What is Researcher Development at the University of Glasgow?

'Researcher Development’ refers to all the training, activities, conversations and reflective work that researchers undertake to enrich their skills and working relationships, foster their talents, and accelerate their professional prospects.

The University of Glasgow's multi-disciplinary Researcher Development Team is led by Dr Joanna Royle, and based in the Research Services Directorate. We offer a wide spectrum of opportunities to PGRs, Research Staff, their Supervisors and PIs. These range from short courses, to inductions, mentoring, public engagement, peer communities, conferences, writing festivals, leadership programmes, tutorials and more. Even more than that, we support researchers to understand that they can learn from a huge range of different people and players – learning the unwritten rules of research life through their university and global communities, and informal day-to-day conversations.

To achieve this integrated approach to formal and informal development, and guided by the priorities of Collaboration, Creativity, and Careers set out in the Research Strategy, we collaborate with a wide range of people and teams to create a development ecology, that enables researchers to access the tailored opportunities and support they most need. We align our provision with the national Vitae Researcher Development Framework which describes the attributes of successful researchers, and to that we add our own innovative ‘whole culture’ approach.

We understand that research thrives when researchers feel that they are part of an engaging fair, and collegial environment in which people help each other to succeed. We value not only individual research successes, but how those successes are achieved as a community. The Researcher Development Team and the Research Culture Team work take a unified approach, with the researcher experience of the University of Glasgow at its core.