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Welcome to this month's ECR Newsletter where you will find key information on the following’:

• RDRC Courses
• Online Writing Groups for ECRs
• 1:2:1 Careers Appointments
• ECR Liaison Forum
• Images of Research Competition is back for ECRs
• Wellbeing Workshop : Compassionate Creativity Culture Club
• New ECR Network focused on Corporate Social Responsibility
• Write your Book with ExeBiblio
• Exeter Research Network - Exeter Brain
• Tell us what you think about our Research Culture web plans
• Research Grants & Funding
• St Luke's Volunteer Garden project
• Jargon Buster
• Latest Events and Opportunites
• and much more!

Please direct any questions you may have to researcherdevelopment@exeter.ac.uk.

Previous copies of Newsletters can be viewed by clicking here.  If you have something that you'd like to share in future Newsletters, click here for copy deadline dates as well as submission guidelines.

All courses are delivered online (please click on the course title for information and to book your place).

ECR Core Programme:-
Writing Targeted Grant Proposals - 27/07/2022 (12.30 pm - 2 pm)

Research and Innovation Essentials Series:-
Open Research - Publications, data and beyond - 22/09/2022 (10 am - 11.30 am)
Connecting with External Partners and Creating Opportunities - 22/09/2022 (2 pm - 3 pm)

Researcher-Led Initiatives:-
Wellbeing Workshop: Compassionate Creativity Culture Club - 7/7/2022 (9 am - 4.30 pm)
 

If you register for any of our above sessions, it is expected that you will attend. If you are not able to attend please log in to the ‘iTrent’ online system to remove your name from the relevant activity before it is due to take place. You will be expected to attend for the whole session and for ease of administration, attendance registers will be taken at the end of each session. Should you need to leave a session early or you experience ongoing technical issues, please email ResearcherDevelopment@exeter.ac.uk.

Groups will be running up to and including 21 July and will then take a natural break for the summer - all running 10 am - 12.30 pm - Click here for dates and details of how to join this group.

To make things easy, these sessions can be accessed via the same Teams link - click here.

"Having structured writing time that is set aside forces me to focus on writing when usually other things take over."

"I found this session incredibly useful for providing focused writing time for research. This can be difficult to find within a typical week and I hope to attend more of these sessions in the future."

"It was well structured and gave opportunity for short break in between."

These are just a few of the testimonials received from those who have attended these online groups.

These sessions follow a model where:-

• An Informal, dedicated support space is created for ECRs and Academics, in one virtual room, for you to be able to work without distractions.
• Time is structured into a series of working and discussion slots.
• The opportunity to learn from each other, share strategies, experiences, working goals and best practice is actively encouraged and facilitated.

​You can attend for as long as you need to!

We are looking to expand our team of facilitators so if you would like to find out more about becoming a facilitator please contact ResearcherDevelopment@exeter.ac.uk.

Unsure of your future career direction either within Academia or beyond Academia? Kate Foster, (Careers Coach for Researcher Development and Research Culture), is available to offer 1:2:1 Career coaching appointments for ECRs.  50 minute online appointments are available for you to book on by clicking here.

Kate can offer advice and discuss how to manage and plan your career and has timeslots from 13 September onwards.  Should you wish to meet her before then, please contact ResearcerDevelopment@exeter.ac.uk.

Some recent testimonials:-
"A chance to reflect and think about my options, being heard."
"Very clear and direct tips!"
"Kate was very attentive and reassuring. She answered all of my questions."
"That the chat was confidential. That Kate was very easy to talk to."
"I felt like I was really being listened to and that my individual situation was being considered."

Thursday 7 July 2022 (10 am - 11.30 am) - Online
The ECR Liaison Forums are a fantastic opportunity for Early Career Researchers to meet and discuss what their community needs from the University. The forums typically meet four times a year and have representation on various boards across the University, to take ideas and requests forward. If you would like to be involved please register here.

