Prosper Practice-Exchange: Collaborating to enhance the career development of postdocs

We are at the Kimpton Clock Tower Hotel in Manchester for the Prosper Practice Exchange event, which is an opportunity for colleagues from across the sector who are utilizing the Prosper model to come along, share, practice, learn from each other, and collaborate.

We know that our postdocs are really neglected component part of our workforce, and so really having that emphasis on how we support their development, but how we do it in a way which removes the idea that a career out with academia is a failure.

One of the main benefits for us is around that it is there as a resource that people can tap into in their own space and, and in their own time.

Something that someone said really is that they like having that independence in terms of their own development, but also that it’s a reliable source of information for them to explore.

We also know from cohorts that, um, lots of the learnings done by talking to peers and having that wide group of individuals from across the region brings a lots of different perspectives and really gives ’em a sense of what’s unique to their institution and what might be actually something that’s common a across the sector.

So what’s great about it’s, we’re actually giving up our postdocs a regional network, which they may not have been exposed to before. The fact that we’re bringing them to each location and we get them to see what it’s like on each campus and get a sense for it, what that journey’s like, which can be really helpful when they think about their career and the locations that they could have that career in.
We have a huge number of talented staff who are often on, uh, very short programs of work, and so they are expending energy on trying to think about where their next job is coming from. This one accords value to their talent, but also equips them with career management skills, which they haven’t had before.

We’re running our second Prosper cohort program this spring, and I think the benefits of it is having that dedicated time and space to focus on your career development and also having that space to really think about your values, your skills, and how they can be further developed and aligned to your future career.
What’s been really interesting is here about how people who’ve used the resources and been through the cohorts of Prosper Researchers, they become kind of advocates for it and they spread the message so that you can build it up and develop it even further.

Prosper is one way that we saw that we could not only collaborate with other colleagues, but also really empower our postdocs and really change the dynamic about the value that we have.

And so it’s really coalescing around the development of a positive research culture and how we enable our postdocs to thrive and to flourish.

I think the benefits of it is having that dedicated time and space to focus on your career development and having that space to really think about your values, your skills, and how they can be further developed and aligned to your future career.

One of the main benefits for us is around that it’s there as a resource that people can tap into in their own space and, and in their own time.