Researcher Development Framework

The New Researcher Development Framework is in the final phase of consultation.

http://www.vitae.ac.uk/CMS/files/upload/Vitae_ResearchersSkills_Oct09.pdf

 

It is more comprehensive and detailed than the Joint Skills Statement that it replaces and subsumes.

 

It groups the qualities ‘skills’, ‘competences’ into 4 ‘Domains’

 

The neutral word ‘Descriptors’ is being used in place of the working term ‘attributes’ that people may have seen in earlier drafts. Attributes was itself a response to criticisms of the word ‘skills’

 

The domains re-order the JSS groupings.

 

The new element is that the descriptors relate to growing and changing ‘skills’ throughout the ‘phases’ of a career. Five phases are identified from ‘New Researcher’ to ‘Eminent Researcher’

 

	New R	R	Established R	Advanced R	Eminent R
Professional and Intellectual Knowledge Cognitive Creativity
Personal Effectiveness Qualities Self organising Career
Research Organisation and Governance Conduct Project management Funding and resources
Impact and Influence communicating Teams and leadership Context Application

 

Each box has a brief text and ‘beneath’ this text is a richer array of material derived from the research  process where researchers themselves were describing their job.

 

Vitae and the development team led by Pam de Nicolo describe the RDF as ‘a tool for supporting and promoting personal and professional development’ and seemed less comfortable with the notion of it being an ‘appraisal’ tool – no doubt because of the internal political issues around appraisal.

EMBL – European Bioinformatics Institute Open Day

3/11/09 Notes

EBI is the Bioinformatics wing of EMBL the European Microbiology Laboratory

Voyage of discovery to the ‘Genome Campus’ at Hinxton just south of Cambridge. The site is shared with the Sanger institute which unlike EBI does have wet labs.

The day was mainly targeted at Masters students with a view to introducing and promoting the PhD scheme. Manchester University sent a whole group of students from their Bio-informatics course on the day.

We learnt about the way that Biology was changing with what was described as a ‘tsunami’ of data from studies not just of individual genes and enzymes but of entire biological systems and sequences. EBI acts as a depository for this data and is committed to making it freely available to researchers. They are guardians not owners of the data. Some of this colleaction is integrated with the peer review and publication process.

EMBL has 1400 staff – 1100 of them scientists on sites in Germany, France, Italy and UK. It has to bid for its funding streams (like everyone else). It is an intergovernmental research organisation (similar to CERN)

EBI provides services to the scientific community but also does its own research. There are 7 research groups and 2 new ones are in the process of setting up.

The interview process for joining the PhD programme lasts for 3-5 days – can involve travel between the various European sites – all of which is paid for.

65% of PhD alumni stay in science.

PhDs are successful in publishing at least one paper during their PhD and the average is 2.

The PhD is 3.5 – 4 years.

Application is by self-selection – you do not have to be recommended.

The key here is a relish for interdisciplinarity

Postdocs are recruited on a more ad-hoc basis though there is a programme of Interdisciplinary postdocs called EIPODs which recruits about 20+ annually. Career for life? No-one can work at EMBL for more than 9 years!

Who attends training?

Answer: the best trained people. I was talking to a consultant this week about attendance at RDP sessions. She observed that – from her experience – voluntary approaches to training mean that the people who really need the training don’t go. They do not know what they do not know.

I remeber seeing someone who had just delivered a presentation at his schools research showcase. He had not won a prize -which may be relevant – but he said: Its all bullshit, isn’t it?  Actually, this individual had pretended to know an answer to a question at the end of this talk – and had looked slightly foolish when this became apparent. So I thought ( but disappointingly didn’t say)  ITS not bullshit – but what you said WAS. This chap will not be doing presentation training- though he clearly needed it.

Forms of compulsion have been tried, but are rather a blunt instrument. Some Phd students are not really students at all but experienced professionals for whom the Phd is part of a broader careers strategy. Requiring these to do things appropriate to someone straight from their bachelors is probably not very smart. Nevertheless, you do see such people on the training courses; no matter how good they are they see the need to get better.

