EARMA Conference Oslo

Career development programmes for researchers: A strategic approach

Format: Fifteen-Minute Discussion Tables

Category: Case Study

Topic: Professional Development and Recognition

Why do institutions establish career development programmes for researchers? Are such programmes necessarily a privilege for the select few that already have a solid financial platform? May they help institutions reach strategic goals? If so, what goals are more important: Ensuring that academic staff are acquainted with research ethics, regulations and laws; increasing external funding; or creating a better connection between research, education and innovation? Should programmes be shared with others – across disciplines and institutions – to enhance understanding, or should they be aimed at increasing one’s own competitiveness? These questions do not have a definite answer, and need to be revisited regularly.

Assessment of the impact of research and innovation projects sponsored by the European Commission: insights from a case studies approach

Format: Oral 30 Minutes

Category: Case Study

Topic: Impact

Research impact assessment is a “wicked” issue as it involves necessarily tangible and intangible aspects. This may include e.g. scientific outputs and economic impacts, but also tacit knowledge, social and environmental impacts, by nature often more difficult to appraise. The topic of circular bioeconomy, at the intersection of the circular economy and bioeconomy concepts, will be used as a case study to demonstrate how the impact of research projects on the society at large can be assessed. Those attending will gain a practical perspective about how to assess research impact and about short, medium and long-term effects of research topics driven by public policies.

Building a Project Management Team

During this session we will discuss the Project Management team of Université de Paris’ Research Directorate, from the creation to its implementation.

Format: Oral 30 Minutes

Category: Good Practice

Topic: Project Management

Born in 2019 from the merger of the universities of Paris Diderot, Paris Descartes and Institut de physique du Globe de Paris, the ambition of Université de Paris is to lead and develop an exceptional potential to meet the challenges of tomorrow’s society. The merger that led to the creation of Université de Paris is unlike other French university mergers because both constituent institutions were quasi comprehensive and of equivalent size. As a result, the three Faculties that structure UP integrate entities from both universities and, within each Faculty, most departments will also undergo a process of transformation and merger. At the central level of the institution, in the Directorate General for Research, International, Technology Transfer et Graduate Schools Department (DRIVE), the Project Managers (PM) are responsible for a the portfolio of projects coordinated at Université de Paris. It includes ERC grants, MSCA, mutli-benieficary projects funded under H2020 Pillar 3 and COST actions. PM, as they follow closely the projects from the granting process to the end, are key actors of the research projects. They indeed: - Are expert of EU funding schemes - Close to the ground: they are in contact with the PI, the research teams and the administrators who run the laboratories - In the heart of the central level: they can easily be in contact with the Finance or Accounting office as well as HR or doctoral schools. However, their knowledge is not shared in the institution. This is the main reason why we decided to reorganise the time of projects managers and link them to the central bodies of the institution, at the DRIVE. So we split their time between projects coordination (between 50% and 60%) and share of good practice. The latter goes from creation of process to organisation of European working group and include the creation of white paper or wiki. The scientific aspect aside, the good implementation of a research project might also remain on every different administrative teams working smoothly together. This is however not easy achieve. Especially after a merging process, the communication between administrative teams can slow down. There is then an urgent need to reconnect everybody together. We hope that this new organisation will lead to the acquisition of skills for every teams participating to the success of the projects. This will also raise awareness of EU projects rules in Departments that are not at the heart of project management but who are however key to their success. We intend that the good implementation of the projects will come back to the writing Grant office in the Faculties, which will have concrete example of how to run a successful project.The purspose of this presentation is to share the actions and the tools we put in place to improve the dialogue between teams and their results.

CHALLENGING ‘THE NORMS’ IN ACADEMIA

IS THE SECTOR LOSING ITS APPETITE FOR CHANGE?

Format: Oral 30 Minutes

Category: Case Study

Topic: Impact

Over the last few years, many academics have become
increasingly disillusioned by ‘the norms’ within research culture that are
holding back progress. The academy’s tie to incentives and its influence over
career progression, a trend towards insecure contracts, and a lack of
diversity, are among the issues that have come to the fore. COVID has
compounded these issues, leading to greater insecurity and deepening
disparities. The need for real societal change to encourage a fairer, more
equitable environment for research to thrive is becoming increasingly more
urgent.

