Roundtable: “Enabling Early Career Researchers’ pursue of an academic career” — Call for contributions
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Canadian Society for the Study of Higher Education Annual Conference May 30 — June 1, 2021, Online from the University of Alberta
Roundtable: “Enabling Early Career Researchers’ pursue of an academic career”
Call for Contributions
This Roundtable is seeking contributions from Early Career Researchers, Higher Education research support staff, academic/learning developers and policy makers with an interest in the Professional Development (PD) of ECRs who are pursuing an academic career. ECRs are the backbone of the research community, and yet they hold precarious, short term, contracts. The Bratislava Declaration of Young Researchers (BDYR) is written by young researchers and calls on member states and the European Commission (EC) to recognise the special role that young researchers play in the wider European research landscape.
While ECRs gain huge amount of experience and expertise in research skills, publishing, grant writing, presentation and networking, they are lacking the opportunities and/or time to gain teaching related experience and skills. They may be engaged with collaborative projects that require significant travel for meetings/training or they may be conducting a project that requires flexibility in terms of timetable. On the other hand, even if they are able to take CPD on HE teaching and learning, they can’t avail of it without regular teaching commitments. Therefore, the accredited PD route for teaching (as it currently stands) does not appear to be a viable option for ECRs. What about unstructured and/or non-accredited options? Is building an equivalency between the former and the latter a realistic or desirable option? Is there scope for ECRs to create, for instance, a portfolio of non-accredited PD undertaken that would be deemed equivalent to the formal PD?
Presenters for this Roundtable would be expected to offer concrete examples from their national context of more flexible pathways for ECRs to gain teaching knowledge and practice in Higher Education and/or to contribute to a discussion of whether it is possible to align accredited and non-accredited PD opportunities. This is a topic that needs to be addressed with some urgency, if we don’t want to end up with an embedded two-tier academic system.
APPLICATION
In no more than 400 words please provide the following information:
· Describe briefly Professional Development opportunities for Early Career Researchers in academia in your national context (with particular reference to teaching)
· Please explain whether these opportunities are sufficient for ECRs to secure an academic post in pursue of an academic career
Please email your applications to yurgos.politis@ucd.ie by the 31st of January 2021.
Up to 3 proposals will be chosen. You will be notified of the outcome within 3 weeks from the deadline.
