Supporting early career researchers – new network

USW is creating a peer network for early career researchers, helping them to succeed in their chosen area by providing access to expertise, advice and support.

Dr Louise Bright, Director of Research and Development at USW, said: “As signatories of the Concordat to Support the Career Development of Researchers, we are committed to providing an environment that supports the research community to achieve their very best. We want to find ways of supporting our researchers to develop to their full potential and we hope this initiative is a useful development for colleagues at an early stage in their research careers.”

The Early Career Researcher Network is for all staff who are fairly new to research and want research to be part of their academic career. You can be at any career stage, age or discipline.

Research can feel like a lonely business. Researchers can often:

• Arrive in research from a non-traditional career path
• Experience isolation when they are one of few researchers in their departments
• Feel they need to fight for research time
• Sometimes leave for other institutions to develop their research career
• Lack an obvious route-map for career-progression
• Struggle to easily see ‘someone like them’, showing them how to succeed in research

We know the power of community to help overcome these challenges, so we are facilitating research-active staff to come together from many and varied backgrounds. The aim is to create a peer network where you can share experience and support each other to succeed – whatever your research ambitions.

We will be getting together for three events that take us through the process of scoping out, creating and launching a peer network for research active staff. The network will be coordinated by research active staff who volunteer, and there will be coaching support for volunteers.

For more information on the events and to register a place please complete this form.

If you have any questions, please email us at [email protected]