Introduction

The training and development opportunities listed in the Research Staff Development site that are provided by Research & Innovation Services and by the Faculties are prioritised for staff on fixed-term research contracts (e.g. research associates, post-doctoral researchers). Other members of staff are welcome to attend where training places are available (including staff on teaching only contracts who aspire to become researchers, and new permanent academic staff).

We encourage you to read a short new leaflet about the value of research staff to the University, the contributions that they make to the University's ambitions, and how the University supports them.

Welcome from Professor Richard Jones

Professor Richard Jones, Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Research & Innovation, extends a warm welcome to all research staff within the University.

Our research staff, together with post-graduate research students, form the lifeblood of the University's research environment and are key to its future health and sustainability. They bring passion, a thirst for knowledge and intellectual firepower. Research staff contribute to addressing the world’s most important intellectual and practical problems through carrying out original high quality research, and to making a positive difference in the world and changing the way people think about it, through communicating and applying the value of research to the benefit of our economy, environment and society.

As professional colleagues and active members of the University's research and wider community, the contribution of research staff to the University’s activities as a whole is substantial. Research staff support the University's wider ambitions in delivering research-led teaching, knowledge exchange and innovation, and participate in the governance of the University and its community and civic activities.

The University's senior leadership, and the academic community as a whole, have an unwavering long-term commitment to ensuring that all research staff are respected and valued as professional colleagues and experience a supportive and welcoming environment throughout their time here. These web pages provide information about the breadth of support, training and development opportunities which the University specifically makes available for research staff. I strongly encourage research staff to take advantage of these and other opportunities.

I would also like to emphasise the University's commitment to making further enhancements to the research environment, in order that the experience is consistently positive in every Faculty from arrival to departure.

Because our research staff are very talented the University's expectations of them are high, and expectations are fulfilled as research staff apply their talent to the University’s ambition to be one of the best global research-intensive universities that seeks to make the world better. The University has equally high expectations that research staff actively take steps to develop independent careers (with graduate-entry employers and/or in research and/or in self-employment). The support, training and development opportunities available to research staff are designed to help meet both these expectations.