Professional Development Planning is ‘a structured and supported process undertaken by an individual to reflect upon their own learning, performance and/or achievement and to plan for their personal, educational and career development.’[1] As a researcher you are already committed to enquiry through your research. Professional development extends this process to your own skills, understanding, aptitudes and ambitions. Development as a professional involves more than building your research profile and research skills. Broader professional development is becoming increasingly significant as employers look for researchers who can ‘add value’ to their organisations. Competition for posts and use of short-term contracts mean that researchers, along with other professionals, have to be flexible and adaptable about what they can do.

Focusing on professional development can help researchers to:

• Get the most from their current role or studies
• Create a stronger profile for applications, whether for funding, promotion, or a new post
• Achieve a more effective life-work balance

This 2-hour workshop will offer a space for reflection on these topics as well as practical and engaging activities for career and professional development strategies including an introduction to the Researcher Development Framework

Aims

• Encourage and equip researchers to critically reflect on their experiences and allocate time to their future career goals.
• Examine concepts around Personal / Professional Development Planning, specifically taking ownership over and influencing positively their career development and looking at specific ways of addressing potential career barriers.
• Understand the skills and attributes of successful researchers, including introduction to Researcher Development Framework (RDF).
• Engage with an approach to achieving a more effective life-work balance, to improve wellbeing.
• Reflect on issues related to early stage career and professional development.

In Europe, Horizon 2020 places firmer emphasis on strengthening emerging researchers’ careers across member states. These themes are echoed across the world. The growing requirement to establish the career development of emerging researchers, is evidenced, for example by the European Charter for Researchers and Code of Conduct for the Recruitment of Researchers (2005)[3]. This workshop about enabling emerging researchers to reflect on their experiences and understand the attributes of successful researchers directly relates to one of EERA’s core missions and the ERG objective of providing a European research community for Emerging Researchers. The workshop creates a valuable space for discussion and collaboration for emerging researchers’ and their peers across Europe. Moreover, by addressing the issue of career strategies for emerging researchers, this workshop fosters the development of a strong, independent 'Emerging Researchers' forum which will add to EERA's internal democratic accountability.

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