Abstract

At the university of Auckland, New Zealand, we have recently established an RMA Community of Interest (CoI) within which sits three Special Interest Groups (SIG). One SIG focuses on research process improvements across the university, another SIG focuses on improving research related reporting, and the last SIG is focusing on professional development for RMA staff. Each SIG is co-chaired by a member of the research office and a member from the RMA research support community outside of the research office. There has been much discussion recently about recognizing RMA as a profession and that RMA staff have different development needs to other professional staff across a university and professional development opportunities need to reflect that. An RMA capabilities framework will make it more clear how staff can move from one role to the next, get a promotion, and what they can do to help them get there. The RMA professional development SIG will have members from across research support functions to oversee the establishment of goals and terms of reference of the SIG, the prioritisation and development of new professional development offerings, as well as establishing a fair process for use of RMA professional development funds. Major projects of work such as developing, or even adopting or adapting, an existing RMA capabilities framework, and induction for new RMA staff will be driven through working groups chaired by a SIG member. The wider RMA CoI will be surveyed to understand what professional development opportunities the community wants to see, and to provide feedback on new initiatives. An engagement strategy will be established to make sure the CoI is aware of process and reporting changes and improvements and to learn of new professional development opportunities. I will be sharing learnings from a New Zealand perspective of what has worked well and what has not worked so well and share an update of where the various Professional Development SIG work streams have managed to work on to date.