Freebie Training course

 We got two places on a new training programme offered by a new company who are hoping to train students interested in Investment Banking. We don’t really approve of money-making courses aimed at impecunious students – not a great business model either i can’t help but feel: “why not market this product to people who have no  money and large debts”

Any way the students loved it. See below

BHS Student

The IB session was brilliant. It was an excellent day course and I have learnt a lot, not just about the world of finance but what is expected as an interviewee. In addition, it was excellent knowing the wealth of experience, advice and backing there was. Not just from the teacher but his collgues who all work in specalist fields.

 

As I have a biological background, my knowledge of IB was very limited but over the course of a day my knowledge greatly increased.

 After the course I believe working in IB or management consultancy is the right direction for me to go.

 Thank you for passing on my name and helping me get on the course.

 

PSE Student

The IB session was brilliant – I would highly recommend it to anyone interested in finance. Thank you very much for giving me that opportunity.

 Thank you also for keeping me updated on the events (and if it’s possible, I’d appreciate the continuing support & information).

Vitae Conference – canoes and canowledge

Fragment of memory: The natives of a small pacific island need to make canoes to fish and trade. They could make a canoe in a few hours, but they don’t.They take several days. They eat, they celebrate, they spin it out. You see, for them. ItS NOT JUST ABOUT THE CANOES.

I have just returned from a canoe making at Wawick University. It was good. I guess I bring back some knowledge, but mainly I met canoe makers, and now I know that I am not alone in my canoe. I have a paddle and I know how to use it. Each paddle stroke has the force of a 100 other paddlers, which is good because at my age my paddle stroke has been weakening, my fingers losing their power to grip.

There is a knowledge overload problem at conferences – loads of new stuff / too little time to process it. And for me, no processing means little remembering. I met some peope at session 1 whom I never saw subsequently – or perhaps I did but did not recognise them. And were the 2 facilitators both pregnant – or was that the way their tops hung over their tummies.

‘Plenaries’ is a lovely word and we had – new to me – half plenaries. Should that have been semi-plenaries really? Honestly, a classical education can ruin your life. Cavernous rooms where several hundred people sat around enormous circular tables. A great way to accidentally start talking to people, even though you fail to remember their names or what they said, or what you said, or what they looked like. Face recognition – is there anything I can do about it?

 

What about all this moving betwen classrooms frequently in the course of a packed day? What does it remind you of? School. That was what school was like. Difference being that in conferences they put fairly unpleant coffee at the back of the room and no-one misbehaved. Conferences are places for swots.

The social events are always a trial for me – being as i am in the bottom third of the networking capabilities population.

(to be continued….

Vitae Conference

Last week was the very enjoyable Vitae Conference. Lovely to spend time with colleagues who share the same pre-occupations and frustrations .

My stand-out moment was an address by George Walker on a project on how to improve the doctorate. It was not so much what he said as the way that he said it:- full of quiet humour and wisdom

Most attractive was his focus on improving ‘the doctorate’ by understanding it. What were the ‘habit of mind’ that were essential to researchers. Was there a pedagogy of research? Did ‘Faculty’ know and agree what they were doing with thier PhD students? Did they agree on the future of their discipline? (No).

Lovely phrases and ideas: Faculty are the ‘Stewards of their discipline’

They engaged in ‘Unnatural acts of self examination’ how resonant that is for those of us trying to get people to self-examine.

Scholarship segregated is scholarship impoverished.

One of the implications of interdisciplinarity is that you work with others whose knowledge you are unable to evaluate.

Notions of community – intellectual community. Students should not be apprenticed to a faculty mentor- but to several mentors.

I will be pondering these thoughts for a while – and they will help me in keeping focus in my training sessions this term.

Good session on the challenges of working with International staff.

Apparently, at Oxford 40% of academic staff are overseas citizens and <60% of PhD students. top country of origin at nearly 1500 academic researchers and teachers: China. USA surprisingly low at 510.

