Research Staff Co-Ordinators and their Roles

Research Staff Co-Ordinators and their Roles Terry Threadgold, PVC for Staff

A Number of Possible Support Roles • Across Schools at Cardiff, support for research staff maybe organised through a number of roles. These will vary in their precise organisation from place to place. • The Co-ordinator of Research Staff may be the Head of School or the Director of Research as well as someone with the title of co-ordinator of research staff.

The Director of Postgraduate Research Students will almost certainly be involved in some aspects of the support provided to research staff: e.g., training and support within schools, research methods training and so on.

Whoever does it, certain kinds of support should be provided • Scheduled probation meetings in the first year of appointment and appraisal thereafter. • These meetings, along with meetings with PIs running research projects, should establish any training needs and ensure that the training is provided. • They should also of course help with future career directions by providing a safe context in which to discuss career development and future career prospects, as well as any difficulties the staff member maybe encountering.

Belonging in a School • As staff members within schools, research staff should have access to the proceedings of school research committees and PhD committees, at least as agendas and minutes. • Not all schools have separate committees for these areas. Many schools support research staff membership of such committees. This is usually a very useful way to provide feedback through the relevant chair, to the school, about support for research staff. All schools should do this.

Many schools also encourage research staff to join other committees and to hold other offices: e.g., Eco champion. • Providing leadership and management training for PIs, as we have done this year, and will continue to do, should improve performance across the institution in relation to the management support of all research staff.

Whoever the research staff coordinator is, they should also be ensuring that research staff are included in the research organisation of the school: e.g., with access to research groups, in-house research training, conference and other kinds of staff development support, and information about what is available in the graduate schools for example.

Research Staff Co-ordinators may also help to monitor new research initiatives in the school and encourage research staff to apply for new positions or build them in to new research proposals. • The down-side of this can be that other early stage researchers (e.g., PhD students) actually begin to feel that they are excluded.

Fixed-Term Contracts • These will normally be discussed in meetings with PIs, the Co-ordinator of research Staff or the Head of School. These are the people who deal with the very necessary paperwork and paper trail that goes with this territory. • You should always feel able to ask about your contract in a probation or appraisal meeting as well - and to discuss the likelihood of contract renewals or ends. This allows you to be planning your next career move in ways which you can control, especially if there is little likelihood that a contract will be renewed.

Support for research staff to publish and be named as authors on research reports, with access to publishable material from projects, is also crucial if staff are to develop CVs which will take them further in the academy. • Encouragement to begin to apply for grants as PI should follow: but we do have some work to do to establish exactly when that is appropriate and with which funders.

Positive Working Environment • As this is rolled out in the new year, we would expect all of its relevant provisions to support research staff within the university. E.g., : • Training and Development (as above). • Good management and career advice. • Access to staff counselling and dignity advisors and information about grievance and complaints procedures should these ever be necessary.

PWE • Access to physical and virtual space of kinds, and in ways, which allow the achievement of goals and targets. • A fair and positive working experience where all staff are treated with dignity and respect.

Services to Support Researchers Representatives from: Careers Service Human Resources Research and Commercial Division Staff Counselling Service Community Engagement Team Information Services Cardiff UCU

Services to Support Researchers Also stands on • UKGRAD publication ‘What do PhDs Do?’ • Researchers in Residence programme

Research Staff Co-Ordinators and their Roles