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Managing Research Projects

Managing Research Projects

Whose Responsibility is it to Develop Research Staff?

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The Revised Concordat was published in June 2008 and contains seven principles that the major research funders and UUK have agreed to follow.

However, research staff must take a role in leading and driving their own professional development. They are often in the best position to judge the areas of the project where they will need support and training:

(i) to learn or perfect a new technique or
(ii) to increase their personal effectiveness.

They may also know what they want to achieve in their career in the mid and longer term and so may be able to ‘spot’ opportunities within the project to help them on their way.

Although the research team leader is often not the line manager of members of their project team, they are managing the researcher in respect of the research project. As such they have a devolved responsibility for their development within the context of the research project. This is true even when the researcher is based at a different institution or in a different country.

The key to enabling research staff to feel able to engage in professional development is to provide a climate of trust and respect in which they can share their concerns and weaknesses and discuss their career aspirations and plans. Techniques for doing this might include:

1. Skills

  • Map out the skills required for the project.
  • Ask researchers to map their skills to the required skills.
  • Ask for volunteers to undertake training and development to meet the skills ‘gaps’.

This approach has the advantage of shifting the focus to strengths rather than weaknesses.

2. Preliminary team meeting

  • Use an early meeting for the team to share their strengths and weaknesses.
  • The research team leader needs to go first and to be open and honest about what they do well and what they do less well!
  • The ‘end result’ needs to be a collective understanding of what the team does well, what it does less well and areas that need to be developed.

This approach requires courage on the part of the research team leader and the research team. However, it can have huge benefits in helping to build trust and respect within the team.

3. Continuing team meetings

  • Meet research staff regularly and talk to them about their career plans as well as encouraging them to review their progress on the project.
  • Celebrate success and achievements as well as jointly identifying areas for improvement.

If the research team leader has a good rapport with the researcher, it may be easier to get that person to ‘open up’ one-to-one than in a group.

professional development