Enhancing the quality of the experience of Postdoctoral Fellows and Early Career Researchers

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This proposal aims to enhance the quality of the experience of postdoctoral fellows (postdocs) and early-career researchers (ECRs) by providing them with competencies that will improve their effectiveness as professional researchers. The project aims, through the use of questionnaires directed at senior Principal Investigators and ECRs, to outline the current situation with regards to skills development for Australian researchers. Based on this research, or a program for three-day intensive residential workshop will be developed for 120 postdocs and ECRs and 12 expert presenters. The content and emphasis of the workshop will be shaped in part by the outcome of the questionnaire, but will recognise that some key skills are already developed within the experience of research training but are difficult to articulate. These skills will be identified and made more explicit, but complemented with advice on many aspects of research management ranging from ethical conduct in research, student supervision, protection of intellectual property, grantsmanship, commercialisation of research and many other matters that confront ECRs. A critical purpose of the intensive workshop is to obtain crucial evaluation and feedback from the participants. This feedback will permit revision of the material presented during the workshop to ensure production of a best-practice manual for research management that should find its way into every Australian research laboratory. The Council of the Australian Academy of Science, at its meeting on 21 September 2006, recognised that production of the manual may not be eligible for funding under the LASP07 funding rules and resolved that up to $50,000 from the Academy of Science’s own resources should be committed to writing, designing, editing and printing of the manual. The manual will be an Australian counterpart to the US publication Making the Right Moves – A practical guide to scientific management for postdocs and new faculty (2004:published by