OA policy requires that all peer reviewed publications resultant from Horizon 2020 and European Research Council funded projects be made open access. In addition, a Pilot on Open Research Data is being run in some core areas of Horizon 2020 which aims to improve and maximise access to and re-use of research data generated by projects. Finally, OpenAIRE is running a Pilot on FP7 Post-Grant Open Access where eligible FP7 projects can apply for funding to publish their research outputs on open access.

OpenAIRE has developed relevant resources (factsheets, guides and webinars) that can be accessed online (https://www.openaire.eu/) and provides helpdesk support to those that require more information on compliance with the EC’s OA policy or on how to participate in the pilots.logo_openaire

For more information contact the National Open Access Desk (NOAD), Mafalda Picarra, on info.openaire@jisc.ac.uk

 

Research Professional – all you need to know

Guidance

Every BU academic has a Research Professional account which delivers weekly emails detailing funding opportunities in their broad subject area. To really make the most of your Research Professional account, you should tailor it further by establishing additional alerts based on your specific area of expertise.  The Funding Development Team Officers can assist you with this, if required.

Research Professional have created several guides to help introduce users to ResearchProfessional. These can be downloaded here.

Quick Start Guide: Explains to users their first steps with the website, from creating an account to searching for content and setting up email alerts, all in the space of a single page.

User Guide: More detailed information covering all the key aspects of using ResearchProfessional.

Administrator Guide: A detailed description of the administrator functionality.

In addition to the above, there are a set of 2-3 minute videos online, designed to take a user through all the key features of ResearchProfessional.  To access the videos, please use the following link: http://www.youtube.com/researchprofessional

Research Professional are running a series of online training broadcasts aimed at introducing users to the basics of creating and configuring their accounts on ResearchProfessional.  They are holding monthly sessions, covering everything you need to get started with ResearchProfessional.  The broadcast sessions will run for no more than 60 minutes, with the opportunity to ask questions via text chat.  Each session will cover:

  • Self registration and logging in
  • Building searches
  • Setting personalised alerts
  • Saving and bookmarking items
  • Subscribing to news alerts
  • Configuring your personal profile

Each session will run between 10.00am and 11.00am (UK) on the fuorth Tuesday of each month.  You can register here for your preferred date:

25th August 2015

22nd September 2015

27th October 2015

24th November 2015

26th January 2016

23rd February 2016

22nd March 2016

26th April 2016

24th May 2016

28th June 2016

These are free and comprehensive training sessions and so this is a good opportunity to get to grips with how Research Professional can work for you.

ERC Starting Grants – Information and Proposal Writing Event LSE, London, 8 September, 13:30 – 16:30

Funding opportunities, Guidance

​​​​​In its capacity as UK National Contact Point for the European Research Council, the UK Research Office (UKRO), in partnership with the hosting institution, is holding an event at London School of Economics and Political Science for researchers who are interested in applying for the 2016 ERC Starting Grants call.   Details and registration are here.

Each session will provide participants with a detailed practical overview of the ERC Starting Grants scheme. Participants should gain a deeper understanding of the proposal format and the key issues they are required to address in planning, writing and costing a proposal as well as tips for preparing for interview. There will also be ample opportunity to ask questions. Attendance will be free of charge, thanks to the support from the organisations hosting the events.

 

Tags:

HEFCE Open Access Policy – Adjustments and Qualifications

BRIAN, Guidance, Publishing, REF Subjects, Research assessment

hefce-logoOn Friday (24 July 2015), HEFCE announced a number of adjustments and qualifications to its policy for open access (OA) in the next REF following consultation with HEIs. The key adjustment is that:

 

  • From 1st April 2016, authors will have until 3 months after publication to deposit outputs in our Institutional Repository (BURO) via BRIAN.  This is a temporary measure for the first year of the policy, to allow time to transition to a new way of working.

 

  • From 1st April 2017, the transition period will end, and in order to comply with the Open Access policy, authors will be expected to deposit outputs in (BURO) via BRIAN within 3 months of acceptance.

 

In light of these adjustments, it is recommended that authors still deposit outputs as soon as possible after acceptance to ensure continued compliance with all OA policies.