In this session we will share a whistle-stop tour of Emerald's '2021 Time
for Change' report. Now in its third year, it reflects the views of over
2,000 researchers world-wide.  The report looks at trends in attitudes to
research evaluation, academic culture, openness and transparency and the
evolving role of the publisher. It explores the challenges researchers face,
and the impact on personal lives and career aspirations.

Claire Jackson, Emerald’s Head of Community Engagement, will
present the main findings, explore regional differences, and give examples of where
positive change is happening plus, discuss the growing role of publishers as
facilitators of research impact. 

Caddies of science: Project Managers

Having centrally employed project managers makes everyone's life better.

Format: Oral 30 Minutes

Category: Case Study

Topic: Project Management

We all know a Principal Investigator (PI) who swore off being a coordinator because of the administrative load. They all complain about being inundated with the bureaucratic procedures , chasing partnes, keeping track of rules, deadlines etc., and not being able to do their science which is why they join the project in the first place. Just like a caddy carrying the burden of the golf clubs for the golfer and assisting with guidance on the way to success, a Project Manager (PM) working with the PI can take the administrative burden of being the coordinator of a collaborative project.
Many PIs, especially when they first try coordinatorship, try to do the project management themselves, later they push the mundane(!) tasks to a Postdoc or a PhD student. This of course decrease the time that Postdoc or PhD student can dedicate to their science and worse when they leave the knowledge/experience accrued during the project leaves the organisation with them. Employing a PM for the project duration is another option, which is of course a temporary arrangement and the PM in that position tends to start looking for their next assignment towards the end of the project losing focus or moves on at a crucial point of time. Some entities have a central project management office that take over the PM role but this of course incurs quite an economic load to the central funds.
At KTH we have our PMs employed centrally at Research Support Office and assigned to the projects according to their availability and fit, both in personality and skill. PMs keep records of their hours per project and then the projects are invoiced internally based on the timesheets. Every PM is only assigned to projects for parts of their time in order to have the possibility of supporting new proposals, develop guides and temples for the greater benefit of all our PIs such as risk management, change management, quality management, management structure, etc., which can all be customize by the PM to fit the project’s needs. We try to match our PMs with PIs at the proposal stage to coach the PI to increase the likelihood of approval as well as building personal relationships and trying out the personal chemistry before the projects are even approved. We are currently working on lessons to be included in our regular proposal workshop for PIs provided centrally and planning to create our own project management methodology for collaborative scientific projects, based on PM2, which will take KTH’s internal rules and regulations into account.
With this model of centrally employed, project funded PMs the university gets to keep the knowledge/experience accrued in house, the PM gets to have stability on both employment face and area they work on, namely EU-funded collaborative scientific projects, the EC gets to interact with PMs that are already experienced in EU projects and the PIs have their project run smoother and they and their teams can focus on their science.

Contemporary art for research support activities

How art can be involved in research projects, especially in Open Science activities

Format: Oral 30 Minutes

Category: Methodological Session

Topic: Open Science & Responsible Research & Innovation

The presentation explores the opportunities to involve art practices in research processes, especially when we deal with aspects related to Opens Science and Responsible Research & Innovation (RRI), mainly to public engagement. It Addresses both theoretical and practical questions for a research manager, showing different examples also directly manged by the speaker.

How to support researchers in aberrant, unstable situations? Experience of a research funding institution (RFI)

Urgent support of urgent activities in response to urgent situations – experience of a research and mobility financing institution

Format: Oral 30 Minutes

Category: Practical Initiatives

Topic: Organising Support Services & Team Building

The modern world, full of unusual challenges, requires the RFIs to support the scientists.

Some schemes created in early 2020 could serve for the future, e.g. the Urgency Grants in response to sudden social or natural events with substantial impacts. They enable researchers to investigate the significance of phenomena after their occurrence.

Another scheme resulted from unstable political situation in some regions. Solidarity with persecuted scholars is an obligation of safe countries. Solidarity with Belarus is an example of support provided to students & researchers at risk.

