Vitae RDF - Additional Resources

We offer a workshop framework, guidance and resources for schools, faculties and institutes to host your own APD with RDF Planner workshops. These workshops can help UQ research staff upgrad their APD process, support meaningful professional development and career progression, especially for EMCR-level researchers and research professionals. 

The UQ workshop framework incorporates the Vitae RDF Activity Cards which offer a structured and enjoyable way for researchers and research professional staff to identify their skills and plan their professional development. By working with these cards, people can become more self-aware, allowing them to identify their interests, career goals, areas needed or desired to develop skills, as well as being able to create a personalised plan for career development.

This hands-on approach allows participants to:

• Conduct a thorough assessment of their skills and capabilities.

• Recognise their current experience level.

• Craft a tailored action plan to advance in their chosen developmental area.

These workshops support self-assessment and provide a clear roadmap for both personal and professional growth that can be used to complete your Annual Performance and Development review (APD).

Contact the Researcher Development Team to discuss how to host your own workshop dedicated to enhancing the professional journey of research staff in your area.

The UQ Vitae RDF Planner Tool is a newly developed resource for researchers and research professionals who want the benefits of the Vitae RDF Planner on the go.

This workbook is structured across three pages:

1. Vitae Researcher Development Framework (RDF) Overview
   • Gain insights into the foundational aspects of the RDF.
2. Detailed RDF Skills and Attributes List
   • This page enumerates the various skills and attributes across different proficiency levels, ranging from beginner to expert. It features a dedicated column for personal documentation, allowing you to record your evidence and progress.
3. Automatically Generated Summary
   • Based on your inputs in the second page, this section creates a tailored summary. Ideal for integration into your Academic and Professional Development (APD) records or Curriculum Vitae (CV).

This workbook is great to track and showcase your research development journey effectively.

Request a copy of the UQ Vitae RDF Planner Tool from UQ Researcher Development

The Vitae RDF Lenses allow individuals to focus on specific areas of development that are relevant to their career goals and aspirations. Individuals can target the lens most relevant to their efforts and find resources to help develop the skills and knowledge to enhance their career prospects. Additionally, by developing skills in the specific lens areas, individuals can enhance their career prospects and improve their opprotunities to contribute meaningfully to their communities.

The 2-step guide for accessing the lens while compiling your RDF Planner can be found here.

• Employability Lens
  • This lens provides a summary of the skills and qualities commonly developed by researchers that are highly valued by employers. It highlights the important skills for current and potential employers seeking to hire researchers to benefit their business. The lens emphasises the transferability of research staff key knowledge, behaviours, and attributes to non-higher education research settings. Employers may also seek additional role-specific skills depending on their business needs.
• Engineering Lens
  • This lens helps researchers understand their connections and identify elements of their research that can demonstrate engineering competence, as well as identifying areas of further growth.
• Enterprise Lens 
  • This lens provides an overview of the key knowledge, behaviours and attributes typically developed by researchers that can be acquired through, or used in, enterprise activities.
• 'Getting Started in Research' Lens
  • This lens is designed for those who have just started their doctoral research. The framework provides a comprehensive view of a successful researcher and can be used to assess development needs and progress as researchers advance in their careers, with an emphasis on the knowledge, behaviours, and attributes required for early-stage researchers.
• Information Literacy Lens
  • This lens provides an overview of the essential knowledge, behaviours, and attributes that can be gained through information literacy activities or applied in them.
• Intellectual Property Lens
  • This lens stresses the significance of comprehending intellectual property (IP) in researchers' professional growth. It presents a summary of the vital knowledge, behaviours, and attributes that researchers must acquire to grasp IP and exploit it to amplify the social and economic impact of their research.
• Intrapreneurship Lens
  • This lens provides an overview of the key knowledge, behaviours and attributes typically developed by researchers that can be acquired through, or used in, intrapreneurial activities.
• Knowledge Exchange Lens 
  • This lens focuses on the importance of knowledge exchange in the professional development of researchers, highlighting key knowledge, behaviours, and attributes that can be developed through knowledge exchange activities. It emphasises the need for researchers to apply research results in the public domain to demonstrate impact.
• Leadership Lens 
  • This lens highlights key knowledge, behaviours, and attributes developed by researchers through leadership activities, supporting the importance of good leadership and management in obtaining greater impact from research for the future economic prosperity and well-being.
• Public Engagement Lens 
  • This lens emphasises the importance of public engagement as a part of researchers’ professional development and outlines the key knowledge, behaviours, and attributes typically developed through public engagement activities.
• Public Engagement Leadership Lens 
  • This lens is intended to help researchers and leaders develop their public engagement leadership skills and support cultural change towards engagement with research, providing resources to inform the development of middle managers in how to support public engagement.
• Researcher Mobility Lens 
  • This lens focuses on the skills and attributes needed by researchers to be effective in an international context and in a new research environment. It defines the key knowledge, behaviours, and attributes necessary for mobile researchers to succeed in their work.
• Teaching Lens
  • This lens highlights areas of overlap between researchers and teaching in higher education, how they can contribute to researcher development and teaching expertise.
• Wellbeing and Mental Health Lens
  • This lens highlights the descriptors central to creating a healthy environment and culture for researchers to protect their own mental health and that of others.

Planning your career development is a critical component of a researcher's professional growth and success in this ever-changing global research environment. 

You can take an active role in your personal and career development to complement and align with your professional growth. You can integrate your career development with your research activities by acquiring new skills, being flexible and open to opportunities, taking charge of specific aspects of a project, or promoting yourself at conferences and other events.

Career development focuses on the value of your aspirations and shaping an authentic research career and is essential whether you pursue an academic or non-academic career. Career development is essential whether you pursue an academic or non-academic career.

Transitions to New Careers

Researchers are important human capital for our economy and society. While the number of researchers has continued to increase, there has been little or no growth in the availability of academic positions. Despite this, many early career researchers aspire to have academic careers, and typically, many researchers experience a series of fixed-term contracts or fellowships while searching for an academic position. However, few know the breadth of career opportunities open to them, particularly beyond higher education.

Very little is known about the career paths of researchers who were initially employed in higher education as research staff. 'Career Pathways in Research' offers valuable insights for both researchers and those considering doing a PhD on navigating employment opportunities inside and outside of higher education, and also provides information on research funding, internships, and CV preparation. 

Below are a collection of personal stories that delves into the experiences of ECRs as they navigate the transition from academia to diverse professional pathways. By exploring their knowledge, perspectives, and choices, this narrative illuminates the factors influencing career decisions and provides invaluable insights for researchers and mentors alike, fostering empowerment and guidance in the ever-evolving landscape of research careers.

'The Career Pathways of Doctoral Graduates' provides 12 case studies from 'The Right Skills: Celebrating Skills in the Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences'

Vitae's Career Stories Collection provide case studies of researchers who have left academia.