Academic Career Development Support

Format

It runs as a series of events, workshops, and disscussion sets, on separate days. It is supported by members of the Queen Mary research community and colleagues in the Careers and Enterprise team, and the Queen Mary Academy. 

Feb 2024 Pilot included: 

• 90-min Workshop: Funding Landscape and Finding Funding
• 90-min Workshop: Developing Your Research Profile and Intellectual Niche
• 90-min Workshop: Introduction to Research Fellowships
• 60-min Panel Discussion: Transitions to Independence

Currently under development (to be included in the next run planned for October/November 2024)

• Workshop: Developing your teaching skills
• Workshop: Next Steps and Action Planning
• We will be building in a buddy and small group support system along with this programme

In this workshop, we will go over how research funding works in the UK, and discuss the kinds of funding you should have on your radar, to help grow your research profile. We’ll examine a couple of research funding search tools you’ll get to try out. 

Running time: 90 minutes

Moving from working as a student or postdoc on your PI or group leader’s project to leading your research involves developing an independent line of enquiry, which, while it will be informed by your experience as a researcher, should introduce elements that are bespoke to your research interests.

In this workshop, we will discuss how you begin to establish your profile as independent researcher and begin to develop your intellectual niche, and how this is an essential part of establishing your fit within an academic (research) department.

Running time: 90 minutes 

Fellowships are a major source of research funding for postdoctoral researchers and offer fantastic career development opportunities for early-career academics.

In this workshop, we’ll talk about the qualities that funders look for in their fellowship candidates, and discuss how you can begin to develop your profile and networks to be competitive for these awards in future. We’ll build on discussions from the finding funding and intellectual niche sessions, and explore some of the fellowship programmes that are available to fund work in your discipline.

Running time: 90 minutes

You will hear from a panel of Queen Mary early-career researchers who have recently made the move to independent research as a fellow or as a new research group leader as well as other more senior researchers who help inform recruitment decisions for new academic researchers.

In this two-hour session, each panellist will tell you their story about moving from their postdocs to where they are now. The session will also allow you to ask the panel questions about their transitions beyond their postdoc, how they developed themselves to prepare for them, and practical advice on things like interviews and funding.

February 2024 Panel

• Dr Eftychia Solea - Lecturer in Statistics - Mathematical Sciences &  DERI - Digital Environment Research Institute
• Dr Natalya Chernyshova - Lecturer in Modern  European History - History
• Dr Suthesh Sivapalaratnam - Clinical Senior Lecturer - Blizard Institute - Immunobiology - DERI  & PHURI Precision Healthcare University Institute

September 2023 Panel

• Dr Özgen Deniz - Lecturer - Barts Cancer Institute
• Dr Ravinash Kumar - Lecturer - Engineering and Materials Science
• Dr Ana Sobrido - Professor - Engineering and Materials Science
• Dr Delfi Nieto-Isabel - Lecturer - History
• Dr Ros Hannen - Lecturer Blizard Institute - Founder/CEO of Keratify

Running time: 60-90 minutes

Following feedback from our pilot run in Jan/Feb 2024, we will be piloting these new additions to this programme in the summer of 2024, but will relaunch as an integratedpart of the programme in Oct/Nov 2024.

• Workshop 4: Gaining Teaching Experience as a postdoc
• Workshop 5: Putting it all together and planning next steps
• Each session will have an increase of 30 mins, intended to be guarded time for you to discuss the day's session with either
  • A Buddy - a 1-to-1 pairing we will set up for you at the beginning of the programme, likely with someone from a similar research disipline to you. This is a person who you will get to speak with often, and whom you will turn to for accountability in taking the next planning steps you agree to in Workshop 5
  • A home group - this will be a small group of 5-6 people from mixed research backgrounds. You'll be set up with this group for any group work during the programme. This group will help you troubleshoot issues and problems.