Tagged / research staff

Researcher Development Framework

Guidance, Research Training, student research, Training

Vitae_RDF_logo_2011Vitae 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.

BRAD: Career Trajectory 20th Novemeber 2015

Training

Prof Matt Bentley, SciTech Deputy Dean – Research and Professional Practice, will give an insight into the management of the career trajectory of an academic. Far from being down to chance, Matt will explore the activities, which can career trajectorybe undertaken to direct your academic career and how to make the most of opportunities and challenges along the journey. This session is open to academics at all stages of their career. Perhaps you are just starting out and need advice on how to move to the next stage or, perhaps, you have reached a plateau and wish to reflect upon the need to change direction to achieve your career aspirations.

This session will include career management advice, responsiveness to opportunities, reputation, and esteem. It will finish with a Q & A session and a networking lunch.

You may also be interested in the following online resources:

For more information about the above workshops and to book – CLICK HERE

BRAD – Upcoming Opportunities

Uncategorized

impact

For more information about the above workshops and to book – CLICK HERE

Impact – 18th November 2015, 09:00-12:00
This session will explore what we mean by impact and why it is an increasingly important part of your research career. Through this exploration, the session will highlight examples of impact and the perspective of research funders with regards to impact. There will also be dedicated time for you to explore the types of impact your research could lead to and suitable pathways to do so.
Working with Business – Business Engagement and Networking – 19th November 2015, 14:00-16:00
For both early career researchers and experienced academics alike this session will include tips and information on how to develop and make the most of building relationships and networks with businesses. Led by Jayne Codling and Rachel Clarke – Knowledge Exchange Advisers within RKEO, there will be a chance to hear from different speakers on their own experiences of C4NPMKbusiness and university collaboration. This session will also involve discussion on networking and hints and tips, useful information sources on business funding, communicating your research to a business audience and an opportunity to provide ideas as to what as academics you would like help or more information on to assist you with developing business relationships.

 

For more information about the above workshops and to book – CLICK HERE

BRAD: Upcoming Opportunities – 17th November 2015

Training

European IPR webinarsIntroductory EU Participant Portal session – 17th November 2015, 13:30-14:30

  • Very short introduction to Horizon 2020 and EU funding
  • Registering on the Participant Portal
  • How to find a call
  • Looking at the call documents
  • Reference documents – work programmes
  • Getting help – using the manual, European Horizon 2020 helpdesk and National Contact Points

 

Introductory Research Professional session- 17th November 2015, 14:45-16:00

  • Registering for an account
  • How to search for funding calls
  • How to search for articles
  • How to set up searches and personal alerts
  • Using the Expression of Interest feature
  • Using the pre-set BU workgroups

 

Bid Writing with Martin Pickard – 17th November 2015, 9:30-16:00

writing and editing

This workshop includes writing grant proposals, and writing effective applications. Bring along a copy of bid writing for constructive group feedback.
*Please bring a laptop with you to this session


For more information about the above workshops and to book – CLICK HERE

 

NVivo Introduction

student research, Training

Nvivological_model_diagramNVivo Indtroduction offers focuses on the requisite management decisions one should make at the beginning of one’s project such as what is my data?

Should I code audio or transcripts and what are the advantages and limitations of either approach? How does the software work?

Why should I integrate my background information or demographics and what is auto-coding and how might it help to better understand my data and prepare it for the cycles of manual interpretive coding to follow?

How do I integrate my chosen methodological approach in using NVivo and reconcile it with the philosophical underpinnings to apply such methods as Grounded Theory, Discourse Analysis, Content Analysis, Thematic Analysis or Narrative Interpretive Methods as just some examples.

Day 1 has an emphasis on the conceptual although the afternoon session is more rooted in the practical. By the end of day 1, participants should be able to set-up an NVivo database, back it up, import their data, setup a coding structure and code their data to it and set up and integrate their demographics.

