The Prosper community of practice brings together a group of professional practitioners that naturally supports a shared approach to collaboration quality assurance.

For example, if you come across a resource uploaded by a colleague at another institution that you think could be enhanced or built upon, you can reach out directly to the contributor.

This peer-to-peer engagement enables an informal but effective form of peer review and continuous improvement.

Additionally, the portal gives community members the ability to post comments or questions directly, to further support and enable the quality of the resources and support available. 

Our collective efforts to ensure the Prosper Exchange thrives are what will enable us to deliver with a smaller central team.

A collaborative approach to sharing resources, disseminating expertise and seizing opportunities for partnership will build sector wide Prosper knowledge. The Prosper Exchange is being piloted with the team capacity in mind to ensure what we propose can be delivered. 

On a practical level, the University of Liverpool has committed to financially supporting the Portal, so the resources on the Portal will remain free to access across the sector.  

Yes. During the pilot period, the form is central to us tracking important metrics such as how much the Exchange is being used, how much time we are spending on the requests, and which services are used most frequently.

We will be regularly reviewing these findings and using them to refine the processes with a view to creating an Exchange which is fit for purpose after the pilot. 

Filling out the form should take a couple of minutes, but the value of the information provided will be critical to informing the final Prosper Exchange processes.  

The University of Liverpool is acting as a facilitator for the exchange of resources, expertise and development opportunities across the sector. Anything you contribute to the Exchange will be made publicly available on the Portal to benefit the wider sector, and you will be able to utilise everything shared by your colleagues and peers from other institutions. 

Working closely with you, we’ll develop a clearer understanding of appropriate exchanges as we move through the pilot. To start, we’re using time investment as a guide.

For instance, if you request a data report, it takes the Prosper team around 30 minutes to fulfil that request. A fair exchange would be something that requires a similar time commitment from you—such as providing a short quote reflecting on your experience with Prosper, either from your own perspective or that of a postdoc or PI at your institution. 

The Prosper Portal is free-to-access and will continue to be. The Exchange is particularly valuable for resource-limited institutions, as it provides access to a broader pool of expertise—from both the Prosper team and peers across the sector. Rather than paying for a new session to be developed, for example, institutions can turn to the Portal and its community of practice as a starting point, where they may find existing resources that meet their needs. 

Yes. These will continue to be developed and uploaded to the Portal throughout the pilot period.  

Definitely. All modes of engagement with Prosper are inherently valuable, and sharing your experience is incredibly helpful to others. One of the most common questions we hear is, “How can I raise awareness of Prosper among my postdocs and PIs?” The more examples we have of how different institutions have approached this, the more useful it is for the wider community. 

Yes! We will be more than happy to share advice to support engagement with Prosper amongst all early career researchers. We caveat that our resources have been cocreated with and for a postdoc audience, so leave it to your professional judgement if they need adjustment to fit your proposed audience.