We are pleased to announce that our Images of Research Competition is back for 2022! This competition is open to ECRs only and is a great chance for you to showcase your research to a non-specialist audience. Just select your most compelling image and write a short, jargon-free description. You have until Friday 2 September 2022 to enter. As well as the pride of winning, the top 3 selected will receive a Devon hamper! You can find out more (as well as view images from previous years), by clicking here.

Picture opposite is Sophia Edlund's winning 2020 entry.

Thursday 7 July 2022 (9 am - 4.30 pm)
This one-day-only-event will bring together various practitioners and wellbeing experts to deliver practical skills and strategies to enhance your wellbeing, compassionate creativity, and productivity. Sessions will cover holistic aspects of creativity and compassion including mental health. The aim of the event is to:-

• provide an opportunity for collaborative creativity, compassion, and problem solving;
• enhance collective wellbeing to boost your mental health;
• cultivate new activities and strategies for increasing your productivity.

This activity is a Researcher-Led Initiative that has been funded by the University of Exeter Researcher Development and Research Culture team.

For more details and to book your place click here.

On 7 July 2022 (12 noon - 2 pm) at Building One Constantine Leventis Teaching Room a newly founded ECRN, CSR IMPACT, will hold a catered sustainable lunchtime meet & greet to celebrate and brainstorm group activities. The Corporate Social Responsibility Researcher Impact Network or CSR IMPACT for short is a new network built for those interested in researching, engaging in, and widening the participation of collaborations between academia and industry on the topic of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). Research on CSR cuts across many schools, departments, and institutes at the University of Exeter, and offers exciting opportunities for interdisciplinary collaboration. If you are an early career researcher interested in discovering paths into CSR work from academia, CSR IMPACT seeks to host industry guests in the future to discuss their own experiences and inroads into this rapidly growing field in both academia and industry. To RSVP for the free event, please email David Wallace-Hare at csrimpact@proton.me.

The Doctoral College, working with Collaborative Capacities, is pleased to provide you the opportunity for structured and protected time for writing, along with the ExeBiblio Symposium on 8th July featuring three academic publishers (including from McGraw Hill and Sage), along with book authors from the University of Exeter.

ExeBiblio is for you if:

• you think you might one day write a non-fiction book,
• you already know what you want to write about and need a nudge to start, or
• you have already started writing your book and need protected time to get on with it.

ExeBiblio: multi-session intervention of “How to and Let’s do” workshops; start with exploring ideas for your book, take you through what’s needed for publication and provide you with a structured process and the time to follow it.

Protected Writing Time workshops: 6 half days between mid-July and September.

Click here for further information and registration.

Exeter Brain is a newly designated Exeter Research Network bringing together researchers interested in any aspect of the brain and its role in health and disease.

We are planning a day-long networking event in Exeter on Wednesday 7 September 2022.

To register interest in this event or join the network please complete this short form.

We’re looking for researchers across all career stages to have a 30 min 1:1 chat with us about our plans to improve our research culture web content, including advice to help you integrate research culture into successful grant applications.

If you think you can help, please contact Becky Euesden (r.s.euesden@exeter.ac.uk) by Thursday 14 July 2022.

ESRC Festival of Social Science (FoSS)
New deadline for applications: Friday 15 July 2022
Applications are welcome for events as part of the ESRC’s Festival of Social Science (FoSS) 2022.This year the FoSS will run from Saturday 22 October – Sunday 13 November.  

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Health Equity Innovation Challenge 2022
Closing date: Wednesday 20 July 2022 (1 pm)
The Challenge is open to all and is offering three grants of up to £25,000, over a six-month period to candidates with innovations or solutions for addressing mental health inequity in anxiety for children and young people. For more details, including full eligibility and details on how to apply, please visit the South West Academic Health Science Network (South West AHSN) website.

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Innovative Health Initiative 2022
Submissions of Proposals Deadline : 20 September 2022
The Innovative Health Initiative (IHI) European Partnership has now launched the previously pre-announced calls for proposals 2022:

• IHI call 1: a one-stage calls for projects focusing on cancer, neurodegenerative diseases, and health data;
• IHI call 2: a two-stage call for projects focusing on cardiovascular disease and early feasibility studies.