Impact evaluation of introducing a Project Manager Program in a big institution

Format: Oral 30 Minutes

Category: Case Study

Topic: Organising Support Services & Team Building

In past editions, I exposed my experience in a small institution when I joined the CMRB as Head of Projects Office in 2018 and we integrated the Project Manager figure in the department. In 2020, CMRB merged with IDIBELL, a big institution, and the challenge became to implement the tailored PM figure into a bigger and already structured Institution. After two years applying this model, we have evaluated in both researchers and RMA the impact of the merge in their day-to-day operation. In this communication, I will present the results of the survey and our experience during this merging period.

Open Data - How can I make it happen?

Putting Open Data into practice with your CRIS system

Format: Oral 30 Minutes

Category: Case Study

Topic: Open Science & Responsible Research & Innovation

The past few years, driven by funder mandates, research data management (RDM) has taken increasingly center stage in the context of managing the research life cycle. There has been a rapid growth in the appetite for making research data publicly available. In response, the number of open data repositories has risen sharply, along with open data requirements attached to research funding. Many involved in the research ecosystem, from policy makers and funders to publishers and institutions, have adopted new research data guidelines and practices. While many welcome this greater transparency, for those tasked with managing and analyzing their institution’s research outputs and their impact, the shift to extend the research life cycle management to research data brings a unique set of challenges. In this presentation, the team of a leading university will share their experiences with advancing their RDM practices by leveraging their Current Research Information System (CRIS) and specialized RDM tools, and how this has helped them shaping their strategic thinking throughout the research lifecycle. 

Open innovation between Universities of Applied Sciences

A case study of national Centres of Expertise in NL

Format: Oral 30 Minutes

Category: Case Study

Topic: Impact

Universities of Applied Science play a key role in innovation for tackling the societal missions of our time. This paper presents guidelines and best practices in the challenge to form nation wide cooperation between UAS research groups and societal actors.
It is presented in the form of a case study of the Dutch Centres of Expertise that have been set-up in 2018 as an instrument to create critical mass in practise based research.
The author is initiator of several centres and works across the institutional borders of universities, industry, public services and citizen stakeholder groups. With a multitude of centres focussed around six of the national innovation missions, a vibrant network of researchers is build that delivers impact. The presentation explains the reserach management principles that are applied to stimulate coorperation, interdisciplinary work and entrepreneurship.

RMA's role in deepening stategic partnerships between universities (Pecha Kucha)

How can RMA's strengthen international (research) collaborations bottom-up? Discussion using a case study: institutional partnership Radboud University Nijmegen, University of Glasgow

Format: Oral 30 Minutes

Category: Case Study

Topic: International

Strategic partnerships
are agreed at the highest level of any institution, but it is RMA’s who have a
significant part of the responsibility for ensuring successful exploitation of
the research aspects of those partnerships.

Radboud
University and University of Glasgow have been partners
since 2018. This partnership entails funds to increase cooperation between
researchers and support staff, as well as enhance staff mobility.

The funding
is to kick start deeper collaboration
between researchers at both institutions, such as working together on Horizon applications. Key is to make both the fund and collaboration known and
applicable throughout both universities. RMA’s can play an active role in
supporting researchers with consortium building and are therefore perfectly
placed to help deepening existing institutional partnerships.

This
session will discuss how RMAs can utilise such a partnership,  facilitating increased collaboration between
researchers and European projects.