The circular and updated policy are available through the links below, if you have any queries or require further information on Open Access at BU including the Open Access Publication Fund, please contact Peng Peng Hatch at pphatch@bournemouth.ac.uk.

View this circular letter on the HEFCE website at: http://www.hefce.ac.uk/pubs/year/2015/CL,202015/

View the full updated HEFCE policy at:  http://www.hefce.ac.uk/pubs/Year/2014/201407/

Understanding Open Access workshop

BRIAN, Guidance, Post-award, Publishing, Training

Open-Access-logo

 

 

 

 

 

 

Following the Finch Report, the Open Access movement has gained significant momentum in the UK. Most major funders now have open access policies and mandates. HEFCE’s post-REF2014 policy states – ‘To be eligible for submission in the post-REF2014, journal articles and conference proceedings (with ISSN) accepted for publication after 1 April 2016 must be made open access.

RKEO currently provides a series of Open Access and BRIAN development workshop to help academics understand Open Access and what needs to be done to comply. In this ‘Understanding Open Access’ workshop, you will:
– Gain a background and understanding of Open Access
– Understand what it means for Bournemouth University
– Know how to comply with the Open Access Policies (via BRIAN)

The next workshop will take place on 4th August, from 10am to 11am, at EB202, Lansdowne.

To book a place, please send an email to Organisational Development.

For queries about the workshop, please direct them to Pengpeng Hatch at RKEO.

Results of RKEO pre-award survey

Guidance

The RKEO restructured in September 2014 and part of this was the newly formed Funding Development Team (FDT), who administer all things pre-award.  As there was disruption to the team in the summer of 2014 and the majority of the team were new to RKEO (and some were new to BU), we recognised that our service levels needed improving.  As a result, we have asked academics who have submitted applications to complete surveys so that we can seek to improve our service and have a way of monitoring this.FDT

The last survey was run in June and the general response was positive and recognised that we were making great improvements.  There were recommendations on what we could do further and we will take these forward.  The academics were asked to score our performance on a variety of topics and the results are given below:

Scores on the doors (1 = poor and 5 = excellent)

Demonstrate a good knowledge of the funder/ client 4.47
Have a good understanding of the bidding/ contract process – 4.69
Generate the costings and explain how the costs were derived 4.71
Demonstrate a high level of expertise 4.47
Answer all of your questions 4.63
Provide timely information 4.38
Keep you informed of progress 4.5
Respond quickly to your calls and emails 4.35
Help you to submit your bid/proposal on time 4.69
How would you rate the service provided by RKEO 4.4
Overall, would you say that your expectations were met – All said ‘yes’
Were you aware of the internal processes and timescales when applying for funding before you approached RKEO? 13 out of 17 said yes

These are great results which were also backed up with positive comments about our service.  Some of these are given below:

General comments

‘Regarding RKEO I think the team works great; I can just say thank you very much and please keep it up. I do apologize for the time and complexity constraints which were out of my hands.’

‘When I was contacted by my colleagues I expected that it may be a bit complicated because the time frame was short, yet it was a unique chance I should not miss. I was concerned on that and I wasn’t sure if it would be possible at all in the end. Thanks to the RKEO team work, it was possible.’

‘We are really lucky to have colleagues here to help us in such a professional manner. Applying for funding can be really stressful so what you need is someone to guide you and explain the process to you. Jenny and Ehren were so good, I am indebted to them.’

‘Excellent –  Jason was very professional and knowledgeable’

‘Considerable improvement over the last nine months.’

‘ (A score of) 5 what else? They were there for me and couldn’t ask for more.‘

‘As a result of this experience of submitting a bid (and particularly because of the support offered by RKEO) I definitely feel more confident about submitting larger bids in the future. I’ve seen how much support RKEO will be able to give me.’

Timeframe for processing applications comments:

‘It was processed much quicker than I expected and the RKEO team work, in particular the work of Ms Kerri Jones was great; not only met my expectations but exceeded them by large margins. If the submission was successful it is primarily thanks to her.’

‘Extremely quickly – it exceeded my expectations.  I’d left everything to the last minute (I’d almost decided not to bother bidding) but Ehren was able to process my application extremely quickly to enable me to meet the deadline.’