All topic texts, call documentation, including a comprehensive guide for applicants and details of how to apply can be found on the IHI website.

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£1.8m to accelerate bright ideas into global opportunities
Application Deadline : first come first serve basis, until all funds are allocated
The new Accelerator Accounts are as follows:

• Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) IAA - £940k
• Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) IAA - £450k
• Medical Research Council (MRC) IAA - £414k

The IAAs support critical early-stage translation of UK research to real impacts, transforming public services, creating new jobs, attracting private investment, and forging new partnerships with business and charities. Funding allows UK teams to unlock the value of their work, including early-stage commercialisation of new technologies and advancing changes to public policy and services such as NHS clinical practice.  Click here for more information.

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Check out the Research Toolkit webpages for more opportunities.

St Luke’s Volunteer Garden can be found behind South Cloisters on the St Luke’s Campus, and is open all year round to provide a space to enhance wellbeing for staff and students – who are welcome to use the space at any time.  We hold weekly gardening sessions on Wednesdays between 1200-1400 and these are very informal, and usually with tea and biscuits (or cake if we are lucky)!  Again, staff and students can come along for 2 minutes or 2 hours, with absolutely no obligation to get hands dirty.  As well as gardening we also get involved with events at St Luke’s such as the Festival of Compassion, ECRN and Lukies, where we also run optional wellbeing activities such as stone painting, crafting, reading etc.  For further information, or to be added to the mailing list, please contact StLukes_Volunteer_Garden@exeter.ac.uk.

This activity is a Researcher-Led Initiative that has been funded by the University of Exeter Researcher Development and Research Culture team.

Do you ever get stuck trying to work out a University acronym?

The University has a webpage that is an acronym code breaker!  You'll never be stuck wondering what an abbreviation is ever again!  Click here for more details.

The Decolonising Research Festival
20 June - 15 July 2022
The Festival is currently in full swing and includes research talks, workshops, question and answer panels and roundtable discussions on a variety of topics. Click here to book your place for the remaining events which are:-

• Incorporating Power Analysis into our Work Spaces (Workshop) - 7/7/2022 (3-4 pm)
• 'I am because We are' - reimagining research practices and teaching through decolonisation (Workshop) - 8/7/2022 (10 - 11.30 am)
• Afropean Theology: Utilising Nigerian/British novels & Auto-ethnography in New Testament Studies (Talk) - 12/7/2022 (1-2 pm)
• Decolonial Participatory Research (Workshop) - 14/7/2022 (2-4.30 pm).

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NERC Constructing a Digital Environment conference
11 and 12 July 2022
This NERC Constructing a Digital Environment Conference aims to highlight the increasing role of digital technologies in environmental research and to spark new collaborations, new ideas and innovative approaches to utilising technology and digital resources in environmental research. You may find the draft programme on CDE22 conference page.

There will be a CDE 22 Hackathon held alongside the conference 9-12 July to promote multidisciplinary collaboration in creating artwork, in any format, that enhances the communications between scientists and the public. The winners' award could be up to £3,000.

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The Environmental Intelligence Grand Challenge 2022 by UKRI Centre for Doctoral Training in Environmental Intelligence
11 - 15 July 2022 
This event is a week-long hackathon using data science and AI to solve environmental challenges posed by our partners: Friends of the Earth, World Wildlife Fund, Institute for Strategic Dialogue, Cool Earth, with others. Interdisciplinary teams will work together to develop solutions before presenting their ideas at the end of the week – good solutions will be adopted by the partners so it is a good chance to make an impact with some scientific creativity!

The event will run 11-15 July 2022 and will be held on campus at University of Exeter. We are seeking participants: postgraduates, PhD students, early career researchers and academics. Check out our event webpage and then register your interest using EventBrite.

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Postgraduate Life Sciences Society Poster Conference
Application deadline : 18 July 2022 (but poster only needs to be ready and printed by the event)
Event : Wednesday 27 July 2022 (Streatham Campus).
Kindly funded from Exeter Biosciences, you are invited to sign up for this Conference (colloquially called ‘Posters with PogLLS’), followed by a drinks reception.  Postgraduates, postdocs, research assistants, summer students (ie, current lab undergraduates) etc are all welcome. Please get in touch if you want to submit but are not sure if you fit the criteria or if you have any other questions: rw617@exeter.ac.uk.  For more information and to apply click here.  

