Building Research Leaders

International expert on doctoral research, Hugh Kearns from Thinkwell at Flinders University will run this workshops. The workshops are offered as part of the Innovative Research Universities (IRU) Highly Effective Researcher Program (HERP).

As an emerging research leader do you feel you have all the knowledge and skills you need to be successful? Obviously you have to work hard, but that’s not enough. Lots of people work hard and aren’t research leaders. You have to be clever but that’s not enough. Universities are full of clever people but they are not all research leaders.

So what are the skills, knowledge and attributes that tend to be associated with research leaders? They include high level interpersonal skills, leadership skills, thinking strategically, self-management and the ability to promote yourself.

Hugh Kearns works with researchers at all levels in over two thirds of the universities across Australia and overseas. Through this work he has begun to identify the skills, knowledge and attributes that tend to be associated with research leaders.

This workshop helps emerging research leaders to develop these skills through:

• looking back: where have you come from?
• the here and now: where are you at right now?
• looking forward: where do you want to be?
• being strategic – the hard way and the slightly less hard way
• ensuring publication productivity

• managing competing demands
• making research a priority
• avoiding becoming overwhelmed – saying no and still having friends
• maintaining a balance between teaching, research and life
• shameless self-promotion (even if you find it really hard)