Research Data Management: Some Challenges

Format: Oral 30 Minutes

Category: Case Study

Topic: Open Science & Responsible Research & Innovation

There is a growing wish for science to become as open as possible, with the aim to increase the impact, reproducibility, interdisciplinarity, and efficiency of research. Two important elements in this respect are open research data and FAIR data management (Wilkinson et al., 2016), which are increasingly becoming priorities on the agenda of funding agencies and governments. Open research data refers to freely accessible information in the form of text, numbers, images, audio, etc., that has been used and/or produced in research endeavors; it includes the data underlying scientific publications, as well as their metadata (European Commission, 2019; Norwegian Ministry of Education and Research, 2018; OECD, 2015; The Research Council of Norway, 2017; UNESCO, 2012). The FAIR principles stand for Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable (Wilkinson et al., 2016). In a nutshell, Findable refers to the presence of metadata and a unique and persistent identifier for a dataset; Accessible means that a dataset and the accompanying metadata are understandable to both humans and machines, and are deposited in a trustworthy repository; Interoperable refers e.g. to the use of accepted vocabularies for the data and metadata; and Reusable involves e.g. the use of standard licenses for a given dataset (LIBER, 2020). The main purpose of FAIR is to increase the quality of research data, and to facilitate their interpretation and potential re-use.Despite the increased attention on the matter, there are still challenges to make research data as open and as FAIR as possible. We present and discuss some of these challenges inspired by a survey among academic staff at Nord university. An example of such challenges is that researchers need to adhere to GDPR, which imposes several restrictions on the handling of personal data. In particular, researchers in the social sciences, who often work with data involving human participants, experience a tension between open research data and GDPR. In this respect, many issues arise. For instance, how to anonymize research data containing personal information while keeping most of their value for future re-use. Another example refers to the presence of various traditions and practices across research fields, and the need to operationalize the FAIR principles accordingly. For instance, building upon existing research data in the social sciences may be challenging not only because of the variety in types of data (e.g., qualitative interviews, observational data, and data from surveys), but also due to the plurality of theoretical perspectives and philosophical views, where knowledge is advanced not necessarily through a process of accumulation, but through the illumination of different aspects of a phenomenon. The topics of open research data and FAIR data management are complex, and discussing the challenges associated with them is important. Such a discussion can promote a reflection on how support services within research data management can assist researchers meet the increasing demands from funding agencies, governments, and publishers regarding open and FAIR research data.

Roadmap to R&I funding

A useful tool to define success R+D+I strategies

Format: Oral 30 Minutes

Category: Practical Initiatives

Topic: Proposal Development

The Support Unit of European R&I projects is the operational structure allowing a systematic, effective and efficient maximization of participation in R&I European projects of researchers from the Rovira i Virgili University, and thus, of the Campus of International Excellence Southern Catalonia. The most important role the unit has in the pre-award process is facilitating project concept development and project drafting of the non-strictly scientific sections. Roadmapping is a tool that allows us to guide the researchers towards interdisciplinary collaboration with the aim of diversifying the action fields of researchers and promoting talent attraction in emerging areas.

UCD’s Portal to Digital Transformation

Format: Oral 30 Minutes

Category: Practical Initiatives

Topic: Organising Support Services & Team Building

This innovative project entailed a complete rethink and redesign of community research services information. We mapped the ‘Researcher Journey’ to deliver a fully user-focused and user-driven information platform. Replacing the service-provider approach with a researcher-centric model resulted in an agile, easy to navigate platform that puts information at researchers fingertips and builds community in an age of digital transformation. Our Communications, Public Engagement and Impact resources have expanded through co-design and collaboration to meet the growing requirements and needs within this space.

foRMAtion educational module for future RMAs

Lessons learnt and impacts measured

Format: Oral 30 Minutes

Category: Operational Lessons Learned

Topic: Professional Development and Recognition

The project foRMAtion developed an elective educational module for university students to provide a glimpse on the RMA profession. The uniqueness of the project and the solutions found aim to support the successful take-up of the educational module by any universities and contribute to the better awareness of the profession and preparedness of potential career entrants. The short-term impacts have already been detected at various levels, such as the level of the students, the teachers and researchers, as well, as of the university administration and leadership underlying the relevance of the module. The questions raised and possible strategies of knowledge transfer to other university settings will be presented and discussed with the audience.

Informal professional learning in supporting lecturer research development and know-how

The Research Career Wheel in a nutshell

Format: Oral 60 Minutes

Category: Good Practice

Topic: Professional Development and Recognition

We investigated how academic staff move from implicit to explicit professional development, identifying the utilisation of internal and external enablers to support changing from a ‘restricted’ to an ‘extended’ research professional (Evans, 2013). Sampling a cross section of academics and research managers in 15 UK (post 1992 and Russell Group) and 11 Applied Universities a small online survey investigated how increased research quality can be achieved by developing the internal enablers first, helping researchers increase confidence and develop expertise and where internal experienced teacher-researchers mentored and encouraged growth of new researchers. Preliminary results indicate that university driven motivation is a positive and significant predictor of the development of a researcher’s development. Our results also indicate that a lack of institutional reputation has a significant effect on the development of a researcher’s confidence. These key findings are presented in one poster, the ‘Research Career Wheel’– identifying the importance of recognising internal and external ‘enablers’ in academic staff transitioning to research outputs, together with the impact of recognition by formal external bodies accelerating and facilitating the development of internal research policies and development cultures. International accreditations (AACSB, EPAS) and rankings highlight the need for inclusive approaches to developing research capacity of Faculty staff.
Ultimately, Faculty staff that develop into more professional researchers enrich the delivery of their subject matter and the academic curriculum, as well as potentially making novel knowledge contributions to academic fields. The development of scholarly active Faculty staff benefits the Higher Education Institutes (HEIs) and various stakeholders, including students, teachers, corporate partners, academics, practitioners and policy makers, and simultaneously strongly underpins the HEIs Research Policy and Strategy.
Important learning outcomes of the session will be:
- how to use the Research Career Wheel in a workshop format as a researcher development tool;
- discuss what forms of university driven motivation you could use to enhance researchers’ professional journey
- allowing delegates sharing best practices in a Q&A