We have hired the services of an external facilitator to offer support in this for academic staff as part of the BRAD programme. Ben Meehan worked in industry for twenty six years. For the past thirteen years he has worked as an independent consultant in support of computer aided qualitative data analysis projects (CAQDAS). He is a QSR approved trainer and consultant. He has worked in all of the major universities and Institutes of Technology in Ireland and Northern Ireland. His work outside of the educational sector includes major global companies such as Intel where he consults in support of their on-going ethnographic research and the Centre for Global Health where he has recently worked in Tanzania, Malawi and Mozambique (2009) and in Ghana, Burkina Faso and Tanzania with the University of Heidelberg (2010) and Ethiopia for the Ethiopian Public Health Association (2011) and the Population Council, Zambia (2012). Apart from Africa, Ben regularly conducts workshops in Germany, France, UK, Northern Ireland, the US (Maryland, 2011, Yale, 2012) and Australia.

The session is on Wed 18th Novemeber 2015 09:00 – 16:00 on Talbot campus. There are limited spaces so please do ensure you get one by booking on the Organisational and Staff Development webpages.

BRAD Upcoming Opportunities – 16th November 2015

BU research, Research Training, Training

BRAD

 

 

 

For more information about the above workshops and to book – CLICK HERE

Research Application Process- 16th November 2015, 9:30- 10:30.
This session will provide a presentation on the process of costing your research at BU and the research application process. Additionally, Q & A session and the opportunity for a one on one discussion with the facilitators.

Justifying your funding request workshop – 16th November 2015, 10:45-13:00 (including Lunch)
Many funders require you to justify the funding you are requesting in a research bid. But how can you best approach this? This session will outline how to structure a justification for funding for the major funders (research councils, other government funders, main charities) and provide some examples of good and bad practice.

Financial Management Workshop – 16th November 2015, 12:00 -14:30 (including Lunch)Finance for smes
This workshop will cover several topics ranging from; financial management, income and funding budgeting, financial resourcing and strategic financial planning.

 

For more information about the above workshops and to book – CLICK HERE

 

 

 

New careers guidance resources for research staff

Research news

career-developmentThis week our new careers guidance resources for research staff have gone live on the Research Blog. They include detailed guidance on how to progress from a research career to an academic career, drawing on a wide range of resources. There is also information on other career pathways, including administration/management within HE and research careers outside of HE.

We will be adding to the resources to ensure they are as useful as possible and will be adding some case studies for different career pathways over the following months.

You can access them here: http://blogs.bournemouth.ac.uk/research/researcher-toolbox/researcher-development/careers-guidance-for-research-staff/.

Code of Practice for the Employment and Development of Research Staff – NEW VERSION

Research news

I am delighted to share with you the new and improved version of BU’s Code of Practice for the Employment and Development of Research Staff. Research staff in this context are defined as staff with a primary responsibility to undertake research, including pre-and post-doctoral staff on fixed-term and open-ended contracts funded through limited period grants, named fellowships and sometimes institutional funds.

The code provides guidance on the University’s expectations for the recruitment, support, management and development of research staff in line with the Concordat to Support the Career Development of Researchers (2008) and the European Charter for Researchers (2005). It is relevant to research staff and their managers as well as to BU staff in general. It has been written by the University’s Research Concordat Steering Group and is one of the objectives from our action plan to further align BU’s policy and practice to the seven principles of the Concordat and to further improve the working environment for research staff at BU.

When launched last autumn this was the first time that BU had had a code of practice specifically for research staff and the document acknowledges the valued contribution made by research staff to the research undertaken at BU. The further recognition of the value of research staff and the development of career opportunities for them are key matters on which we will continue to work.

Access information about BU’s work to embed the principles of the Concordat here: http://research.bournemouth.ac.uk/research-concordat/ 

Launch of BU’s new Bridging Fund Scheme for research staff

Research news

Golden gate Bridge wallpaperThis month sees the launch of the new BU Bridging Fund Scheme which aims to provide additional stability to fixed-term researchers who continue to rely heavily on short-term contracts usually linked to external funding. This situation sometimes impacts negatively on continuity of employment and job security and can result in a costly loss of researcher talent for the institution.

The new Bridging Fund Scheme aims to mitigate these circumstances by redeploying the researcher where possible, or where feasible, by providing ‘bridging funding’ for the continuation of employment for a short-term (maximum three months) between research grants. It is intended to permit the temporary employment, in certain circumstances, of researchers between fixed-term contracts at BU, for whom no other source of funding is available, in order to:

(a) encourage the retention of experienced and skilled staff, and sustain research teams and expertise;

(b) aconcordat to support the career development of researchersvoid the break in employment and career which might otherwise be faced by such staff;

(c) maximise the opportunity for such staff to produce high-quality outputs and/or research impact at the end of funded contracts/grants.

