Case Study 2
I moved to Warwick in 2016 to take up my first independent academic post in the School of Life Sciences. I have benefitted immensely from the structured mentoring and support available in School of Life Sciences, and from opportunities for mentoring/coaching in the wider University.
The system in School of Life Sciences of assigning senior academics as mentors, and in selecting mentors who work in a similar field and have good professional connections (e.g. current/recent members of relevant funding panels) is excellent. I was assigned a named academic mentor on arrival in School of Life Sciences and he has provided professional support in grant writing and responding to grant panel peer review. In particular, he gave useful insight on how to structure and pitch an RCUK proposal, and then commented on proposal drafts and advised on to how to focus my response to the reviewers. I believe this was instrumental in me winning my first major external funding (total value £390K, resulting in 5 publications so far, 2 of which are expected to be returned in cho’s REF submission with a 3* rating). My mentor also helped me to handle a very difficult situation with one of my first PGRs, both advising me on how to navigate getting support from the School and providing a friendly ear when I was finding things hard.
Also in School of Life Sciences, the internal husting and review process for external funding bids has been a source of support. This is organised by our Research Development Support Officer, and involves receiving feedback from colleagues selected for their relevant research or funding experience. Taking part in this process from both sides of the table has helped me to develop my grant writing skills, and especially to recognise when a proposal needs further development or re-centering. The process helped me to polish a successful application to a charitable funder (total value £157K, resulting in 2 publications so far, 1 of which is expected to be returned in School of Life Science’s REF submission with a 3* rating; also resulting in a phase I clinical trial planned for 2021).
I have also benefitted from group coaching sessions within School of Life Sciences, including sessions related to UG teaching organised by our Wellbeing Officer (e.g. how to handle difficult conversations); peer mentoring groups for teaching (we observe and feed back on each other’s teaching in groups of three); and various ‘soft skills’ sessions (e.g. with our head of HR, I helped organise an in-house instance of the externally-provided Introduction to Emotional Intelligence workshop which is offered by Organisational Development). These sessions have been very useful for personal development in teaching and in managing interpersonal relationships within my research group.
In 2020 I arranged a one-off coaching session through Organisational Development and this was an invaluable management training experience. I requested a session tailored to discussing a specific aspect of team management and I felt that the expert guidance offered by the coach armed me with new information and techniques for being a more effective and confident manager. I would very much like the opportunity to take part in these sessions again as and when I identify areas I would like to work on.
The one aspect of training that is lacking from a typical academic career path is management training – this is critical in the sciences where principal investigators typically manage a team of post-docs, technicians and PDRs. The transition to managing a group is a sharp one and this is an area where access to personalised coaching is invaluable.