Rainbows, unicorns and your super power soft skills workshop

Format: Oral 60 Minutes

Category: Interactive Session

Topic: Professional Development and Recognition

By Edwin Kanters UU University Utrecht and Merel-Marlijn Sondervan UMCU University Medical Center UtrechtResearch administration isn’t all rainbows and unicorns. Not rarely the research administrator ends up in situations where soft skills are essential to make it through the day alive, these skills should be a large proportion of our toolkit. For some they come naturally but they can also be learned. Sometimes you'll find yourself in a situation where you will have to gear up and put on your super power warrior suit to solve an issue. How to know when to transform and what will actually help you? During our session we will address how to recognise what is happening and identify what is needed to proceed from there. Developing your soft skills requires practice but also experience. In the session you meet different archetypes:The micro managing researcherThe teflon researcherThe clueless researcherThe buddy researcherThe old school researcherThe ''God'' researcherIn this workshop we will use our acting skills to show you 3 hairy situations.After every short play we will go into depth and present the theory and soft skills to manage those situations. The following topics will be addressed: conflict handling, posture/attitude, perfectionism/service level and role/responsibility and played with enlarged archetypes.At the end of the session you will have a better understanding of how to influence behaviour by adapting your communication style to the situation.

COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF THE LEVEL OF PSYCHOLOGICAL WELL-BEING AMONG RF AND RA YOUNG RESEARHERS (PhD students)

Format: Pecha Kucha

Category: Methodological Session

Topic: Professional Development and Recognition

Abstract: The rapid changes, crises, pandemics and wars, that take place in the modern world, introduce new requirements to a person and his/her adaptive resources. All these above-mentioned external factors in the form of separate stressors, and sometimes all together combined, have a complex effect on a person's psychological well-being. We aimed to study the PWB characterisctis among Republic of Armenia (hereinafter, RA) and Russian Federation (hereafter, RF) young researchers.