This is a great step forward for BU and for BU’s researchers and is an action from our EC HR Excellence in Research Award which aims to increase BU’s alignment with the national Concordat to Support the Career Development of Researchers (further information is available here: https://research.bournemouth.ac.uk/research-environment/research-concordat/).

You can read the full guidelines here: BU bridging fund scheme guidelines v1 070815

BRAD – Upcoming Opportunities

Training

Financial Management Workshop Monday 13th April 2014, 13:30-14:30

This workshop will cover several topics ranging from; financial management, income and funding budgeting, financial resourcing and strategic financial planning.
This workshop will be facilitated by Gary Cowen, Research and Knowledge Exchange.

There are limited spaces so please do ensure you get one by booking on the Organisational Development webpages.

Ethics and Research Governance Monday 13th April 2014, 11:00-12:30

A 20 minute presentation on ethical considerations, policy, and principles. Followed by a Q & A session on your ethical issues or questions related to your research. This workshop will be facilitated by Eva Papadopoulou, Research and Knowledge Exchange

There are limited spaces so please do ensure you get one by booking on the Organisational Development webpages.

 

Research Methods Workshops – April 2015

Training

Ethnography
An introduction to the qualitative research approach of ethnography.

The session is on Wednesday 15th April 2015, 10:00-11:00 Talbot Campus and will be facilitated by Dr Lorraine Brown. There are limited spaces so please do ensure you get one by booking on the Organisational Development webpages.

 

 Qualitative Research
This session is an introductory overview of qualitative research, including its background and development, as well as the below:

– The nature and key features of this approach.
– The main differences to quantitative research, the types of research question which could be answered through it, and its main differences   from quantitative enquiry.
– Describe the sources of data, and how they are collected and analysed.
– Qualitative interviewing and participant observation will be included.

The session will involve presentation, discussion and opportunities for participants to share methodological problems.

The session is on Tuesday 14th April 2015, 13:00-16:00 Talbot Campus and will be facilitated by Prof. Immy Holloway. There are limited spaces so please do ensure you get one by booking on the Organisational Development webpages.

 

Mixed Methods
For this particular workshop, although a general introduction to Mixed Methods will be given, to gain maximum benefit, you need to be already thinking around the possibility / suitability of mixed methods for your research or be willing to explore that during the workshop

The session is on Tuesday 14th April 2015, 14:00-15:30 Talbot Campus and will be facilitated by Dr Carol Bond. There are limited spaces so please do ensure you get one by booking on the Organisational Development webpages.

 

The Principles of Grounded Theory.
This session will introduce the research approach of Grounded Theory. The development of grounded theory as a method and its key features will be explored within the session. The content will be particularly relevant to those who are new to the approach and it will be illustrated with experiences from research practice.

The session is on Friday 17th April 2015, 12:00-13:00 Talbot Campus and will be facilitated by Dr Liz Norton. There are limited spaces so please do ensure you get one by booking on the Organisational Development webpages.

Developing an Effective Search Strategy and Using Researcher Tools Workshop – 13th April 2015

Training

This course is intended to provide an overview of information resources.  The Library offers a range of products and services to support researchers that can save time and help to make information retrieval effective.

  • Use and access BU library resources
  • Begin to develop a systematic search strategy
  • Know about visiting other libraries
  • Know how to make Inter Library Requests
  • Be able to set up citation alerts
  • Use citations smartly
  • Use analytical tools to aid publication and research

The session is on Tues 13th April 2015 14:30 – 16:30 on Talbot campus and will be facilitated by Emma Crowley. There are limited spaces so please do ensure you get one by booking on the Organisational and Staff Development webpages.

Quality Papers: how to write papers that can be published in your target journals workshop

Training

You enjoy research, but writing papers is either scary or just takes too long. You are under pressure to ‘get published’ in high ranking journals, but daily commitments mean you haven’t got patches of undisturbed hours in your diary.

Quality Papers provides a process that can help you write with greater speed and confidence, at the same time as increasing your chance of getting published in your target journal. The course gives strategies for getting the best from your co-authors and streamlining thinking, writing and editing.