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IUS Commune Prize 2022
Deadline for submission 1 September 2022
Value 1250 Euro. The Board of the Ius Commune Research School has decided, as a result of the great success of former years, to organise the prize this year again. The prize will be awarded to the graduate student or early career researcher whose article is of outstanding quality, other outstanding articles will be honourably mentioned. For further information click here.

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Event hosted by a Turing Network Development Award (TNDA) University
6 - 9 September 2022
The University of the West of England (UWE) are hosting an International Conference on Artificial Neural Networks in September 2022. To find out more click here.

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FREE Online 'Think Productive' Ninja Skills Sessions.
To find a library of YouTube videos from "How to Stop Procrastinating .... Tomorrow!' to 'How to Have the Energy : Nutrition for your Brain' click here.  To find upcoming sessions, click here.

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Contributions sought for the Research & Innovation blog
We are looking for PhD and Early Career researchers to contribute to the Research & Innovation blog and write posts that are based on three questions about your work.  To find out more click here.

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The British Academy - ECR Network : Monthly Online Coffee Hour
Takes place on the last Friday of every month.
This Coffee Hour aims to give ECRs the space to speak to one another. This could be about similar issues faced, general work/life discussion points or research projects, just to name a few. Click here for more information.

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Policy Engagement Training Programme
Policy@Exeter, the University of Exeter’s policy engagement initiative, has partnered with seven sector-leading training providers to bring you an exciting suite of practical and engaging workshops over the spring and summer. The programme aims to equip Exeter researchers from all disciplines and at all career levels with the skills and tools needed to confidently engage with policymakers locally, nationally and internationally.  To find out more and sign up, visit Policy@Exeter’s Events and training page.

Early Career Research Networks (ECRNs) are designed to help support our Early Career Researchers in the beginning stages of their career. The ECRNs are designed to help raise awareness of new developments in a particular field: new tools, processes, leaders, training programs, and services. They are also an opportunity for collaborative problem solving and to get advice from your peers. To find out more about the Networks and who your Network Rep is click here.

You can also get the latest Concordat updates and events by signing up to their newsletter when registering with their website.

Already registered and want to receive Vitae News? Contact Vitae direct

See the latest news update on the Concordat here.

Please remember to check the University Travel Policy for Colleagues before booking any travel for work purposes. The information covers both international travel and trips within the UK. Find out more click here. If you have any concerns, please do contact researchrestart@exeter.ac.uk and the research restart panel will be happy to discuss any bespoke issues that require further support and consideration.

Library Search is your key gateway into the print and electronic resources available to you via the Library. It is available 24/7 from your desktop or device, wherever in the world you are located.

It will enable you to find recommended readings and search across a wide range of full text resources to discover materials on your research topics.

If you're organising an event and don't know where to start, take a look at the Corporate Events webpage where you will find lots of useful information and advice including an Events Planning Toolkit!  If you would like to contact the Events Team for further advice email eventenquiries@exeter.ac.uk.

Find out how the University can support Early Career Researchers by clicking here.  The page includes support from the University, Spectrum.Life as well as a list of networks to support staff wellbeing.

Colleague Grief and Bereavement Group
The University Chaplaincy and Staff Wellbeing teams have launched a Colleague Grief and Bereavement Group - a support network for colleagues experiencing any form of Grief or Bereavement. The group is a safe space for sharing/listening and practical/reflective activities, rather than a counselling environment. We have now set dates for groups at both campuses until the end of the year. Please click here to find out more and register your interest in attending. This group is open to all staff regardless of your worldview or religious faith. Further support is available here.

Spectrum Life
If you’re finding things tough at the moment, please don’t forget we can all make use of our free and completely confidential Employee Assistance Programme, Spectrum Life, available 24/7 365 days a year for you, your partner or spouse and any dependents over the age of 16, still living at home.