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RDM's Career Development Committee (CDC) met on 14 November 2024. Since the previous CDC meeting in April 2024 there's been a significant change in membership, including the addition of myself as the new Chair. Alongside the release of the new Charter for the Career Development of Researchers on 31 October, it meant that this month's meeting had an exciting agenda filled with introductions, interesting discussions and lots of food for thought!
what's the committee for?
The aim of the CDC is to support the career development of all staff and students across RDM including raising awareness of career opportunities across the Department, providing training and support at key career transitions and generally championing career development whenever we can.
Who is on it?
The committee membership aims to be balanced across RDM's divisions and represent people from all staff groupings. With this in mind, we are currently expanding our membership and looking for additional enthusiastic volunteers to join us on the committee. We'd especially like to hear from:
- People in staff groups that don't fit into the traditional academic career path such as research assistants, bioinformaticians, facility managers, research technical professionals, research nurses etc.
- Fellows who have recently started their own independent research group
- Professional Services Staff.
Join the committee
To apply to become a member of the CDC, please submit a paragraph outlining why you want to join the CDC and your top idea for how RDM can improve support for career development to cdc@rdm.ox.ac.uk by 5.00pm on Tuesday 3 December. Please include which RDM Division you are part of and your job role.
what happened at the meeting?
The majority of the meeting centred on the new Charter for the Career Development of Researchers, with a particular focus on the section entitled 'As a researcher you can expect'. A brainstorming session ensued with committee members discussing what RDM currently is doing well in relation to the Charter and areas where we can improve, and we went on to generate potential actions to take forward. Many of these actions also overlap with RDM's Athena Swan Action Plan which the CDC are also involved in delivering.
We also had updates from one of our Research Staff Representatives Andrew Armitage about the recent MSD Research Staff Forums he has attended; and the Co-Chair of RDM's Researcher Association Noelia Martinez Sanchez who told us about this week's RDM Careers Day and the events that the Researcher Association have planned for next year.
Our next meeting will be early in the new year, at which we hope to welcome some new committee members and come away with more concrete plans to help us achieve our goals in supporting career development for everyone in our department. We also plan to make these blog posts a regular occurrence to keep you all up to date on the happenings of the CDC. If you have anything you'd like to bring to the CDC's attention, please don't hesitate to send us an email at cdc@rdm.ox.ac.uk.
With thanks to Jess Bassett for her help in putting this blog post together.