Choose your mode of delivery

18 minutes

On this page:

How to choose your mode of delivery
Mode 1: No cohort, self-directed postdoc participants
Resource estimation: Mode 1
Mode 2: Coordinated communications, self-directed participants
Resource estimation: Mode 2
Mode 3: Facilitated participants (possibly as a cohort), facilitated activities
Resource estimation: Mode 3
Details of specific Prosper resources available
Comparison of modes of delivery
Identify potential running costs
Factors to consider before choosing an approach
Recommendations
Case studies

How to choose your mode of delivery

Here we outline possible ways to deliver Prosper to help shape your thinking as you plan how you’ll use Prosper at your institution. We include practical information about the level of support and resource required for different modes, factors to consider when choosing your approach, and our own recommendations. Finally, we’ve included an example of how we ran a cohort and some case studies for inspiration.

Consider your mode of delivery

Below we have outlined three possible levels of delivery and participation. These are simply starting point examples, not intended to be prescriptive or followed rigidly as there is a continuum of ways you can use Prosper.

Mode 1: Portal promotion, self-directed postdoc participants

Prosper portal and resource promoted across your Institution and signposted across all relevant channels.

Available from Prosper

Institutional Support Required

Prosper portal with comprehensive self-guided resources for postdocs.
Prosper portal with comprehensive self-guided resources for PIs (including how to support postdocs in using Prosper).
Communications resources to promote Prosper.
Details of all providers commissioned who have run Prosper sessions during the pilot.

Comprehensive set of resources to support institutional staff responsible for postdoc career development to run Prosper sessions. (All our sessions are available asynchronously for a postdoc to follow in a self-guided way but in addition for some it will be beneficial for resources to be used as part of an interactive session if an Institution chooses).

Staff effort to promote and embed Prosper offering across Institution.
Senior leadership input to advocate for Prosper within Institution as part of culture change/ researcher development piece

Resource estimation: Mode 1

We appreciate you may already do some of the things itemised in our estimated resource but we have included them for completeness.

Mode 2: Facilitated sessions, use of Prosper resources

Examples of this mode in practice include running sessions for postdocs at your institution using Prosper Learning and Development resources, or embedding Prosper Portal resources into career development sessions.

Available from Prosper

Institutional Support Required

All of mode 1 plus…

In this option you also make use of resources available in the Institutions section to integrate Prosper resources (and the Portal) into your institutions’ development offering
An example of a mode 2 implementation (at Heriot-Watt University) can be seen here.

How-to-guides are available on the Prosper Portal, for example How to commission workshop suppliers, How to facilitate a session, and How to run a buddy scheme

All of mode 1 plus…

Staff effort to analyse current local Institutional offering and identify were Prosper could plug gaps and add value.
Staff effort to run sessions using Prosper resources. The portal contains how to guides as well as resources for staff delivering postdoc career development to use. Can be run as ‘off-the-shelf’ for less institutional effort or could be tailored.

Running live employer and/or postdoc ‘alumni’ panel
Optional buddy scheme to provide enhanced support for postdocs undertaking largely self-guided activity. See the how to guide here.

Resource estimation: Mode 2

You may wish to facilitate sessions around a specific skillset, like leadership, or around one of our ‘Reflect, Explore, Act’ themes (or selected resources from each) – according to gaps in your current provision or demand from researchers at your institution. Sessions could be online, in-person, or a combination of online and in-person.

It is strongly recommended to incorporate engagement with Portal resources into sessions and encourage registration to support postdocs ongoing career development. This could be supplemented by asynchronous self-directed prompts to postdocs regarding Portal resources/areas, outside of sessions.