We have hired the services of an external facilitator to offer support in this for academic staff as part of the BRAD programme. Dr Nicola Cotton holds a First class honours degree in French and German from Wadham College, Oxford and has gained an MA and PhD at UCL. Nicola is a fully qualified teacher and has been lecturing at university level since 1992. She has worked as a research assistant at UCL for the Vice-Provost and also as Editor for Asian Advertising and Marketing Magazine in Hong Kong. In her role as associate trainer Nicola combines her knowledge of research and language to deliver excellent training in writing for publication using the Think-Write approach

The session is on Friday 17th April 2015 08:45 – 16:30 on Talbot campus. There are limited spaces so please do ensure you get one by booking on the Organisational Development webpages.

BU successful in retaining EC HR Excellence in Research Award!

Research news

Good news – BU has been successful in retaining the European Commission HR Excellence in Research Award and is now one of 72 universities in the UK who have successfully passed their two-year review.

The Award demonstrates BU’s commitment to aligning process and practice to the UK Concordat to Support the Career Development of Researchers and therefore improving the working conditions and career development for research staff. In turn this will improve the quantity, quality and impact of research for the benefit of UK society and the economy. The two year review required BU to highlight the key achievements and progress we have made since we gained the Award in January 2013 and to outline the focus of our strategy, success measures and next steps for the following two years.

Key achievements made at BU since 2013 in support of this agenda include:

You can read our progress review and future action plan (2015-17) in full here: https://research.bournemouth.ac.uk/research-environment/research-concordat/

Since 2012 the EC have been exploring a ‘stronger’ implementation approach, including the potential for using quality standards and/or a more formal certification/accreditation process for HR management of researchers across Europe. Recently a new expert group has been appointed to further discussions and Vitae’s recent event, on 23 January, enabled Award holders to provide input into the current five-step process and moving towards a ‘quality assessment’. Detail and outcomes from the event can be found here.

Read the full announcement on the Vitae website here: https://www.vitae.ac.uk/news/72-uk-institutions-have-the-european-commission2019s-hr-excellence-in-research-award

NVivo – Advanced

Training

Day 2

Assumes these decisions have been made and focuses on analysing your data. And whereas day 1 is largely conceptual, day 2 is mainly practical and is quite technical. Most people understand that setting up your database correctly is paramount to getting a return on the time and energy expended in learning the software tool. Given that manual interpretive coding in NVivo is not really any faster than using a manual system as you still have to code line by line, the benefit of using NVivo is in the retrieval and reporting on codes. Day 2 therefore focuses on interrogating (querying in database terminology) and reporting on results so that findings can be supported with high quality outputs or appendices. Also, the ability to support your coding processes with coding tables for example, means that you can also demonstrate rigour in your methodology chapter which helps to establish your credibility as a researcher and make your findings trustworthy and plausible.

We have hired the services of an external facilitator to offer support in this for academic staff as part of the BRAD programme. Ben Meehan worked in industry for twenty six years. For the past thirteen years he has worked as an independent consultant in support of computer aided qualitative data analysis projects (CAQDAS). He is a QSR approved trainer and consultant. He has worked in all of the major universities and Institutes of Technology in Ireland and Northern Ireland. His work outside of the educational sector includes major global companies such as Intel where he consults in support of their on-going ethnographic research and the Centre for Global Health where he has recently worked in Tanzania, Malawi and Mozambique (2009) and in Ghana, Burkina Faso and Tanzania with the University of Heidelberg (2010) and Ethiopia for the Ethiopian Public Health Association (2011) and the Population Council, Zambia (2012). Apart from Africa, Ben regularly conducts workshops in Germany, France, UK, Northern Ireland, the US (Maryland, 2011, Yale, 2012) and Australia.

The session is on Tues 16th April 2015 09:00 – 17:00 on Talbot campus. There are limited spaces so please do ensure you get one by booking on the Organisational and Staff Development webpages.

NVivo – Introduction

Training

Day 1

Offers a rounded introduction to NVivo and focuses on the requisite management decisions one should make at the beginning of one’s project such as what is my data?

Should I code audio or transcripts and what are the advantages and limitations of either approach? How does the software work?

Why should I integrate my background information or demographics and what is auto-coding and how might it help to better understand my data and prepare it for the cycles of manual interpretive coding to follow?

