In the past couple of weeks, we’ve hosted three groups of people in research support roles, to discuss how we can build and define research support professions across the University. We’ve also got a date for you to pencil in for the next open house event.

News

People make up an integral part of the Research Lifecycle Programme.

The “Define and build Manchester’s research support professions” project is about professionalising research support, therefore developing the wide range of Research Support roles, including Research Support Services, Library Research & Data Management and Research IT as professions at the University, with roles and responsibilities clearly defined and a visible career progression path for staff in both pre-award and post-award. This will work towards improving staff satisfaction, and ensure staff understand their role and their valuable contribution to University research.

During August, we hosted three focus group discussions to collect feedback and input from research support colleagues.

Divided into groups, participants from all faculties took part in individual and group exercises across 12 areas of change, ranging from recruitment and selection to career development and progression within the University.

If you attended the event, we’re especially keen to find out your thoughts and feedback. Email rlp@manchester.ac.ukwith your comments.

The information collected through these sessions will help us to create solutions and input to this project’s business case. It will also help us in prioritising long-term and short-term needs to meet yours and the University’s operational and strategic requirements. We’ll report on the outcomes in more detail in a future newsletter.

As ever, we want your involvement to help the programme work for you, so if you’d like to get involved in any of the change projects, you’re more than welcome to sign up:

• The change projects
• Get involved

Events

Mendeley Data – Tuesday 11 September

Research data management tools and services were identified as a major priority for researchers during the consultation for the Research Lifecycle Programme. To help address this, there will be an event on Tuesday 11 September, to demonstrate Mendeley Data, a new research data management platform.

• Register for the Mendeley Data event

Save the date – Tuesday 30 October

Our next open house event is planned for Tuesday 30 October at 1pm. The location and exact agenda are yet to be confirmed, but we expect to present an overview of the past few months’ activities within the programme, and the opportunity for you to ask questions. However, you don’t need to wait a couple of months to ask a question; get in touch if there’s something you want to know.

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