What kind of an organisation are you in the context of the Concordat?

A research-intensive university. We employ 920 staff on research-only contracts and 550 principal investigators (PIs) who are in receipt of grants. The primary beneficiaries of the Researcher Development Concordat at the University of Liverpool are those early in their research career, including postdoctoral researchers, research associates, research assistants and early career research and tenure-track fellows. However, we recognise that the benefits of the Concordat activities extend to other groups who actively engage in research within the University and who are expected to develop their research identity as part of their career progression. These include staff on teaching and research or teaching and scholarship contracts, clinicians, professional support staff and technicians.

What challenge were you trying to address with this initiative?

Responding to researchers’ feedback about the challenges of engaging with development in a rapidly changing professional landscape, the Researcher Development Team in The Academy at the University of Liverpool launched a flexible and innovative Researcher Development (RD) Roadmap. This provides diverse opportunities for research and research-related staff to create bespoke development pathways in support of their professional practice.

As many researchers continue to engage in what we might call ‘hybrid forms of practice’ and new ways of working that incorporate a blend of online and face-to-face activity, the RD Roadmap provides a means for research and research-related staff to make informed decisions on the focus of their ongoing development, helping them to maximise their impact and their opportunities for success.

What did you do and how does this align with the Principles and keywords you have selected below?

The RD Roadmap has been designed to help researchers navigate the wealth of online content now available to support career development and progression and is intended to simplify access to topics, materials and resources linked to key development themes and available in a range of accessible formats. To this end, the roadmap is designed around 4 key topics: Career Confidence and Progression, Engagement and Influence, Research Impact and Personal Effectiveness.

The flexible and innovative RD Roadmap provides diverse opportunities for participants to create a bespoke development experience for themselves. The RD Roadmap consists of four key areas and associated sub-areas, all of which are highly valued and sought after by employers both within and beyond academia and content is updated on a regular basis. As such, research and research-related staff are encouraged to explore the resources by regularly visiting the roadmap as part of their continuing development.

The four key areas and their sub-topics are:

* THRIVE: Career Confidence and Progression 

Developing skills to build confidence in your career can encourage movement beyond your comfort zone, increase personal and professional growth and positively impact career progression. In this theme further information and resources to support career development both within academia and beyond can be found.

• Sub-areas within this theme include: Mentoring and coaching, Networking and peer engagement and Leadership, management and funding.

* ADVANCE: Engagement and Influence 

Successful engagement can motivate individuals, create big ideas and lead to effective collaborations, which can increase the reach of research. This section will direct to resources to help to develop the knowledge and skills needed for success in engaging and influencing others.

• Sub-areas within this theme include: Collaboration and multidisciplinary, Teaching and supervision and Internal and external representation

* GROW: Research Impact

Ensuring that research has an impact on society is a fundamental part of the research lifecycle. There is an expectation from funders, industry and the general public for universities to demonstrate the value of their research and for the work they do to be visible. In this theme further information and resources to support researchers in achieving this goal can be found.

• Sub-areas within this theme include: Knowledge Exchange and research visibility, Communication and dissemination and Pathways beyond academia.

* REFLECT: Personal Effectiveness

Personal Effectiveness can mean different things for different people based on career, personal life, and goals. However, for most it involves finding ways to increase productivity, improve levels of happiness and job satisfaction, build stronger work relationships and reduce levels of stress/frustration. This section will direct to resources to help maximise personal effectiveness.

• Sub-areas within this theme include: Contribution to research culture, Resilience and wellbeing and Reflection on practice.

What were the challenges in implementation and how did you resolve them?

For us, developing this RD Roadmap was more than just words on a page or screen or whiteboard. It has been an alignment exercise that affirms our motivations in providing our stakeholders with the best possible on-demand researcher development opportunities. We engaged in a 6-month consultation period with researchers across all career levels to develop the various areas of the roadmap. The technology related to mapping and navigating the roadmap proved challenging in the first instance, and required much engagement with both the digital content and IT Services teams.

We recognised that each type of stakeholder wants to see something different, and therefore we endeavoured to provide filterable and searchable tables that included not only the resource format/type and length (whether of a video, or print material reading), but also the key researcher career stage that various aspects of the roadmap are aimed at.

How did you evaluate the impact of your initiative?

• In the 18 months following its launch in July 2021, there have been 2000+ hits on RD Roadmap as a whole, and an average of 300 hits on each individual sub-topic page. 
• Many researchers have complimented the array of resources and one in particular commented “You've just opened my eyes to a whole world of recorded sessions, blog posts, case studies and the like! I fear a binge may be coming.” 
• The RD Roadmap proved crucial during the University of Liverpool’s initial steps of twinning with Sumy State University, Ukraine, whose researchers continue to have free and open access to 1000+ on-demand resources housed within the RD Roadmap, enabling them to continue with their professional and career development despite the war. Feedback from Ukrainian colleagues has been overwhelmingly positive and appreciative.

Were there any surprising or unexpected consequences?

A number of live sessions sometimes refer to resources on the RD Roadmap for pre-reading or background context. As a result of this unexpected use of the RD Roadmap, we will be instigating ‘Review and Refresh’ pop-up sessions in which researchers will have the opportunity to review current RD Roadmap resources on various themes.

What advice would you give others wanting to do this?

It’s imperative to communicate the different ways in which the RD Roadmap can be used by researchers to create a bespoke development experience for themselves. The RD Roadmap has 1000s of resources and as such, researchers need to navigate it as per their individual preferences and career aspirations at a particular point in time.

More information about this practice example:

Researcher Development Roadmap for Researchers