 ‘It has been great and grateful that Dianne and her colleagues helped out with very short notice and handled the requests in a professional and efficient manner.‘

This feedback helps the team to know that what they are doing is appreciated and worthwhile and we thank the academics for their support and recognition.  We don’t rest on our laurels though and we will be making changes to the process over the summer.  These will aim to speed up the process and ensure that procedures are clearer.  More information will follow on this and so watch this space.

Signpost with the words Help, Support, Advice, Guidance and Assistance on the direction arrows, against a bright blue cloudy sky.

ESRC annual report shows that success rates have dropped

Funding opportunities, Guidance

The ESRC have released their annual report for 2014-15.  As well as highlighting research that they have funded, it also sets out their strategy.  This includes ‘Big Data’, building capability, impact, and international partnerships.ESRC

There are interesting sections on demand management (p.21-22) and Research Professional have written an article following up on this and success rates.

BU process for selecting applications to NERC Standard Grant call – Expressions of Interest due

Funding opportunities, Guidance

nerc-logo-50thNERC introduced demand management measures in 2012. These were revised in 2015 to reduce the number and size of applications from research organisations for NERC’s discovery science standard grant scheme. Full details can be found in the BU policy document for NERC demand management measures.

As at March 2015, BU has been capped at one application per standard grant round. The measures only apply to NERC standard grants (including new investigators). An application counts towards an organisation, where the organisation is applying as the grant holding organisation (of the lead or component grant). This will be the organisation of the Principal Investigator of the lead or component grant.

BU process

As a result, BU has introduced a process for determining which application will be submitted to each NERC Standard Grant round. This will take the form of an internal competition, which will include peer review.  An Expression of Interest for NERC Standard Grant call (EoI) form will need to be completed.  The next available standard grant round is January 2016. The process for selecting an application for this round will be as follows:

NERC1NERC2

 NERC have advised that where a research organisation submits more applications to any round than allowed under the cap, NERC will office-reject any excess applications, based purely on the time of submission through the Je-S system (last submitted = first rejected). However, as RKEO submit applications through Je-S on behalf of NERC applicants, RKEO will not submit any applications that do not have prior agreement from the internal competition.

Appeals process

If an EoI is not selected to be submitted as an application, the Principal Investigator can appeal to Professor Tim McIntyre-Bhatty, Deputy Vice-Chancellor. Any appeals must be submitted within ten working days of the original decision. All appeals will be considered within ten working days of receipt.

RKEO Contacts

Please contact Jennifer Roddis, RKEO Research Facilitator – jroddis@bournemouth.ac.uk or Jo Garrad, RKEO Funding Development Manager – jgarrad@bournemouth.ac.uk if you wish to submit an expression of interest.

Research Professional – all you need to know

Guidance

Every BU academic has a Research Professional account which delivers weekly emails detailing funding opportunities in their broad subject area. To really make the most of your Research Professional account, you should tailor it further by establishing additional alerts based on your specific area of expertise.  The Funding Development Team Officers can assist you with this, if required.

Research Professional have created several guides to help introduce users to ResearchProfessional. These can be downloaded here.

Quick Start Guide: Explains to users their first steps with the website, from creating an account to searching for content and setting up email alerts, all in the space of a single page.

User Guide: More detailed information covering all the key aspects of using ResearchProfessional.

Administrator Guide: A detailed description of the administrator functionality.

In addition to the above, there are a set of 2-3 minute videos online, designed to take a user through all the key features of ResearchProfessional.  To access the videos, please use the following link: http://www.youtube.com/researchprofessional 

Research Professional are running a series of online training broadcasts aimed at introducing users to the basics of creating and configuring their accounts on ResearchProfessional.  They are holding monthly sessions, covering everything you need to get started with ResearchProfessional.  The broadcast sessions will run for no more than 60 minutes, with the opportunity to ask questions via text chat.  Each session will cover:

  • Self registration and logging in
  • Building searches
  • Setting personalised alerts
  • Saving and bookmarking items
  • Subscribing to news alerts
  • Configuring your personal profile

Each session will run between 10.00am and 11.00am (UK) on the fourth Tuesday of each month.  You can register here for your preferred date:

28th July 2015

25th August 2015

These are free and comprehensive training sessions and so this is a good opportunity to get to grips with how Research Professional can work for you.