Anybody work in academic development?

[UrsaRager]

Thinking of side stepping. Do you enjoy it, what's it like day to day? any low down much appreciated!

I’m not sure what you mean by “academic development” - are you considering moving into Higher Education fundraising?

Thanks for the response! No I mean that grey area between academia and prof services where you support academics and PGRs to research and teach

Bump!

By ‘support’ do you mean teaching academics? If so then my (limited) experience is that it’s a niche area, mainly staffed part time by people who are also researchers and HE tutors, or have considerable experience and qualifications in both. You’d certainly need considerable experience in order to be credible.
If by ‘support’ you mean HE admin/management roles then you’d need the professional skills/experience/qualifications required for the type of ‘support’ (eg HR, Finance, grant applications, Administration, Lab technician etc). In some of these you’d end up providing support to students too.
The lack of response on this thread suggests I’m not the only one confused by your question. Have you seen a role you’re interested in? Are you an academic now?

Yes I'm an academic. I'm talking about offering research training to PGRs and academic staff. Sorry if it's not clear, I'm not that clear myself!

In my research focused Uni, we have a load of project/programme managers who effectively act as project managers for large grants. They are mostly staffed by ex-post docs, some keep their hand in and do a bit of research. Pay scales are generally the grade above a first post doc and there are generally opportunities to move up within Uni admin or to industry. That may be because it’s a sciencey field.

But from your later messages, that might not be what you want.

Universities have dedicated staff to deliver training in teaching to new lecturing staff. There are also increasingly roles related to general skills training for PhD students and researchers e.g. grant writing, academic writing etc, as part of the concordat for researcher development. These tend to be filled by ex-PhD students, who are either waiting for an academic post to come up or looking to transition out of academia. In all of these roles there usually aren't that many opportunities to progress up the ladder from postdoc/beginning lecturer level salaries.

Hello OP! In my university this type of training is undertaken by existing staff (I.e. academics as part of their academic citizenship), some professional service staff or employ a freelancer/external agency. It’s a lucrative business but no guarantees of work; ex-academics often very popular as perceived to be more credible.

Are you trying to do this freelance or find a role in a uni. I think a lot of what you are looking for falls under either researcher development roles or eg whoever manages the pgcert in academic practice or whatever the hea certification is called.
I work in research support and moved after my postdoc abd love it (e.g grant support, Research governance etc). Have researcher development responsibilities as well. I really enjoy the variety of my day and the change from postdoc to this role was amazing. Loads of progression opportunities. Is this something You are interested in? Happy to answer questions.

Thanks @treespeas this is exactly what I mean! I'm so glad you love it: can I ask what you love about it and what your working life looks like? Maybe we could pm?

I like that overall it is a very supportive community with the association of research managers and administrators and unlike when I was a researcher people are willing to share info and be extremely helpful...I like that the role is very varied (I tend to work in smaller institutions so I tend to have a wider remit)...I like that there are no unreasonable expectations and i get a good work life balance (I find being an academic there is no way on earth you have enough time to do everything and you never feel you are anywhere near as good enough)...I really enjoy interacting with academics in helping them with grant applications and seeing them succeed but really enjoy that whether it is successful or not (I try my best to make it successful) does not determine whether I have a job/ get promoted/ has such a determination in my career as it would when I was a researcher and I do not have to actually deliver it (I did not enjoy being in the lab as much by the end of my post doc... no broken equipment to deal with). The not so good...I think this depends on the university you are in but in general each one i have worked in you have to work hard at the start to gain trust (why should I trust what you are telling me you are just professional services) but usually faculty come around very quickly and realise that the fact you have read the guidelines and they (almost always) haven't and that you have seen many more grants (or ethics applications of whatever) than they normally have is a good reason to trust you. Also you sit in a weird space between the academic side and the professional services side and sometimes that becomes an issue. However this is a very minor thing and over all it has been the right decision for me.

Can I ask what stage of your career you are. I have also pmd you