Co-chairs update – Spring 2017
Well, since taking over co-chair duties in February it’s certainly been a busy time! Hence this spring update coming to you in July (just!).
We’ve had a lot going on, and that really started in March with the response to the Stern report that we submitted to HEFCE at the end of the month. We surveyed researchers across the UK about the plans to change REF in the upcoming 2021 round. It was clear from the responses that many of us were concerned about plans to limit portability of papers, causing a massive upheaval in the way tenure-track contracts are courted by researchers looking for permanence during the current cycle. For a full discussion of our response to REF please read Adina’s bog here! HEFCE are now starting to publish the responses and their plans on how they will coordinate their plans in response. Please do take time to read their report on portability and be sure to email your thoughts to ukrsavitae@gmail.com. Plans are now afoot to coordinate our response to the response and we need your views!
Next up was the fantastic March for Science held across the globe as a response to concerns that experts’ opinions are being ignored in favour of populism. Whilst not all our members are scientists, it was felt that UKRSA members want to support an open and accessible network of researchers across fields. More can be read here.
The last couple of months have seen a boom in researchers joining the committee, and first of all we’d like to welcome our new members from the Midlands, Yorkshire and Scotland, and ask that anyone interested in joining us please do get in touch! We especially need members from the South East! It is fantastic that we are getting so many new members, but really highlights the need for a group to support researchers. If you know of any researchers facing problems, please do put them in touch with us, and we will see if we can help!
That is exactly what Anna did some years ago now, and we are very excited to say that the results from her consultation of parental leave for contract research staff are going to be announced in September at the upcoming Vitae conference! She even wrote a blog post for us, which is available here! Which brings us neatly to the current source of our busy-ness…the Vitae conference. This is a two-day conference, predominantly for researcher developers (our best friends!) to identify ways to support researchers and discuss how changes in the field affect us. This year UKRSA will be well-represented, with workshops from outgoing co-chair Anna Slater, presenting her findings on the requirements and provisions of parental leave; co-chairs Lucy Thorne and Louise Stephen discussing the importance of research networks and how they can be better maintained; and former co-chair Emma Compton-Daw with Louise, discussing the response to REF 2021 and how researcher developers can support researchers and make us ‘REF-ready’! This final workshop will be presented again at the upcoming National Postdoc Conference being held in Cambridge this September (19-20th) with an emphasis on what we should expect and how we can better prepare ourselves.
Finally, we are currently putting the finishing touches to our Summer face-face meeting, being held in Glasgow August 9th. The day will last from 10am to 3pm and is being held at the Graham Hill building at Strathclyde University. We are very lucky to have a guest speaker in the form of University of Glasgow Researcher Developer Elizabeth Adams, who will be leading a discussion on how UKRSA, and postdocs in general can make ourselves a useful asset to funding councils and the wider world! Should be fantastic! We’ll also be planning our projects for the next year and drafting a budget so that we can carry out those projects! Please be sure to keep an eye on your emails for any further info!
This is a really exciting time for UKRSA and I look forward to welcoming more new members and making a real difference to the researcher experience!
See you soon!
Louise
