Using your 10 Days of Professional Development
Members of the Department of Psychiatry outline the potential types of professional development that could be counted under the 10 days available, as well as offering advice and good practice on managing your own professional development and any staff you manage.
Being part of a committee
Postdoctoral Researcher Isabelle Butcher talks about chairing a Health Research Authority Ethics Committee as part of her professional development.
"I enjoy chairing the ethics committees and it has made me aware of the fantastic research that is occurring across England conducted and sponsored by a range of organisations, individuals and charities. It makes one realise how much expertise we have within the country and how much innovative research is being conducted. Chairing an ethics committee has helped me when writing ethical applications, being mindful of what the committees are looking for and the process that occurs behind the scenes."
Continuous Improvement (CI)
Val West is our Department Research Manager and Facilitator. She recently embarked upon the CI training to become a ‘Local Practitioner’. Here she tells Wendy Howard (Professional Services Career Development Working Group lead) about her experience.
Wendy: How and why did you choose to do CI training?
Val: I first heard about Focus’s CI training through a short talk at the annual Professional Services Conference. It was also mentioned to me by our Head of Administration and Finance. Focus, the University’s Continuous Improvement team, were very enthusiastic and engaging and led me to investigate further. They offer a range of training options, from short on-line talks to longer in-person training courses that take place over months. I tried the shorter talks first, and found them really useful; they presented tools that I could apply to my work straight away (eg using the POST tool to help with getting the most out of meetings). Following this I decided that it would be beneficial to become a ‘Local Practitioner’ (Practitioners champion CI in their departments and continuously seek ways to implement improvements in their projects and processes). I hope to apply what I learn towards improving some of the processes I’m involved with in the Department e.g. sending grants for Research Services approval.
W: How is the training delivered (talks, workshops etc) and assessed?
V: I attend e-learning sessions as well as in-person training in Wellington Square. They also have a buddy system and there’s a fair bit of self-directed learning too!
W: How long does the training take?
V: The Local Practitioner training involves about half a day per week for ~5 months. I meet my ‘buddy’ (mentor) once a week and have in-person training once a month
W: Are you doing it as part of your 10 days?
V: Yes, this course is a significant undertaking and will take all of my 10 days, with the amount of preparation and self-directed learning needed too. The Focus Team do offer short talks and lunchtime workshops (usually online) that would be a less onerous endeavour if people are interested.
W: How do you fit it in around your day job?
V: The only in-person events (five or six in total) are scheduled well in advance, which is helpful. I still missed one of them because it clashed with the Oxford Neuroscience Symposium that I help to run. The Focus Team helpfully provided a Teams-based catch-up for that lesson. For the rest of the course, it can fit around my own workload. The processes I’m looking at do form part of my ‘day job’ so the value to me is obvious in investing a little more time going through things thoroughly. I also have the support of my line manager that enables me to set aside the time with confidence.
W: How did you approach your line manager about embarking on this training?
V: I first gathered the information from the Focus team (how long it would take, time away from the office, cost) so that my line manager had a clear understanding of what was involved. I also put forward a justification, about why I wanted to do the training, how it was relevant to my role and what I hoped to get out of it i.e. how it would ultimately benefit my current work activities.
W: Would you recommend it to other Professional Support staff?
V: First and foremost, I would recommend doing a taster session in CI to find out more about it and see if it’s something that would fit with your role and aspirations. There are quite a few lunchtime talks on Teams you could join, or I attended some of the short talks the Focus Team ran at the Professional Services Conference (which I’d recommend going to whether or not you’re interested in CI).
W: Any other comments?
V: Even if you don’t have time to do the training, joining the CI Community of Practice (CoP) can be very beneficial; they are super-supportive and really useful information can be gathered from the Teams chats without needing to actively participate.
Training Courses
Verena Sarrazin talks about using their career development days to attend training courses.
“I am a post-doctoral researcher in Jacinta O’Shea’s group at the Oxford Centre for Human Brian Activity. I am interested in the application of non-invasive brain stimulation in depression treatment. I have been investigating cognitive and neural mechanisms of brain stimulation, and how variation in psychiatric symptoms relates to cognitive task parameters.
I would recommend using your career development days for training or events that might be useful for your future career but might be outside of your current research focus.
I have used my career development days to gain more experience in machine learning. Last year, I attended a one-week Online Machine Learning School which was advertised in the Oxford Centre for Integrative Neuroimaging (OxCIN) mailing list. This course focused on a particular programme (‘NeuroMiner’) which can be used to train machine learning models based on neuroimaging data. I really enjoyed this course since it included a good mix of theoretical background and hands-on experience. Other courses I can recommend include the Neuromatch Computational Neuroscience Course which is a more intense 3-week course teaching a variety of machine learning techniques, and CodeFirstGirls who offer a wide range of coding courses more focused on industry applications.
In general, I would recommend using your career development days for training or events that might be useful for your future career but might be outside of your current research focus.”
