Fellows Development Community

We have created the University of Leeds Fellows Development Community to support the professional and career development of our Fellowship holders. It is for holders of both internal and external fellowships, and is open to fellows at all career stages.  This community builds on our University Academic Fellows (UAF) development programme.  We often hold sessions for UAFs that we don’t fill.  When we open the offer up to other fellowship holders we become oversubscribed, showing us there is a need.

The community has several aims:

• to provide continued support for our fellows throughout their award, and prepare them for the next steps
• to co-create our offer so that it meets the needs and expectations of our fellows
• to provide a community, for peer-to-peer development and sharing of best practice
• to ensure we, the Institution, have a development offering that exceeds the requirements of the funders, providing a sector-leading approach for inclusion in new fellowship applications

All new Fellowship holders will be added to the team as they are awarded. We encourage you to take advantage of the opportunities and the chance to engage with other Fellows.

When we say programme we do not mean a series of workshops and sessions that you have to attend.  This is your development so you decide what you need and when you need it.  The programme will flex and we will be working with our fellows to determine what topics they are interested in.  It will pull in development opportunities from across the Institution and work with the model that development comes from experiencing, peer support and formal sessions.  Topics include:

• Career Development
  • What do you want from your career? 
  • Preparing for the next role 
  • Creating career development plan 
  • Dynamic Development 
  • StrengthsFinder 
  • Self-awareness, motivators and drivers
• Managing and guiding researchers
  • Effective PGR Supervision 
  • The Concordat and developing your staff 
  • Building your research team 
  • Recruitment and selection how to get the right people 
  • Conflict and challenging/difficult conversations 
  • Inclusive leadership
• Research ideas and vision 
  • 'The Productive Researcher’ 
  • Creating your research vision 
  • Crucible 
  • Research impact
  • Research culture
• Student education
  • First steps in teaching 
  • Support for PRiSE applications 
• Supporting your development 
  • Group coaching sessions 
  • Getting the most from your mentoring relationship 
  • Action Learning Groups 

If you are thinking about, or currently writing, the development parts of your fellowship application consider including details of this community.  Use it to help you plan useful sessions and to demonstrate the Institution is committed to supporting your development.