Establishing a cohesive cross-functional RMA team through Covid and beyond

Format: Pecha Kucha

Category: Operational Lessons Learned

Topic: Project Management

RMA in a multi-institutional, multi-disciplinary research centre presents many learning experiences for the RMA profession. How do we ensure compliance with a multitude of institutional and departmental practices and engage effectively to maximise synergy with local RMA support, while ensuring duplication is avoided? How do we ensure effective collaboration across both pre and post-award stages especially when faced with the challenging remote working conditions resulting from Covid? This Pecha Kucha, highlights our attempt to address such questions.Our research centre, the ADAPT Centre, is a nationally funded centre of excellence for Digital Content Technology involving eight Higher Education Institutions across three provinces in Ireland. We support over 300 researchers from numerous disciplines including Computer, Social and Health Sciences. Our RMA team, or Research Development Team (RDT), includes 3 FTE pre and 3 FTE post-award specialists. Our remit spans all activities from call horizon scanning, concept ideation and development to submission, award, project set up, management, reporting and completion, i.e. the full lifecycle. There is no one size fits all or best practice model for providing RMA in this setting and our team has evolved to cater to the needs of our researchers striving to work optimally within our affiliated institutions, through open lines of communication with all stakeholders.Establishing a Cohesive Cross-Functional Team: Pre-Covid, the crossover between the pre and post-award RMA occurred during a monthly meeting. During Covid we pivoted our operations to meet virtually bi-weekly, troubleshoot daily via Slack and prioritise regular strategic planning days. Each team member has past experience working in typical “siloed” RMA roles and this schedule has emphasised the enormous benefits of pre- and post-award experts working together regularly with constant two way knowledge sharing.Feedback on the practicalities of day to day post-award project management continuously expands the knowledge of the pre-award specialists, while content at proposal development stage is reviewed and critiqued by the post-award specialists. Strategic horizon scanning to identify follow-on funding for existing projects in advance of projects ending becomes naturally systematic. Resources and templates for EU project coordination and implementation including project handbooks, intranet structures, reporting requirements, and even essential agenda items etc. can be shared and streamlined across projects and standardised as deliverables at pre-award. ​Seamless project execution from the kick-off is also enabled with continual support and knowledge handover from the pre-award specialists who were involved during writing and submission. Relationships with applicants as well as partner organisations are further strengthened through a consistent channel of support.Operating across multiple institutions: Our modus operandi is to work harmoniously with our partner institutions RMA practices and complement and collaborate with the existing support provided while ensuring compliance with local processes. Communication is crucial with the relevant divisions, Research Offices, Contracts Sections, Heads of Schools, Deans and Directors of Research. We prioritise maintaining knowledge of local procedures and any changes to such. Strong working relationships with our RMA counterparts are invaluable and are core to our RDT’s mission.Learning outcomes of this session are aimed at research managers, both pre and post-award, at any career stage. We hope to provide a comprehensive picture of the benefits we have discovered through Covid of a cross-functional RMA set up.

European Research Strategy

A systematic approach towards Horizon Europe that activates resreachers.

Format: Pecha Kucha

Category: Practical Initiatives

Topic: Policy, Strategy, Evaluation and Foresight

To foster a systematic approach of PIs and resreach groups towards HEU we developed a workshop series with the following purpose: 1) To develop a structured and personalized application plan for PIs, groups and departments for the various HEU programmes and calls for over the coming 4 years. 2) To outline the support need to execute this plan (capacity building, hiring, matchmaking,…) Our target group: were research groups and PIs who wish to develop a structured plan for their funding activities in the first 4 years of Horizon Europe (European Research Strategy); the workshops were open of all PIs.Outcome:1) PIs had an understand the EU funding landscape, know how to plan ahead and have a clear and realistic process to follow for the coming 4 years, including a detailed schedule for the calls for the first 2 years.2) The reserch groups have developed an understanding and plan for:Who are the ERC PIs,Who are the Marie Curie PIs,Who are the global challenge (consortia) PIs,Who are the “close to industry / innovation” PIs in our group?And how do we get there.3) Increased cooperation between research groups Univerisity internally.4) less and more intersting work for the reserach supportIn this Pecha Kucha we present the concept, methodology and first results of the European Research Startegy.

Funder metadata at 10: where are we and where to next? (Pecha Kucha)

Format: Pecha Kucha

Category: Practical Initiatives

Topic: Policy, Strategy, Evaluation and Foresight

Crossref has been working with funders to help tie grants to research outputs. This aims to help more accurate reporting and save time and manual data entry and searching for funders, research offices and researchers themselves. As part of this work, Crossref has been surveying funder members and the wider funder community to investigate what their needs are in terms of supporting their grantees. We’re also collaborating with other infrastructure organizations - ORCID, ROR and DataCite.

We’ll report back on the progress we’ve made in grant registration, grant identifiers and other methods of improving connections between different research objects. Join us for an update, questions and to see what you can do with openly available grant metadata and suggest next steps for us

Intellectual Assets Management (IAM): does it work?

Format: Pecha Kucha

Category: Methodological Session

Topic: Impact

The
learning outcome for the session participants will be a glim to the
methods they could use in capturing, managing, and preparing the strategy for
the intellectual assets’ management and impact. The concept of useful
use is no longer associated only with technological innovations commercialised,
but they also include social, public, inclusive, grassroots and
challenge-driven innovations created in collaboration between academia and
other societal actors. A one-sided focus on patents and intellectual property
can prevent the spread of broader societal benefits, as lock-in knowledge can
slow down the development and dissemination of project results and innovations.
It is essential to capture the Intellectual Assets that research generates and
decide how they will be managed. LTU participated in the project where large
number of universities participated to have a common view on how universities
should manage their intellectual assets https://imp-act.se.
One of the pilots was carried out at LTU.  We had an excellent opportunity
to support researchers to ensure that the intangible assets generated by
project is managed properly. We tested the IAM methods and developed our
research support services in the management of intellectual assets. In this
session the overview of the service package and methods will be presented. 

