Tagged / career

‘Research adrenaline junkie: how clinical research energised my career’

BU research, Clinical Governance, nhs, NHS

The Royal College of Physicians have recently published a set of articles that reflect the crucial role clinical research plays in the NHS.

This article comes from a Consultant Gastroenterologist at the Royal Wolverhampton NHS Trust in which he talks about the transformational effect that clinical research had on his career.

You can see the article here.

Remember – support and guidance is on offer at BU if you are thinking of conducting clinical research, whether in the NHS, private healthcare or social care  – get in touch with Research Ethics. You can also take a look at the Clinical Governance blog for resources and updates.

Happy reading!

EURAXESS – Supporting those working with Researchers

EU, Research Training

Do you support researchers? If so, EURAXESS can help you!

By registering on the EURAXESS site, you can gain access to a wealth of resources:

If you would like to discuss using EURAXESS as a researcher,  in order to promote BU’s research activity, supporting incoming researchers to BU or other related purpose, please contact Emily Cieciura, RKEO’s Research Facilitator: EU & International and BU’s EURAXESS Institutional Contact.

EURAXESS is also included as one of the highlighted resources within the Research Toolkit > Research Staff pages on this blog.

 

EURAXESS – new video released

EU, international, Research Training

Further to the recent blog post outlining the information available via EURAXESS, there is now a new video providing an introduction to the service available. Other videos are available on the EURAXESS You Tube channel, including case studies, where researchers have benefited from the services offered by EURAXESS.

Find out more about how EURAXESS can help your career development or locate the best researchers for your team!

If you would like to discuss using EURAXESS as a researcher,  in order to promote BU’s research activity, supporting incoming researchers to BU or other related purpose, please contact Emily Cieciura, RKEO’s Research Facilitator: EU & International and BU’s EURAXESS Institutional Contact.

EURAXESS is also included as one of the highlighted resources within the Research Toolkit > Research Staff pages on this blog.

 

BRAD can help you to develop your research career

BU research

What is the aim of BRAD?  The BU Researcher/Academic Development (BRAD) programme is a tailor made framework of development sessions for you, our BU researchers, based on the Vitae Researcher Development Framework (RDF). This holistic framework provides professional and personal development in the key areas of:

A. Knowledge & Intellectual Abilities

B. Personal Effectiveness

C. Research Governance & Organization

D. Engagement, Influence & Impact

How did we consult you in creating BRAD ? A poll was posted on our blog to explore which training areas you would like us to host and this was followed by an online survey to explore the training needs of early career researchers (ECRs) in particular. The results concluded you would like training in a wide range of development areas from specific methodology to an academic career path. Feedback also clearly said sessions should be about two hours and that Wednesdays were the preferred date for sessions and the framework follows this structure. There are a few sessions which run for longer than two hours and this is because of the subject matter.

What kind of sessions are we running? The programme comprises of a wide range of facilitated development sessions held on campus (by internal and external presenters), online research modules from Epigeum (so you can learn in your own time) and the Vitae’s RDF. The facilitated sessions cover everything from research skills to personal effectiveness, from using SPSS to creating impact through your research. The online training covers a range of topics from getting published to managing your research career which you can undertake at your own time. You can identify which sessions to attend by undertaking the simple ‘My Academic Development Needs: Self-Assessment’ (MADNSA) or use Vitae’s jazzy Excel version which is more detailed.  You can read case studies of real academics to see how using the planner based on this assessment has helped transform their careers if you still need a little convincing to complete this and also the top 10 tipsfrom researchers on using the framework.All academic staff at BU have access to this programme and you can attend whichever sessions you are interested in; you don’t have to attend the whole programme. For facilitated sessions, just book through the Staff Development webpages and for online modules, simply log into myBU  and search the BRAD community to view all courses and to get started!

Who can be part of BRAD? Any BU academic member of staff can sign up to the BRAD programme; there is no commitment required as to the number of sessions you undertake. We simply want to keep a record of those who are taking part in some of the BRAD facilitated and online sessions, so we can get your feedback on how useful they were.  You will be automatically added to the list when you sign up for a session with Staff Development.

How are you going to develop YOUR career as a researcher?

BU research

Back in March I launched the CROS and PIRLS surveys to gather your views on what life is like at BU. Having analysed the responses, some fantastic insights were gained from this and a working group is being established to address the common issues and make improvements; more information on these actions will be released on the blog in time.

One finding in particular grabbed my attention however which is and linked to our on-going work as part of our EC HR Excellence in Research Badge award and is a favourite subject for me; the development of an academic career path. When I finished my PhD I would have loved a structured training plan, useful guidance and some literature around this, and from the survey results it seems many of your (at various stages of your career) would also find this incredibly helpful.

I am currently putting the finishing touches to an optional and open to all set of development sessions you can undertake at BU and also some online training too. This programme will include assessing your current strengths and areas for further development as a researcher to help shape your skills and experience to build your career as you wish. More details on the ‘BRAD’ programme will be announced soon…

In the meantime, for anyone interested in developing your career as a researcher, Vitae’s new publication The Career-Wise Researcher is a really useful read. They also have guides on The Balanced Researcher, The Creative Researcher, The Engaging Researcher, The Leading Researcher and The Informed Researcher. As with all Vitae publications, they are short (around 10 pages each), easy to read and incredibly useful.  

 

The new European Framework for Research Careers could help you

EU

Last week I posted about the INORMS conference I attended this month. Another key presentation I saw came from the EC’s Adeline Kroll; ‘Towards Professionalisation of Research in Europe’ outlined how countries in the EU lack comprehensive provisions for professional development in research beyond PhD level.

The presentation highlighted that there is a lack of comparable research career structures within the EU, that there is no EU-wide guidance for researchers on matters such as whether they can take their grants with them when moving to other institutes within the EU and other matters such as pensions.

In response to this, the presenter announced that a taskforce is working on a European Framework for Research Careers, which aims to have research recognised as a separate professional category. This will address issues such as the quality of doctoral training, gender balance in research careers and employment conditions to clarify the rights and obligations of Europe’s researchers.