How do I integrate my chosen methodological approach in using NVivo and reconcile it with the philosophical underpinnings to apply such methods as Grounded Theory, Discourse Analysis, Content Analysis, Thematic Analysis or Narrative Interpretive Methods as just some examples.

Day 1 has an emphasis on the conceptual although the afternoon session is more rooted in the practical. By the end of day 1, participants should be able to set-up an NVivo database, back it up, import their data, setup a coding structure and code their data to it and set up and integrate their demographics.

We have hired the services of an external facilitator to offer support in this for academic staff as part of the BRAD programme. Ben Meehan worked in industry for twenty six years. For the past thirteen years he has worked as an independent consultant in support of computer aided qualitative data analysis projects (CAQDAS). He is a QSR approved trainer and consultant. He has worked in all of the major universities and Institutes of Technology in Ireland and Northern Ireland. His work outside of the educational sector includes major global companies such as Intel where he consults in support of their on-going ethnographic research and the Centre for Global Health where he has recently worked in Tanzania, Malawi and Mozambique (2009) and in Ghana, Burkina Faso and Tanzania with the University of Heidelberg (2010) and Ethiopia for the Ethiopian Public Health Association (2011) and the Population Council, Zambia (2012). Apart from Africa, Ben regularly conducts workshops in Germany, France, UK, Northern Ireland, the US (Maryland, 2011, Yale, 2012) and Australia.

The session is on Tues 14th April 2015 09:00 – 17:00 on Talbot campus. There are limited spaces so please do ensure you get one by booking on the Organisational and Staff Development webpages.

Developing Professional Researcher Networks Workshop – 15th April 2015

Training

The aim of this workshop is to give for Early Career Researchers or PhD students (particularly final year students) skills to conduct effective professional networking conversations and to use networking as a tool for developing their professional networks.

Networking is recognised by established researchers and Academics as an essential tool for career development and professional advancement.

In contrast, research reveals that many Early Career Researchers feel very uncertain about networking, in respect to both the practical “how to do it” issues and the underlying, often values-based questions “Why it is important ?” and “Should I be doing this?”.

We will address various aspects of networking and develop the appropriate physical and mental skills necessary to improve our skill set in confident networking techniques.

Progress will be made through discussions and group exercises to develop essential skills, build confidence and overcome anxiety or blocks to performance.

As a result of this workshop participants will :

  • Increase their understanding of the professional importance of networking
  • Improve their ability to communicate confidently in networking conversations
  • Understand the importance of body language in effective communication
  • Have tools to deal with stress or anxiety related to networking
  • Have strategies to develop collaborations or increase visibility.

We have hired the services of an external facilitator to offer support in this for academic staff as part of the BRAD programme. Dr Margaret Collins has a 20+ year academic career background and uses her experience and subsequent training in theories such as Neuro-Linguistic Programming to deliver advice on how to increase personal effectiveness in these areas.

You sometimes have to invest a little time to free up more later on – the session on Weds 15th April 2015 09:30 – 12:30 on Talbot campus is a worthwhile investment. There are limited spaces so please do ensure you get one by booking on the Organisational and Staff Development webpages.

Code of Practice for the Employment and Development of Research Staff

Research news

I am delighted to share with you BU’s new Code of Practice for the Employment and Development of Research Staff. Research staff in this context are defined as staff with a primary responsibility to undertake research, including pre-and post-doctoral staff on fixed-term and open-ended contracts funded through limited period grants, named fellowships and sometimes institutional funds.

The code provides guidance on the University’s expectations for the recruitment, support, management and development of research staff in line with the Concordat to Support the Career Development of Researchers (2008) and the European Charter for Researchers (2005). It is relevant to research staff and their managers as well as to BU staff in general. It has been written by the University’s Research Concordat Steering Group and is one of the objectives from our action plan to further align BU’s policy and practice to the seven principles of the Concordat and to further improve the working environment for research staff at BU.

This is the first time that BU has had a code of practice specifically for research staff and the document acknowledges the valued contribution made by research staff to the research undertaken at BU. The further recognition of the value of research staff and the development of career opportunities for them are key matters on which we will continue to work.

Access information about BU’s work to embed the principles of the Concordat here: http://research.bournemouth.ac.uk/research-concordat/