Newcastle seem to be developing a useful Careers Management framework for academic staff – Attendees at this workshop left in envy of the set-up there.

I went to a session exploring views on the assessment of skill devlopment training. Dubious but  -you know what they say: What does not get measured does not get done.

 

The senior civil servant got away with saying as little as possible a masterclass in the Sir Humphrey school of ‘opinion avoided’. That s their job, i suppose.

What else? Do we iunderstand the impact of digital scholarship form the OU? Answer: no.

The importance of continued research in non-research-intensive universities – a very political and persuasive case made here from Plymouth . 

The Peter Hawkins was OK -if you like that sort of thing which – on the whole I don’t. Squeezing balloons into a box might be a satisfying objective correlative – but it makes me feel uncomfortable.

Night mares – going into dinner with no special friend to sit with. I feel the fear and do it anyway. This tiem I avoided Stephen Tarling who has a wide array of party games and conundrums which make me feel extremely stupid ( a mirror or a distorting mirror?) though my King’s colleagues were on a table doing preciselty this sort of thing. They stayed long adfter everyone had departed.

Also the fear of blanking people whom I know well because I have terrible facial recall. Sorreeee

Failing to get a decent lunch on day 1. You had to mug the waiters to get a tiny pot of food. I now know what ducks feel like in ponds where breadcumbs are thrown.

Enough for now. These fragments I have shored against my ruin.

Skills of a PhD

This was an article I started but did not finish. I really like the personal stateement which does the job of summarising the skills gained on a PhD very well.

You wouldn’t want to employ a PhD in your business would you?

 

Overqualified, too many years at college – so divorced from the everyday realities of  work, a bit geeky, a bit sad, a bit scary, too intellectual, ignorant of what a deadline is, knowing rather too much about stuff that no-one cares very much about.

 

That’s a bit of a stereotype, but lots of people will have come across a PhD who exemplifies at least one of those characteristics. But are they typical? And if an employer writes them off, is he/she missing out on a really important source of talent?

 

I have been working with Phd students for a number of years now so I have seen them at close quarters.

 

Time management. Three years to write a book. Put like that it seems like a leisurely process. It isn’t. PhD’s face and meet deadlines on an ongoing basis. It might be about preparing a piece of writing for the regular meeting with the supervisor, or preparing a submission to the research ethics committee so you can start your experimental programme. Writing a poster for a conference. If your experiment involves growing some cells in a particular way over a particular period then you have to make it happen and be there to observe and record it. And because cells have a habit of doing stuff in their own sweet and unexpected way you have to be ready to change tack. University labs are open 24/7 so students can come in to look after their experiments which tends to build another key competence: flexibility

 

Resilience would be another requirement for most jobs. One experienced Biology PhD supervisor ( a kind of mentor /  manager) told me that in his field 90% of what he  tries does not work. Think of what that means in terms of resilience, patience and application. You are working through 90% of failure looking to find that 10% of success.

 

Independent: PhD students are self starters. They don’t do a course as such. They have to scope out their area of research, examine how it fits with the existing knowledge, create testable hypotheses and then go and test them.

 

Team player: A lot of the PhD is done by the student. Its THEIR PhD and they have to make things happen. But there is a lot of opportunity for collaboration

 

 

 

 

 

 

I have completed a PhD in pharmacology at Kings College London. My research into specific pathways and processes in inflammation was managed independently, with minimal guidance. Working in a multidisciplinary team environment meant I could broaden my technical skills and share my knowledge and discoveries with others. Formal and informal meetings within the department allowed me to hone my creative and lateral thinking. I embraced any opportunities to work with external collaborators and found that the planning, organisation and high quality assurance of these projects were all second nature to me. 

 

The most enjoyable aspect of my PhD was learning and optimising new techniques. This requires analysis of large quantities of data with relevant computer software and recovering important information. I also discovered my affinity for mentoring; I have given specialist tutorials and supervised fellow PhD students through their projects, giving positive criticism and recommendations.

