Early Researcher Development Programme

Skills Development at Bangor University

The Early Researcher Development Programme (ERDP) is Bangor University’s response to the training requirements of the Research Councils. Originating as the Joint Skills statement in 2001, and now the Researcher Development Statement in 2010, the training programme emphasises the importance of developing personal and professional transferable skills alongside the research skills and techniques necessary for your postgraduate study and research. The operational framework of the RDS, the Vitae Researcher Development Framework (RDF) represents a major UK approach to build on researcher development, develop world class researchers and build our research base.

The ERDP is co-ordinated by the Academic Development Unit (ADU) in the School of Education and Lifelong Learning and is delivered as a partnership between the ADU and academic Schools and Colleges. All training opportunities are offered free of charge to all early career researchers at Bangor, regardless of their source of funding. However for credit bearing modules, there is a charge to your School. Registration for modular courses requires your supervisor’s agreement.

We appreciate that there is significant diversity in the research methods and approaches in different disciplines, and also in the prior experience of research students and their modes of attendance (full-time, part-time, and distance-learning). Therefore, we offer a flexible programme that you can tailor to your individual needs and to the needs of your research project.

If you have any questions or suggestions regarding the training and workshops offered please contact the Research Skills Development Coordinator, Michele Underwood on m.underwood@bangor.ac.uk

Planning your Skills Development

Your skills development should be planned, organised and coordinated in the same way that you would manage your research project. You need to be actively involved in a cycle of self-evaluation, target setting, action planning and reviewing.

At Bangor we have provided you with a tool to enable you to identify your training needs. It should be reviewed, ideally every six months, enabling you to measure your development and identify gaps in your training. The Training Needs Analysis is based upon the four domains of the Researcher Development Framework: Domains A- D. The TNA document contains one table for each of the domains of the RDF.

Each domain identifies knowledge, behaviours and attitudes to encourage you to aspire to excellence through achieving higher levels of development.

The TNA document allows you to evidence your development and skills and can be invaluable for structuring student/ supervisor meetings, building your CV or for use in interviews.

Also available to help you evaluate your training needs is the RDF Professional Development Planner. There is also a screencast which will talk you through the process. See

http://www.vitae.ac.uk/policy-practice/383571/RDF-Professional-Development-Planner-screencast.html

The Early Researcher Development Programme Gazette 2011-2012 lists courses, workshops and the Training Needs Analysis document.

For workshops and modular courses for the session Spring/Summer 2012 please see Early Researcher Development Programme Summer 2012