Lessons learned from switching an intensive MSCA proposal preparation event online due to COVID-19 restrictions

Format: Pecha Kucha

Category: Case Study

Topic: Proposal Development

This Pecha Kucha presentation highlights the experiences of RMAs in Eurac Research with organizing an intensive proposal preparation event for Marie Sklodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Fellowships. We used to hold an in-person event that has moved online due to COVID-19 restrictions in the last two years. In this presentation, we discuss our lessons learned about each of the two formats and highlight our doubts about returning to the in-person events once restrictions ease.

MSCA PF support scheme as a tool for maintaining the sustainability of an established research centre from structural funds

Format: Pecha Kucha

Category: Good Practice

Topic: Proposal Development

Since 2010, there have been almost 50 research centres built in Czechia thanks to the financial support from ERDF/ESF. However, the challenge they face remains: How to secure sustainability without support from structural funds? Moreover, at CATRIN research centre, connected to Palacký University Olomouc, we are not widely involved in teaching activities, and therefore lack the backup of “money for students”, which makes sustainability an even more imminent issue. For that reason, we have to refocus from structural/national grants to more competitive (and excellent) schemes under Horizon Europe. So what kind of grant strategy and measures should we take to achieve further development of our research activities and their sustainable growth? In case of CATRIN, we particularly focus on ERC, WIDERA and EIC grants that are already being implemented, but also on measures leading to a more extensive involvement in Pillar II, as well as MSCA.It is specifically our MSCA experience that shows how developed support schemes for Marie Curie Postdoctoral Fellowship applicants can be developed on lower level at Universities and other research institutions. On the case of Sinophone Borderlands research centre (a part of Faculty of Arts, Palacký University Olomouc) we will show how , over the last three years this support scheme has had a very concrete impact on the amount of submitted proposals and the success rate. We will present tools useful especially for widening countries as well as the how to attract early stage researchers. On the basis of surveys between MSCA applicants, we will present what level of support is expected from their perspective. Additionally, various tips for motivating potential supervisors will be discussed. The core of the presented functional support MSCA-PF mechanism consists of a three-month course (1 hour/per week) – 30-minute presentations by the project manager, 30-minute discussion between applicants, MS Teams support platform (as an information hub with general as well as private channels), 2 MSCA hackathons (intensive writing weeks when consultants on different topics are available all day – ethics, dissemination, open science, gender etc.), Show & Tell Day (opening the proposal to other applicants and their supervisors), Internal peer-review process (comments from three experts), and individual consultations. Advantages and disadvantages of this approach will be shown in concrete examples. The engagement of previous success holders is necessary.A more intensive communication, collaboration and integration of effective MSCA preparation approaches and teams across other motivated Czech institution is our next goal for the near future. To pilot a novel mode of co-creation/co-designing and a common implementation of training programmes for both MSCA-PF candidates and MSCA research support staff, we started an intensive collaboration with a MSCA team from Masaryk University In January 2022.Our ambition for 2023 is to share the resulting experience and training programmes with a wider Czech research support staff community. Within the framework of the recently established CZARMA, we will organise a series of facilitated meetings and establish specific working groups to support preparation of MSCA schemes, but also to generally strengthen MSCA relevant knowledge, including post-award practice. Integrated efforts of such a significant community can be beneficial for a wider international community, too, and have potential to get/raise our collaborative capabilities and competences, as research support professionals, to a next level.

Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions and Erasmus+: how enhance synergies

How enhance synergies among education, research and innovation on the two programmes MSCA and Erasmus+

Format: Pecha Kucha

Category: Discussion Starter

Topic: Proposal Development

Here we look possible synergies/complementarities between actions targeting higher education: MSCA under Horizon Europe and Erasmus+. Both schemes offer opportunities for mobility, training, career development and staff exchange. They have a strong international dimension beyond the EU and contribute strengthening Europe’s attractiveness. However, university staff often work in silos, and those dealing with the MSCA might not be aware of Erasmus+, and vice versa. This Pecha Kucha highlight successful synergies between these programmes promoting the joint participation.

