Doctoral Development Officer (Supervisors and PGR Leads)

at  Kings College London

Job id: 086306. Salary: £37,332 - £42,099 per annum, including London Weighting Allowance.
Posted: 14 March 2024. Closing date: 07 April 2024.
Business unit: Research Management & Innovation. Department: Centre for Doctoral Studies.
Contact details: Dr Alex Pavey. alex.pavey@kcl.ac.uk
Location: Guy’s Campus. Category: Professional & Support Services.
Back to job search
Job description
This is an exciting opportunity to contribute to the professional development of doctoral supervisors and other staff supporting postgraduate research at King’s College London. Based in the Doctoral Student Environment and Development team within the Centre for Doctoral Studies, the Doctoral Development Officer (Supervisors and PGR Leads) is a new role, and the postholder will make an important contribution to two complementary funded projects.
The Next Generation Research SuperVision Project (RSVP): transforming the culture of doctoral education and supervision is a £4.6 million, four-year project to transform research supervision practice, funded by Research England. This will be achieved by systematically examining how to improve and enhance research supervision in the UK through scholarship, practice interventions, culture and policy change. RSVP is directed by Dr Karen Clegg, University of York, and Professor Doug Cleaver, Sheffield Hallam University, and King’s College London is a member of the project consortium alongside the University of Nottingham, Coventry University, and the UK Council for Graduate Education.
Working with the Doctoral Student Development Manager, you will make a significant contribution to the project: developing productive relationships with colleagues across all RSVP partner institutions; supporting the organisation of group interviews with relevant stakeholders; and contributing to the design, delivery and evaluation of new approaches to supervisor development, including workshops, on-demand resources, mentoring schemes, and communities of practice.
King’s College London has separately received funding from Research England to support developments in research culture across the University, and a parallel project has been planned to run alongside the RSVP project.
The postholder will collaborate with colleagues across the Centre for Doctoral Studies to substantially improve the support for PGR leads across King’s. These appointed academics play a crucial leadership role in faculties, championing postgraduate research & researchers, supporting supervisors, influencing policy, and contributing to the research culture at King’s. The project has been funded to develop and deliver a tailored professional development programme for this important group, to enable them to deliver a consistently high standard of support.
The post will be split 50/50 between these two projects, and it is envisaged that there will be a high level of crossover between these two aspects of the role.
Our friendly, professional community at King’s embraces a culture with a deep respect for individual differences, and we encourage applications from people with a diverse range of experiences. Our employee benefits include flexible working, development opportunities, wellbeing and community support.
This is a hybrid role with the expectation of two days per week working from our central London offices.
This post will be offered on a fixed-term contract until 31 March 2027.
This is a full-time post - 100% full time equivalent.
Key responsibilities
Working with the Doctoral Student Development Manager to ensure King’s makes a substantial contribution throughout the lifetime of the Next Generation Research SuperVision Project (RSVP), and that project outputs are implemented to the benefit King’s supervisors and postgraduate researchers.
Developing productive relationships with staff within the RSVP consortium partner institutions, collaborating with them in the development, piloting and evaluation of new professional development resources for supervisors.
Developing professional relationships with RSVP collaborators in industry to translate good practice in supervisory professional development between industry and university partners.
Proactively engaging with supervisors, PGR leads, and other relevant staff across all nine King’s faculties, using group interviews and other appropriate methods to assess their development and support needs.
Developing resources and activities to support the onboarding of new PGR leads and the sharing of knowledge and good practice.
Organising and delivering professional development activities for PGR leads, both synchronous and asynchronously.
Working with the Digital Training Coordinator to create effective and impactful online training materials on KEATS, the King’s Virtual Learning Environment – including contributing to the existing Supervisor Development Hub and potentially developing a new PGR Lead Development Hub.
Working with the Doctoral Student Development Administrator to ensure live workshops for supervisors and PGR leads are promoted effectively, monitoring attendance levels, and making recommendations to enhance engagement.
Working with the comms team to ensure website content and other communications materials relating to the RSVP and PGR Leads projects are accurate, easily navigable and accessible.
Proactively seeking out examples of good practice with regard to doctoral supervisor training and development e.g. from doctoral training partnerships, peer universities, and where possible, offering these more broadly for the benefit of the wider community.
The above list of responsibilities may not be exhaustive, and the post holder will be required to undertake such tasks and responsibilities as may reasonably be expected within the scope and grading of the post.
Skills, knowledge, and experience

Essential criteria

• Experience of working as a researcher or in delivering researcher development initiatives.
• Confident verbal communicator, with experience of giving talks or presentations.
• Excellent written communication skills, able to draft web copy, emails, reports and documents accurately, persuasively and succinctly.
• A clear motivation to enhance doctoral supervision and to contribute to building a healthy and positive research culture.
• Strong digital skills, able to use a variety of systems confidently to communicate, design and deliver professional development resources.
• Proven track record of collaboration and team-working.
• Able to prioritise and manage multiple projects and deadlines.
• Commitment to equality and diversity, and enhancing accessibility of opportunity.
• Ability to analyse and evaluate quantitative and qualitative data (e.g. surveys, workshop attendance data, focus group responses) and make constructive recommendations.
• Experience of communicating with and influencing senior people

Desirable criteria

• A PhD or other postgraduate research degree.
• Experience of facilitating group interviews.
• Experience of contributing to professional development activities for doctoral supervisors or academic staff.

Please refer the Job description for details