The Institute for Academic Development (IAD) continue to lead on progressing the University of Edinburgh’s Concordat action plan, but lately we’ve been thinking more about what we can do to support our colleagues at the University with implementing it in their area.
Great progress has been made over the last few years – see our blog post back in April about our Concordat Reporting. We’ve now got the infrastructure in place to support researchers and their managers with our Research Staff Hub, improved careers resources, Postdoc/Research Staff Champions, plus much more. Supporting integration at local levels, ensuring help is available to allow the themes of our action plan to be incorporated into School/College discussion and planning, feels like an important next step.
We’re also aware of important initiatives, events and projects happening in our Schools/Colleges and as part of our Research Staff Societies’ activities, and it would be great to capture this. So as we work on Year 2 of our action plan, we want to focus on celebrating the successes and sharing good practice.
With this in mind we’ve created two new resources:
Concordat Best Practice
The first is a platform for University of Edinburgh staff to share practice and celebrate innovative and creative projects, and as an institution to communicate and promote the work that we do.
A Concordat Best Practice webpage has been created to allow staff to provide examples of projects / initiatives from their area, related to the Concordat, highlighting the support in place for research staff across the University.
A short form allows staff to upload an event or project and provide a bit of information about what was involved, who was involved and how it relates to the Concordat.
The aim is to showcase the great work that is happening, but also to support colleagues who have a shared responsibility and interest in ongoing support of research staff careers.
Researchers, managers of researchers or any member of staff who works with researchers as part of their role can submit an example – and we’d welcome contributions so we can start showcasing what we are doing and support each other.
Concordat Best Practice – Submission Page
Concordat Event Guide
The second is a guide to support anyone in the University to run Concordat related events. Our action plan is made up of five cross-themed activities and these were considered in the context of the three Concordat principles (more information about this is on our Concordat Reporting webpage), which means that there is a great deal that can be done.
But where to start and what to do?
The guide provides information for running events and ideas on what the focus could be. It includes an example event structure, information and advice for the organising and managing, and suggestions of how to get input from around the University.
The key element of the guide is the suggested discussion points, around the Concordat principles and the Edinburgh University Action Plan, creating an opportunity to focus on a specific topic and encourage discussion to generate ideas and actions for Schools/Colleges. By way of example, the following themes and discussion points are just a few examples of what the event could focus on, more examples are included in the guide:
Concordat Theme: Employment – Discussion Point: Redeployment Support
Concordat Theme: Environment & Culture – Discussion Point: Bullying and Harassment Policies
Concordat Theme: Professional & Career Development – Discussion Point: 10 Days Professional Development
We hope that this guide and it’s information will make it easier for colleagues to consider running events, and support them to do so. If anyone wants to discuss using this guide, or require further information please do let us know.
If you are a researcher, research manager, or any other staff group with an interest in the Concordat, and you would like to give us any feedback, do get in contact.
An informative blog. Thanks.