In order to develop a PDP programme and system for a group of research scientists in Sub-Saharan Africa, I needed to have an understanding of how PDP for research scientists worked. In searching the literature it became evident that development of PDP for individuals at postgraduate and postdoctoral level was much further advanced in the UK than elsewhere, so for this reason much of the focus of the literature relating to the development and support for PDP is drawn from within the academic community in the UK. The use of PDP for students in higher education in the UK was formalised as policy in 2001, when the QAA, following
recommendations made in a National Committee of Inquiry into Higher Education (NCIHE; 1997) stipulated that all students within higher education in the UK be provided with the opportunity to engage in PDP by 2005/6.
For postgraduate research students this opportunity was additionally formalised following recommendations from two further influential reports. One was the 2002 report for the funding councils in the UK on “Improving Standards for Research Degree Programmes”
(Metcalfe et al., 2002), and the other was a review into the supply of science, technology and mathematics by Sir Gareth Roberts (2002), and entitled “SET for Success.” The recommendations made in the “Improving Standards for Research Degree Programmes” report saw
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the development and embedding of threshold standards (built on existing good practice within the sector) into section 1 of the QAA Code of Practice for Research Degree Programmes. In the revised code of practice, precept 20 relates to PDP, and states that “institutions will provide opportunities for research students to maintain a record of personal progress, which may include reference to the development of research and other skills” (QAA, 2004, pg.21).
The “skills agenda” for postgraduate researchers The Roberts‟ review went further, in that it was somewhat
prescriptive in its recommendations that “... major funders of PhD students make all funding conditional upon students‟ training meeting stringent minimum standards” – and that these minimum standards “...should include the provision of at least two weeks of dedicated training a year, principally in transferable skills...” (Roberts, 2002, pg: 11).
Whilst there was an overall positive response to the challenge of introducing transferable skills training at postgraduate research level (through government funding, the setting up of support systems, new policy guidelines and the compilation of a skills set) – in academia and at the level of delivery, the response was more divided.
Hinchcliffe (2007, pg. 9) proposes time pressure, a distrust of the generic skills vocabulary, and not the job of the university to train research graduates, as some of the main issues that make transferable
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or generic skills training a contested area for some academics; and puts its antipathy by some academics as down to the current structural changes within higher education in the UK, which facilitates the rising of student numbers. In addition he also sees the fact that the skills training largely takes place outside of the student / supervisor relationship and therefore supervisors are required to adopt new practices that they have no experience of. Reeves (2007) picks up this point and offers the view that the skills training agenda not only challenges the substantive experience of doing a PhD but that it also presents an epistemic challenge that requires a conceptual shift in the way the process is viewed and supported. She argues that the PhD experience should result in a portfolio of skills for life, not simply a hard-bound manuscript that sits in a library.
For postdoctoral researchers, the “Set for Success review” (Roberts, 2002) recognisedthat this was a crucial phase in a researcher‟s career; a time in which they could make a name for themselves through ground- breaking, innovative research, and develop the skills to lead research projects. It believed that “...enabling the individual to establish a clear career path and a development plan to take them along it are critical to improving the attractiveness of postdoctoral research” (pg: 13).
Even though the review was in the context of postdoctoral contract researchers in UK institutions, the observations and recommendations
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of ensuring that all postdoctoral researchers are given the opportunity to develop individual career paths reflecting the different research career destinations open to them, could be generalised to all researchers at this stage of their career. For the group of African postdoctoral researchers in this study, the point of “improving the attractiveness of postdoctoral research” is a particularly salient one, if they are to feel motivated about staying in their chosen field of research for the benefit of the population in their home countries; and for the benefit of themselves in terms of their career development, satisfaction and opportunity for success.
The Joint Skills Statement
The skills set that was used to guide the development of transferrable skills was devised by the UK Research Councils and the Arts and Humanities Research Board (AHRB), (RCUK, 2001). The “Joint Skills Statement” (Appendix 6) comprising of seven areas of skills and
competencies was the skills set that the AHRB expected all research council funded postgraduate researchers to develop as part of their doctoral process. It is currently used as the gold standard for all postgraduate research students and the basis for all skills development training programmes; and in this PDP programme with researcher scientists based in SSA, as a means for guiding the development of their individual Personal Development Actions Plans (PDAPs).
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The “Research Career Builder” for postdoctoral researchers A career management system, focusing on longer-term career planning through the development of personal and professional skills, was developed to help support contract researchers and their managers.
Funded by the Higher Education Funding Council (HEFC) and jointly led by three UK universities (Sheffield, Manchester, and Loughborough) and in partnership with 14 other UK universities, a “Research Career Builder” was developed specifically for contract researchers within UK institutions (CRS, Good Management Practice, 2000). Elements of this career
management system were used in the development of the PDP system for the African career researchers in this research project.
Supporting PDP for researchers
While the UK QAA Code of Practice supported the use of PDP at doctoral level, postdoctoral career development was supported by an agreement between the funders and employers of researchers in the UK. “The Concordat to Support the Career Development of Researchers” – which incorporated the framework and practices from the European Charter for Researchers devised by the European Commission in 2005 – was launched in June 2008, and comprises of seven key principles, which set out the expectations and responsibilities of researchers, their
managers, employers and funders. Two of these principles relate to PDP. Principle four outlines the importance of the researcher‟s personal and career development, and lifelong learning being recognised and promoted
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at all stages of their career (pg. 11), and the focus of principle five is from the perspective of the individual, and emphasises the sharing of
responsibility for, and need to be pro-actively engaged in own personal and career development and lifelong learning (pg. 12).
Despite the on-going and healthy debate around generic skills training for postgraduate researchers and the changing PhD process, PDP policy makers saw the recommendations within these reports as ensuring that researchers have access to training and development appropriate to their individual needs; and saw PDP as key to realising the ethos espoused within these reviews. While using PDP for this group of African doctoral and postdoctoral researchers did not have the same weight of policy or political drivers behind it, the principle of PDP providing access to development based on individual need for self improvement was a sufficient driving force to explore using it as a tool for career development with this group in Africa.
THE ROLE OF PDP IN CAREER DEVELOPMENT