One-off time expenditure

Review of current offering for postdoc career development at your institution and gap identification – 2 working days
Reviewing Prosper to address identified gaps – 2 days
Engaging with Alumni or other similar team for links/introductions to former postdocs – 2 days

On-going time expenditure

Advertising career development offering to postdocs – 2 hours a month (0.3 days a month)
Delivery of selected Prosper sessions/resources - each of these have an accompanying how-to-guide indicating the session duration, typically between 1 to 3 hours (plus any preparation time or development time if you wish to modify any session/resource). As an example, when running our first cohort we ran on average 4.4 hours (approximately 3 sessions) of development activities per month. Over a 3-month sprint this would be ~ 2 days work, running 3 of these sprints a year would be ~ 6 days (~ 40 hours) per year.

Suggested extras (pick and mix as desired)

Engaging with the Prosper community of practice – 1 day per year
Run prompted virtual ‘sprints’, focussing on an aspect/topic/resource of career development. An example could be spending 3 months on ‘Reflect’ getting postdocs to consider their skills and values, sending either a short weekly or fortnightly prompt email - 5 hours a month (0.7 days)
Run a live, virtual^†, start of ‘sprint’, check-in mid-sprint, and end of ‘sprint’ - assuming a sprint is 3 months in duration this would be a one 1-hour session per month (plus 1 hour prep. time) (0.3 days per month)
Commissioning of extra sessions/resources - a Prosper suppliers list and how-to are available
Engaging with employers and/or former postdocs now working beyond academia:
- Engaging with pre-existing employer partners (or the teams/individuals which manage these relationships at your institution) - 2 days per year
- Setting up and running Employer or former postdoc panel sessions - estimate a maximum of three, 1-hour session per 3 month sprint, ~ 1.3 days (9 hours) per year.
Evaluation of the efficacy of the ‘sprints’. At your institution you’d have to decide what this would look like, what do you want to measure? What is a measure of success for you? See our evaluation pages for more information. Suggest a short initial and end survey. Time to create surveys 1 day, time to issue surveys 1 hour (0.14 days) per survey, review, analysis and dissemination of survey results 5 days

^†these sessions could be run in person but there may be an additional time cost for room/venue booking and any catering costs (if this is desired).

Total estimated person time/institution resource per year (if all recommended extras are included and three, 3-month long ‘sprints’ are run per year):

Total Mode 1 + Mode 2 = 75 days (~525 hours) which equates to 0.35 FTE*.

Note this time estimate does not include the commissioning of new sessions. Only an approximate time estimate of the development sessions has been included as the precise number, duration and pre-preparation required for the selected sessions will vary across each institution. We cannot envisage mode 2 running without the necessary promotion and communication of mode 1, hence providing the total mode 1 plus mode 2 resource estimate.

*Our estimates have been developed on the basis of the person (or persons) having a reasonable level of independence and autonomy, equating to level of seniority of a grade 7 or 8 minimum (depending on their level of professional experience or what else they do). These grades are based on the HERA (Higher Education Role Analysis) scores.

Mode 3: A Prosper cohort

A facilitated programme of activities whereby a specifically-recruited group of postdocs (a cohort) explore Prosper resources.

Available from Prosper

Institutional Support Required

All of mode 1 and 2 plus…

The Prosper Portal provides resources and how-to guides for Institutions on the scaffold activities. Examples include welcome cohort events, running employer panels and closing activities.

The Prosper Portal provides evaluation guidance and resources.
An example of a mode 3 implementation (at the University of Manchester) can be seen here.

All of mode 1 and 2 plus…

The level of effort involved from an Institution could vary but could include running:
- Welcome and induction event
- Buddy scheme
- Cohort sessions to maintain individual momentum
- Running some Prosper sessions live (Can be run as ‘off the shelf’ for less institutional effort or could be tailored)
- Running a live employer or postdoc alumni panels
- end of “cohort” what next session

Level of effort involved in the selection of postdocs could be flexed from a light touch sign-up to a requirement to submit motivational statements.
Financial resource needed if professional career coaching is desired (expect somewhere around £100 to 150 + VAT per coaching hour, this can be group coaching, typically 5 to 10 postdocs per group).
This option is very scalable up or down depending on local resources.

Resource estimation: Mode 3

We appreciate you may already do some of the things itemised in our estimated resource but we have included them for completeness.