 

In addition, I have presented and defended my work at international scientific meetings and contributed to several publications. Thus, demonstrating my ability to summarise complex data and develop a consistent argument.

PhD students at Towers Perrin

My colleague John Childs did a visit to this Actuarial and HR consultancy this week. Here are his brief notes. Top line – PhD students very welcome to apply. ( vacancies in the HR practice.

 

Their business is split into two main areas: Human Capital (Employee Benefit Services, Executive Compensation & Rewards and International Survey Research) and Risk & Financial Services (Life Insurance and General Insurance)

They have announced a merger with Watson Wyatt, but this still needs to be completed, so both companies will continue to recruit separately in the coming  year.

They employ graduates into two main roles – Actuarial Analysts and HR Associates. They expect to recruit 4 graduates into the Actuarial roles – these people would need to be highly numerate, probably studying Maths or a mathematical subject. They are looking to recruit 9 graduates into the HR roles and, although their standards are high (First or 2.1 plus 340 UCAS points), they are much more open about subjects studied – however, they do look for people with strong analytical skills.

 Their selection process is rigorous, starting with a points based screening of forms, an HR telephone interview, an HR face to face interview and an assessment day. None of the 11 King’s students who applied last year got past the application form screening!

They are recruiting an increasing number of PhD students. They do not pay a premium, but expect them to progress more quickly because they have developed their research skills.

They advise people to apply early and not to wait until the deadline of December. Last year they had 755 applicants, interviewed 236, assessed 72 and offered 9 positions.

Starting salaries for 2010 will be up to £33,000.

They encourage and support their staff to pass their professional exams quickly – study materials and leave, tutorials, etc.

The HR graduates both mentioned the importance of Project Management skills/experience - this would clearly be worth covering in detail on the application form and in answer to interview questions.

Filling in a form for Assistant Psychologist Job

Lots of the students in Psychology disciplines talk about the difficulty of getting a job as an assistant psychologist. Here is an example of some instructions for applying for a post.

PERSON SPECIFICATION

Job title: – Assistant Clinical Psychologist

PLEASE NOTE: special instructions for completing the application form.

We anticipate a high number of applications for this post, which will make it impossible for us to read long entries in the “Supporting Information” section.  For our initial screening, we will read only the first SIXTEEN LINES of your “Supporting Information”, which must be laid out as follows.

Eight of the criteria below are marked with an asterisk (*).  At the beginning of your “Supporting Information” you must provide succinct evidence to show how you meet these eight criteria (you may not meet them all).  This may be in note form, as long as it is clear.  Refer to each criterion by number, start a new line for each criterion, and use no more than SIXTEEN LINES in total. 

Wherever possible, please give an example of something that you have DONE which illustrates how you have applied or acquired the skill or quality.  For example:

2:  AP on LD team for 6 months; delivered some individual CBT and
psycho-ed group interventions.

5: presented psychological assessment results to medical and nursing colleagues; co-facilitated support group for self-harming adolescent inpatients.

Space limitations will not permit you to list here all of your relevant experience, so you will need to choose the examples that best demonstrate how you meet the criterion.

We will use this initial information to shortlist approximately 40 applications.  If your application is included in this initial shortlist, the rest of your form will then be read thoroughly, including any other text that you have included in your “Supporting Information”, in order to shortlist further for interview.

Psychometric Testing

Friday was psychometric testing day. Its never been very popular – and today, true to form, 4 students. They get a battery of 3 tests and are scored and normed against a population of UK undergrad and postgrad students.

What surprised is how positive the students were about the whole experience. They thought that it should be made compulsory! I think they liked the inherent drama of the timed test which is very difficult to  finish.

I explained that for most firms this kind of test was increasingly done on-line, although it is quite common for candidates who do well enough to be invited for a selection centre to be re-tested to see if it was actually them who did the test not their much cleverer friend. Identity fraud being all too easy in the cyber-world.