Researcher Development Skills Audit
INTRODUCTION
This skills audit is designed to help you evaluate your own skills and knowledge, identify what strengths you have, and what areas you may need to develop.
As a postgraduate researcher, you are required to record and discuss your training and development achievements and needs with your supervisor. This skills audit,
together with your training plan and record will inform such discussions.
The skills audit will help you reflect on the skills you need to build up for your project as well as those which will help you develop a broad set of competencies for your
future career which may be in academia or beyond.
The skills audit is based around the skills outlined in the Researcher Development Statement developed by Vitae. It has been developed with the Researcher
Development Unit.
TIPS ON USING THIS AUDIT EFFECTIVELY
- Use the Vitae Researcher Development Statement: http://www.vitae.ac.uk/CMS/files/upload/Researcher%20development%20statement.pdf .
- Take your time to reflect and complete this audit as thoroughly as possible in order to get the most out of the process.
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Researcher Development Skills Audit
1. REFLECTING ON YOUR SKILLS & DEVELOPMENT NEEDS
Please use this part of the audit process to reflect informally on your skills. The boxes will expand as you type, or you can simply use these questions as
prompts for handwritten notes.
Start by thinking about skills you may have already developed:
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Previous training, research projects, tasks, objectives and goals you have completed.
What you specifically did and/or what your role was in an activity.
What you achieved and the impact of your work.
What has gone well, what has gone not so well and what you’d like to change.
1. My experience to date: what have I learnt and achieved?
Next you might want to reflect on what skills and knowledge you will be likely to need for your PhD project.
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Researcher Development Skills Audit
2. What will I need to know, and be able to do, in order to move ahead with my PhD project?
Finally, think a bit more broadly about the knowledge and skills you might need for your future career (if you don’t have a career destination in mind,
think about skills which will help you be employable in any area).
3. What will I need to know, and be able to do, in order to develop my future career?
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Researcher Development Skills Audit
2. COMPLETING THE AUDIT FORM
Now you have made some notes, it will be much easier to complete your skills audit form. We have headed up each area of the template under the
headings in the Researcher Development Statement. This is purely to give you some initial structure; you don’t have to have or show every skills area in
the guide.
SAMPLE
Skill Area
Communication
and
Dissemination
Try to define what level your skills set is –
e.g. no experience, basic, good, excellent.
Be honest and don’t underestimate
yourself – most importantly ask others
for their opinnion
You can use the Sub-Domains given in the Researcher
Development Statement and/or your own words to
define each specific skill that you need. Add as many
skills in each area as you think is necessary; just keep
adding more rows to the table.
Description of Specific Skill
Evidence of skill
Communicates in oral modes for
different audiences
I have done presentations as an undergraduate with good
feedback but am nervous about presenting to a more formal
academic audience, not only presenting my data but also how
I personally come across – I want to be regarded as a credible
researcher.
I have never done this before but need to for my project.
Knowledge base
Statistical analysis of data sets
Record activities, experiences or events you played
a part in that shows your ability in each particular
skill. It may be you have lots of experience, a small
amount of experience or none at all. It is
important that you don’t just focus on the skills
you have – be honest with yourself.
Requirement
I would like to build my
confidence in presenting
and to discover tips to
develop engaging
presenting skills – of the
data and personally
I need to acquire this skill
and have confidence in
the data I am presenting.
Next STEPS
You will now have a good written overview of skills you have developed and of the real breadth of skills you hold. The next step is to develop your training
plan with your supervisor using the skills audit as its foundation.
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Researcher Development Skills Audit
BLANK TEMPLATE FOR YOU TO COMPLETE
Skills, Knowledge & Attributes I need for my research project, other University roles (e.g. part-time tutoring), and my future career. We would
encourage you to complete this electronically so you can add/delete rows as appropriate.
DOMAIN A: Knowledge and intellectual abilities
Skill Area
Description of Specific Skill/s
Evidence of skill
Requirement
Evidence of skill
Requirement
Knowledge base
Cognitive
abilities
Creativity
DOMAIN B: Personal Effectiveness
Skill Area
Description of Specific Skill/s
Personal
qualities
Selfmanagement
Professional and
career
development
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Researcher Development Skills Audit
DOMAIN C: Research governance and organisation
Skill Area
Description of Specific Skill/s
Evidence of skill
Requirement
Evidence of skill
Requirement
Professional
conduct
Research
management
Finance, funding
and resources
DOMAIN D: Engagement, influence and impact
Skill Area
Description of Specific Skill/s
Working with
others
Communication
and
dissemination
Engagement and
impact
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