One-off time expenditure

Set up of evaluation framework (monitoring, what data you wish to collect, any longitudinal tracking and survey templates) - 1 day

On-going time expenditure

Advertising cohort opportunity to postdocs (including running several, 1-hour virtual drop-in sessions to answer questions/explain the offering) – 3 days
Selecting postdocs to join cohort – 2 days
Running the cohort admin. - (onboarding 1 day, 1 hour per bimonthly email 1.7 days (12 hours), weekly instant messaging platform reminders - 10 mins per week, 0.6 days (4.3 hours) per 6-month cohort)
Collect, analyse, disseminate evaluation data – 5 days (on top of what was described in Mode 2)

Suggested extras (pick and mix as desired)

Recruiting career coaches (effort required for this will depend on if you are using internal or external career coaches and the purchasing guidelines at your institution) – for example for recruiting external career coaches writing advert/tender, assessing returns, interviewing short-list, appointing 5 days
Onboarding career coaches – 0.14 days (1 hour) (once per coach engagement with how you’re running Prosper)
Regular meetings with career coaches – for example, 1.5 hours every 3 months
Cohort welcome, check-in and end events – 6 hours plus 3 hours preparation, 1.3 days every 6 months
On-going engagement communication with previous cohorts (for evaluation, case study, testimonial and/or alumni panel session invites) - 1 day
More engagement of employers at your institution or former postdocs now working beyond academia – 5 days

Total estimated person time/institution resource per year (if all recommended extras are included and two 6-month long cohorts are run per year):

Mode 1 + Mode 2 + Mode 3 = ~ 112 days (~785 hours) which equates to 0.52 FTE*.

*Our estimates have been developed on the basis of the person (or persons) having a reasonable level of independence and autonomy, equating to level of seniority of a grade 7 or 8 minimum (depending on their level of professional experience or what else they do). These grades are based on the HERA (Higher Education Role Analysis) scores.

Note this time estimate assumes that you only have to recruit and onboard your career coaches once and will use the same coaches for the second cohort of the year. This time estimate does not include the commissioning of new sessions and only an estimate of the development sessions as the number, duration and pre-preparation required for the selected sessions will vary across each institution.

For more details on how to recruit and run a cohort see the pages linked here.

Details of specific Prosper resources available

Format	Description	Audience
Self-directed career development	Career development resources on Portal	Postdoc
How to guides	Guides on all aspects of how to use Prosper, getting institutional buy-in, and how to run specific sessions, including employer engagement and PI network sessions - get buy-in from PIs and working with PIs.	Postdoc, MoR/PIs and others
Coordinated Buddy groups	Organised peer groups to support career development.	Postdoc
Career coaching	Career development of postdocs supported either by qualified career coaches or peer-group guided	Postdoc
Example programs	We present some example programs to get you started considering how you might like to group or theme resources to craft your own program.	Institutional users, researcher developers
Online synchronous facilitated	How to guides for running career development sessions online, live.	Postdoc
Online asynchronous	See all resources provided in the learning and development section .	Postdoc
Face-to-face facilitated	How to guides for running career development sessions live, in person.	Postdoc

Comparison of modes of delivery

Trade-offs: The following are pros and cons for each approach

	Mode 1 Portal promotion, self-directed use	Mode 2 Facilitated sessions using Prosper resources	Mode 3 Prosper cohort
Pros	- Low cost - Low effort - Low resource	- Low to moderate cost and resource - Moderate effort - Themes can be selected to fit with local needs - Postdoc peer support can be built-in	- Cohort postdocs are more motivated/committed - Builds a sense of community - Straight forward to evaluate - Can form part of the minimum 10 days per year of career development set out in the Concordat - Robust method of involving/targeting under represented minorities
Cons	- Difficult to evaluate or measure impact - Does not necessarily address postdoc isolation/build a sense of community - Relies solely on self-motivation of individual postdocs - Little to no added local institutional ‘flavour’	- Tough to get postdoc buy-in/commitment to ad-hoc offering - Achieving desired evaluation outcomes can be difficult with low/moderate levels of engagement	- Highest level of cost, effort and resource required - Can get push-back regarding time spent on career development

Identify potential running costs

Please note all prices are estimates, written in Great British Pounds (GBP) in 2022.

