[c]

• Publication
• Mentoring
• Work-based and ‘off-the-job’ training
• Work-based development methods
• Formal learning
• Leisure/Voluntary

 

Publication

Gaining a publication record is essential for research staff, especially those who are committed to pursuing an academic career (although assumptions about which staff these are should not be made!). There are several different approaches to assigning authorship in operation in the Social Sciences including:

• listing authors alphabetically
• ‘hierarchy’ in the project (i.e. Principal Investigators are listed first). This is one strategy for improving the chances of a paper getting published
• listing authors according to the amount of writing that they have contributed to the publication
• including all of the project team (including administrative staff) in the author listing
• listing authors according to the impact that the publication will have on their career profile

It is good practice to establish ethical and procedural guidance on how to determine authorship of publications arising from the project at the outset, since the lack of any agreed policy on authorship can result in problems.

Mentoring

Mentoring is a very powerful tool for professional development and often has huge benefits for the mentor as well as the mentee.

Research Team Leaders can often find themselves in an unofficial ‘mentoring’ role in relation to members of their research team, offering advice on career options, feedback on writing drafts, conference presentations etc.

Some institutions may also offer research staff the opportunity to engage in more formal mentoring arrangements. These can differ in their form and purpose:

• non-directive: Research staff can be paired up with mentors who are often from other departments of the University. The role of the mentor is to listen to the mentee, to act as a ‘sounding board’ and to ask the right questions to encourage their mentee to find a way forward. The mentor’s role is not to advise the mentee on a particular course of action.
• directive: This type of mentoring can be based on a particular aspect of the researcher’s work (e.g. writing for publication, career development) or it can be more general in nature. The researcher is normally paired up with someone in the same or a similar department or discipline as the mentor’s role is to provide advice and guidance. It is not always advisable for the mentor to be the Research Team Leader.

Of course there is no ‘pure’ form of mentoring and in reality most mentoring encounters contain elements of both non-directive and directive mentoring.

In most cases the duration and frequency of the mentoring is usually agreed by both parties in advance. For example, meetings might take place for an hour once a month over a 6-month period. Training on mentoring is usually provided for the mentor and sometimes for the mentee too.

Please check with your own institution for local arrangements.

Work-based and ‘off-the-job’ training

Although a course may sometimes be effective way of developing researchers’ skills, there are many work-based as well as leisure activities that can facilitate personal and professional development. Some general examples are given below and more specific examples of how particular skills might be strengthened can be found in Resource 'Whose Responsibility is it to Develop Research Staff?'

Work-based development methods

• Practice and reflection
• Work shadowing – observing and discussing a role or job of potential interest to you
• Collaborative working
• Teaching other people
• Giving an internal seminar
• Observing other colleagues
• Giving presentations to your research group
• Organising/attending/chairing meetings
• Giving and asking for feedback
• Carrying out delegated tasks
• Writing bids
• Costing out sections of a proposal
• Ordering equipment
• Preparing minutes at meetings
• Networking
• Teaching

Formal learning

• Attending a course – internal or external to the institution
• Reading
• On-line learning

Leisure/Voluntary

• Membership of clubs/teams/committees
• Voluntary work
• Fund-raising