Staff Development Fund
Lisa Jones, Communications Manager on how she utilised the Staff Development Fund:
"Last year I applied to the Staff Development Fund to attend a course on Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) - which is basically how to ensure your websites get higher up on the search pages of Google. It is the sort of thing that gets talked about quite a lot in communications circles but had always been a bit of a gap in my knowledge - my background was as a journalist in print and television, so SEO was never really a focus. When I moved into broader communications, it became a buzz term, but opportunities for training never came up. The course was quite expensive so not something I would expect the department to fund as a matter of course, which is why I applied to the Staff Development Fund.
I would really encourage people to make use of the Staff Development Fund, which is a great resource if you have something that is important to your job and professional development, but is a bit beyond the usual training budget.
I found the course incredibly useful and it made me feel much more confident in my understanding of SEO and being able to implement key principles in my work.
I would really encourage people to make use of the Staff Development Fund, which is a great resource if you have something that is important to your job and professional development, but is a bit beyond the usual training budget.”
Balancing Professional Development with Other Responsibilities
Holly Bear, Senior Postdoctoral Researcher, shares her experience of engaging in career development activities throughout her career, including during the transition from full to part-time research and whilst balancing caregiving responsibilities. The Returning Carers Fund is available to academic and research staff to support career development upon returning to work following periods of maternity leave, shared parental leave, adoption leave and carers’ leave.
“Throughout my career as senior postdoc, I have actively engaged in career development activities beyond my core research responsibilities. These have included attending training sessions, workshops, and seminars, as well as networking and presenting at academic events, collaborating on interdisciplinary projects, teaching, and applying for competitive grants. Over the past four years, I have steadily built my research programme in digital mental health and implementation science, increasing its momentum and impact.
Applying for the Returning Carers Fund has been a key strategy in facilitating my research re-engagement, allowing me to regain momentum and position myself competitively for future opportunities.
Taking maternity leave for about 10 months represented a significant break in my research activities, temporarily slowing my ability to publish, apply for funding, collaborate on projects, engage in networking opportunities, and attend conferences—all of which are critical for career progression. Since returning to work part-time, I have faced challenges balancing my research commitments with caregiving responsibilities, particularly in the absence of a local family support system. Working part-time has required careful prioritisation of research tasks, making it more difficult to dedicate time to teaching, attending conferences and workshops, and pursuing large-scale funding opportunities. The lack of uninterrupted research time has been especially challenging for manuscript preparation and grant writing, which are essential for securing future research independence.
Despite these challenges, I remain committed to career development and have found targeted approaches to be effective in managing my time. Applying for the Returning Carers Fund has been a key strategy in facilitating my research re-engagement, allowing me to regain momentum and position myself competitively for future opportunities. My plan is to recruit a part-time Research Assistant to help lay the groundwork for my planned fellowship application. Their input will help generate the data, framework, and stakeholder validation needed for my proposal. To others navigating similar career transitions, I would emphasise that progress doesn’t have to be linear—each step forward, no matter how small, is valuable. Seeking support, prioritising opportunities, and allowing flexibility in career goals can make a significant difference. Balancing research with caregiving is demanding, but with the right resources and mindset, it is absolutely possible to rebuild momentum and thrive.”
How Managers can Help Staff to Prioritise and Plan their Career Development
The Personal Development Review (PDR) process is a great opportunity for line managers and staff to speak about career development needs and interests. We spoke with Dr Ludovica Griffanti, an Associate Professor in the Department of Psychiatry, about how they support their team to prioritise and plan their Career Development.
Q. Please tell us briefly about your role, how long you have managed a team and the type of staff you manage e.g. MSc/DPhil students, post-docs, professional support staff, etc.
A: I have been a Principal Investigator (PI) since 2023, managing 5-10 people (MSc, DPhil, RA, postdoc), and a supervisor for students and visiting researchers since 2016.
Q: How do you and your team members identify career development opportunities that will help them to develop in their role or prepare for the future?
A: If related to their project/area, opportunities likely come up spontaneously in meetings (e.g. conferences or courses). If unrelated, they usually come from team member interest or curiosity on a topic or skill and then we start a conversation on what opportunity is available in the University or elsewhere. Another occasion is when discussing career progression (e.g. academic vs non-academic path) and thinking about skills or experiences that would be useful for the next step (e.g. committees, networking with someone outside the field).
Q: What strategies do you use to help your team balance their day-to-day responsibilities while dedicating time to career development and training?
A: We usually try not to have too many activities overlapping at the same time, and whenever possible, not too close to milestones of projects. We periodically review activities (either in the PDR or equivalent, at least twice a year) and if too many things occur in parallel (e.g. several long-term commitments in committees and courses), we discuss together priorities and/or ways to time them to avoid overlap (e.g. this year committee A, next year committee B).
Q: Are there any specific Career Development Opportunities you recommend for your team?
A: It depends on the person and their interests, but recurrent ones I usually suggest are public engagement, committees, conferences, and organisation of a seminar or event (as a one-off or as part of a committee).
Q: Do you currently use any tools to record/track career development training within your team?
A: Not currently. I often hear back from team members about what was good and what wasn’t, but maybe taking note of feedback on activities/courses etc could help me thinking of what to suggest (or not) in the future.