Commissioning professional external career coaches to support your Prosper offering, expect this to cost in the region of £100 to 150 per hour plus VAT (not all suppliers are VAT registered). If offering career coaching in person, factor in the additional travel costs and expenses. Note that Prosper successfully offered career coaching all delivered virtually. For details on how to arrange career coaching see this page.

Commissioning specialist suppliers to deliver or facilitate sessions on a specific topic or skill vary a lot in price. In general, the more of their time you want, the more expensive the session. This can be in terms of their preparation time if you want a very bespoke session, not one of their off-the-shelf options, or if you want them to create a resource for you. If you want the session to be delivered in person factor in the additional travel costs and expenses. In very general terms, we’ve found that if you want a live, virtual session, for a postdoc audience of around 25 people, not too niche/bespoke, 60 to 90 minutes long, you’ll be paying around £1000 + VAT. This is a very rough guide as some charge much more, some less. For more information see the how to commission suppliers page.

Factors to consider before choosing an approach

There are a variety of approaches you may wish to consider when selecting your mode of delivery:

Consult with your stakeholders: link into your local Concordat strategy steering group (and any/all other relevant strategy groups) – in addition to engaging with your relevant strategy groups for researcher development you could hold focus group/s or have a consultation with postdocs, managers of researchers/PIs and any other interested parties at your institution to determine their needs and enthusiasm for postdoc career development
Consider the resources available at your institution: in terms of both person time to arrange and deliver Prosper postdoc career development and funds available for things like career coaching or for commissioning bespoke sessions

Review current postdoc career development offer: which gaps can you use Prosper to fill?
Define your goals: What do you want to achieve at your institution for postdoc career development? Do you want to use this offer as a way to enhance the attractiveness of postdoc appointments at your institution? Or as a route to improve or enhance the culture at your intuition? Do you want to use Prosper as a way to keep your postdoc ‘alumni’ engaged with your institution? And/or to make your managers of researchers/PIs/mid-career researchers feel included in the career development offering for postdocs?

Recommendations

Do use the process of picking a mode of participation as a way to gain local advocacy and supporters. You’re making Prosper yours, tailoring it to the needs of your institution
Do lean into local pockets of enthusiasm for Prosper/postdoc career development
Do try to convert enthusiasm for Prosper into action or practical resource
Do think about what career development you can offer or open up to all of your postdocs, not just those in your cohort or ‘sprint’ group

Do consider ways to ‘group’ postdocs interested in their career development together. As postdocs have no annual set ‘start’ or ‘end’ dates like student cohorts this can require some effort, hence we suggest using a cohort model

Don’t overlook the benefits of having a social or peer-peer element on the overall experience and career development outcomes
Don’t be discouraged by ‘not specialist enough for me/my discipline’ opinions you may encounter from postdocs/mangers of researchers/other development staff

Case studies

Do let us know how you are delivering Prosper, we’d love to share this as a case study.

Heriot-Watt case study

Heriot-Watt adopted a mode 2 implementation of Prosper, offering research staff and PGRs a series of 5 sessions built around selected Prosper Portal resources. You can read more about the approach they took here.

University of Manchester micro case study

The University of Manchester used some Prosper content and developed some of our ideas as part of the short module they created. CVs for researchers CVs for Researchers - Overview | Rise 360 (articulate.com)

University of Manchester case study

The University of Manchester ran a two-part mode 3 Prosper cohort during the 2023-24 academic year. You can read more about the approach they took here.

University of Liverpool micro case study

The University of Liverpool have opened up the buddy scheme https://www.liverpool.ac.uk/researcher/uol-rsa/buddy-scheme/ initially trialled by Prosper to all postdocs. They are also adapting it to use with PGRs.

See how Prosper ran its two pilot cohorts Blue Arrow right

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