Strategic networking to support your research career developmentDr Lynne Goodacre

Networking

Interacting with others to exchange information and develop professional or social contacts.

Oxford English Dictionary

Networking perspectives

Networking for me is like……….

Why network

• New insights, perspectives and approaches• Personal development & learning• Making connections & forming collaborations• Intelligence and horizon scanning• Visibility of self or team/service• Building and developing CV

• Groups you are members of• Networks you belong to

Types of networks

• Harvard Business Review Jan 2007

Operational Personal Strategic

Purpose Getting work done efficiently maintaining the capacities and functions required of the group

Enhancing personal & professional development; providing referrals to useful information and contacts

Figuring out future priorities and challenges; getting stakeholder support for them

Location and temporal orientation

Contacts mostly internal & orientated towards current demands

Contacts mostly external & orientated towards current interests & future possibilities

Contacts internal and external and orientated towards the future

Players and recruitment

Key contacts are prescribed mostly by the task and organisational structure so it is clear who is relevant

Key contacts mostly discretionary; not always clear who is relevant

Key contacts follow from the strategic context

Network attributes and key behaviours

Depth; building strong working relationships

Breadth: reaching out to contacts

Leverage: creating inside-outside links

Personal learning networks

• Building and maintaining PLNs with deliberate intention to learn, share and collaborate

• Moving away from soul focus on academic courses• Online, flexible, social media, international

• Relies on being proactive and taking charge of own development

• Relies on communicating ideas and having meaningful interactions

Personal Learning NetworksMOOCsFuture learn• Measuring and valuing health (nov)• Improving healthcare through clinical research

edX• How to survive your PhD

Communities of practice• School for Healthcare Radicals

Personal Learning Networks

Blogs.• The Research Whisperer• Write For Research• LSE Impact Blog

Twitter and twitter chats• We communities twitter chats and Twitterversity

• Pre chat reading• Storify to curate the content of the chat• CPD certificates for those participating

Strategic networking ….

……… networking with a defined goal.

Involves being

1. Strategic – analysing your needs aligned to your goals/aspirations (applying for a fellowship or funding application)

2. Tactical – planning your networking activities

3. Operational – putting your plans into action, make it happen.

Personal network mapping

In terms of research

Working on your own:1. What do you hope to be doing in 3 years time? What is your goal

2. With reference to you 3 year strategic goal

Draw a community map of your current networks & connections

Personal network mappingWith reference to your goal:

3. Score the importance of each relationship to your aimUse a scale of 1-5

1 = not important5 = very important

4. Score the strength of each relationship 1 = weak2 = strong

5. What gaps need to be addressed, what is missingWhich weak relationships need to be strengthenedActions to address gaps

Networking cycle

1. Prepare

2. Interact

3. Post-process

Why is this important? What do I want to achieve?Who is going to be there? Who do I hope to connect with?

ShareBe interestedBe present

Follow-upThank youShare

Do you need to be an extrovert?

• The Shy Connector

Definitions

Collaboration

The act of working with someone to produce something

Oxford English Dictionary

Collaboration

A more transactional process than networking

Collaboration

Essential for majority of clinically based research

• Accessing relevant skills and expertise• Increasingly inter-professional and cross-

sectoral• PPI fundamental to informing research

questions as well as conducting the research• Fundamental to successful grant applications

Footwear Design Challenge

Royal College of Art, Methods (design challenge)Fashion designerOccupational therapistShoe designersWomen with RAPodiatristsOrthotistsArthritis Research UK (funder)

Differing cultures, language expectations, ways of working