Promote Your Research

UCD’s new website to help researchers increase the visibility of their work

Format: Pecha Kucha

Category: Practical Initiatives

Topic: Impact

Millions of research outputs are published every year. Unfortunately, this means a lot of excellent research gets lost in a sea of publications, prototypes, creative works, and datasets. But there are steps that researchers can take to make their research stand out. UCD’s new “Promote Your Research” website gives advice on how to increase the visibility of outputs, making it more likely that people will discover, use, and cite them. As well as increasing citations, the website helps researchers to build their profile, find future collaborators, and connect with those who stand to benefit from their work (giving it a better chance of having a positive impact on society).It includes tips on how to prepare for publication, how to identify your audience, how to develop your message, how to promote research using social media platforms, how to create multimedia resources, how to reach wider audiences, and how to monitor where outputs are being picked up and used.  In this session, David Bennett, UCD’s Research Impact Officer, will introduce UCD’s new website. He will discuss why UCD felt the need to make it and how they pulled it together, and he will describe the various tools and resources it contains.

The looking-glass world of grant proposals

How to write a grant with zero chance of being funded

Format: Pecha Kucha

Category: Methodological Session

Topic: Proposal Development

All research proposals are not well-written, and many RMA’s put substantial effort into improving the quality of proposals, a sometimes-frustrating task. But what if you had to write a proposal that you did *not* want to be funded? Could a project be made unfundable just by writing a proposal that excels in being atrocious? What lessons may be learned from such an exercise?

With service design to user-driven impact service

Format: Pecha Kucha

Category: Practical Initiatives

Topic: Organising Support Services & Team Building

The significance of impact generated through research has been increasingly emphasized by both academia and society in Finland and globally. Researchers from all scientific fields are held accountable for the footprint their endeavors leave within and outside academia. Strategy of the University of Eastern Finland (UEF) highlights that impact constitutes an integral part of the UEF activities. Open operational culture enhances interaction, thus boosting knowledge transfer, commercialization of research findings and their extensive and collaborative use within the society.In terms of research projects, enabling impact creation denotes that each project phase calls for a careful planning. Optimally it is implemented through a collaborative effort uniting researchers and their projects’ vital stakeholders. Such approach requires user-driven services helping researchers to plan, engage for and evidence any impact they will generate via their research.At the UEF research impact service will be created using service design with the goal of understanding and identifying user needs and improving the user service experience. Design thinking refers to the utilization of design methods in problem solving. It involves a solution-focused and participatory modes. Our ultimate objective is to provide a comprehensive, approachable, informative, specific and verifiable service platform, where the help is only one mouse click away.In practice, this means that the needs of researchers are not assumed. Instead, we – research services personnel - start working with them to find out the bottlenecks related to the impact planning, implementation, verification and mainstreaming. We aim to find out at the grassroots level through interviews which existing UEF services are effective and what is still missing in order to create researcher-centered service paths for all disciplines.“Customer journey”- as it is called in the professional jargon - is a visual description of the service progress from the customer's (researcher’s) perspective. It illustrates the interaction between the service user and the service provider. The thematic sections of the impact service will be embracing, among others, definitions of impact, impact planning tools, toolkit for scientific impact as well as for interaction, dissemination, IPR issues, impact indicators etc.The customer journey design constitutes a concrete development task and will involve cooperation of all units providing impact services at the UEF. It stretches beyond pre-award and post-award research services, including communication services, entrepreneurship and innovation services, as well as library and even legal department.The research impact service platform is still in the conceptualization phase and will be tested with the researchers. It will be made available in May 2022 via UEF user interface website. The process will serve as a prelude to the implementation of two goals mentioned in the UEF 2030 strategy – to foster the impact generated by the university activities and make service design thinking an integral part of all university activities.

Data Management Plans from A to Z (and Ø)

Practical advice on starting and updating your project's DMP

Format: Poster

Category: Methodological Session

Topic: Open Science & Responsible Research & Innovation

If you know what a data management plan is, but not sure how to get started creating one or even what sections are needed, then come to this session. Several key elements are defined and explained, with references and tips to help guide even the newest manager to feel confident when approaching the first draft of a data management plan. Designed for those who need help getting started and progressing through a DMP.