Researcher Workshop Series

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A series of unique and interesting workshops have been organised throughout early March, designed for Researchers to improve aspects of their career that may not have been considered before. Hugh Kearns works with researchers, academics, PhD students, and many other high performers to help them complete their research faster and with less stress. It is expected that the workshops to be popular and places will be limited, so please register early and make sure that you will be able to attend.

Workshop: Defeating Self-sabotage
Date: 02/03/2014
Time: 09:30-12:30
Description: Do you find that despite your best efforts to ‘work on your thesis’ or get your research output going it just doesn’t seem to be happening? Does there always seem to be something more urgent, interesting or important to do? Perhaps you are self-sabotaging. If you think you procrastinate, are a perfectionist, don’t say no often enough, are disorganised or are always ‘busy’, this seminar will help you to understand why your thesis or research isn’t getting done and what you can do about it.

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Workshop: Presenting your Research with Confidence
Date: 03/03/2014
Time: 09:30-12:30
Description: If you’re a researcher then at some stage you are going to have to present your findings. It’s tempting to get up and just read your paper, but to really speak to your audience you need to be able to communicate skilfully and with conviction. We’ve all been to dull presentations so it’s worth your while spending a little time to learn how to do it properly.

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Workshop: The Balanced Researcher
Date: 03/03/2014
Time: 13:30 – 17.00
Description: So you’re a researcher. Chances are then, you are pretty busy. Firstly, there is your research. Proposals. Ethics. Paperwork. Meetings. Applying for grants. Getting grants, then managing the money and the people. Writing reports. And that is all before you even get to the actual research. You probably have a family or friends, you may have social commitments and, who knows, you may even have some personal interests! This workshop will describe the most useful strategies that thousands of researchers have found helpful in balancing the many demands on their time.

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Workshop: The Imposter Syndrome
Date: 04/03/2014
Time: 13:30 – 17:00
Description: How can it be that so many clever, competent and capable people can feel that they are just one step away from being exposed as a complete fraud? Despite evidence that they are performing well they can still have that lurking fear that at any moment someone is going to tap them on the shoulder and say “We need to have a chat”. This workshop will look at what the latest psychological research has to tell us about ‘The Imposter Syndrome’ and more importantly some strategies for dealing with it.

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ResearchFish (ROS Replacement): RCUK Roadshows

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Many of you may already know that ROS (Research Outcomes System) is being retired by RCUK and they are now harmonising across all research councils by implementing ResearchFish (https://www.researchfish.com/)

For those of you who are not familiar with either of these systems, they exist to help research funders track the impacts of their investments and allow researchers to easily log the outcomes of their work (in an ideal world at least). All RCUK funders will be using this new system (AHRC, BBSRC, EPSRC, ESRC, MRC, NERC & STFC) so I expect this will have an impact on many of you in department.

As there was some confusion and unhappiness with ROS, the previous system, I strongly recommend that you attend one of the sessions outlined below, to find out more about this new system and raise questions about any future concerns you may have.

Monday 6th October
Hilton London Euston
17-18 Upper Woburn Place, Bloomsbury
London,
WC1H 0HT

Tuesday 7th October
Mercure Manchester Piccadilly Hotel
Piccadilly Plaza, Portland St
Manchester, M1 4PH

Wednesday 8th October
Novotel Edinburgh Centre
80 Lauriston Place
Edinburgh, EH3 9DE

If you would like to attend one of these roadshows then please email roh@rcuk.ac.uk with the following information:

  • Your name and job title
  • Organisation name
  • Date you would like to attend
  • Any dietary or mobility requirements

If you would like the day to cover the following topics:

  • Why outcome data needs to be collected
  • Examples of how outcome data has been used
  • Researchfish demonstration
  • What other organisations use Researchfish
  • Future plans for outcomes collection
  • Questions and answer session
  • Whether there is anything else you would like RCUK to talk about

Workshop: Introduction to Research Funding

This is a message to researchers and new academics alike who may currently be sitting at their desk wondering the following:

a)      What does Kelly actually do?
b)      Why does she keep sending me all these emails?
c)       What does it all mean?

I regularly speak to many of you and I am aware that there is a definite need for the academic funding landscape and my role here to be clarified, so I have set up a workshop.

Taking place in 2 weeks’ time, Introduction to Research Funding will be aimed at people with little or no experience of the funding landscape or of applying for their own funding. The session will include:

  • Who I am and what I do
  • An overview of the funding landscape for Computer Scientists
  • Demystifying the jargon
  • The types of funding available to you
  • What the internal processes are (departmental and divisional) when applying for funding
  • Costings: how they’re calculated and what they look like
  • The chance to see genuine applications from department

The workshop is taking place on 7 November from 12.30-2pm in room 441 and I’ve just been told I can order lunch for everybody. Huzzah!

So, what’s not to like? You have the opportunity to learn how to further your research career AND you get lunch.

Places are limited and you must book with me via email if you wish to attend.

New Research Identifier Solution Launched

This weeks sees the launch of the Open Researcher and Contributor Identifier (ORCID).

There are more academic articles being published than ever before and more authors working together. In order to be able to identify an author correctly a unique identifier is needed that can then link to each author’s publications. ORCID provides this link and if widely used would:

  • Ensure researchers get credit for their own work
  • Ensure researchers and learners looking for information will be able to find academic papers more accurately
  • Enable better management of researcher publication records, making it easier for them to create CVs, reduce form filling and improve reporting to funders
  • Create a means of linking information between institutions and systems internationally
  • Enable researchers to keep track of their own work with funders, publishers and institutions around the world.

It also provides researchers with their own ORCID. Researchers are able to control how much information it holds about them and who that is shared with. The adoption of ORCID is a solution to the current challenges of being able to search for work accurately. By researchers volunteering to adopt its usage it could improve discoverability and accurate referencing.

Neil Jacobs, programme director, Jisc comments: “We welcome the consensus that has been achieved on this issue, which should pave the way for better research systems, less work for researchers re-keying details, and more efficient operations across the sector.  We recognise that this is only the start and that work needs to be done to implement ORCID in the UK.  However, we have a solid beginning and we look forward to working with our partners across the sector to build on it.”

Alongside Jisc, the organisations below are encouraging the adoption of ORCID:

  • The Association of Research Managers and Administrators (ARMA)
  • The Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE)
  • The Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA)
  • Research Councils UK (RCUK)
  • The Universities and Colleges Information Systems Association (UCISA)
  • The Wellcome Trust.

Find out more about ORCID on Jisc’s website or visit ORCID.