This is an exciting time for this institution. We are taking
a step forward by taking a series of initiatives which are
deliberately trying to change the landscape and they're doing
it in a way that is inviting everyone in the institution
to participate.
The scheme as a whole, what we're looking to achieve is to
build a cohort of people who really are committed to working
together, and also changing our research
culture together. So it's a it's a huge investment, but I
think it offers a lot for the individuals involved, but also a
lot for the university as well.
The fellowship provides a unique opportunity for early
career researcher. From the dedicated research time, as well
as the resources, also the personal development packages,
and the freedom.
We always factor inspirations from a real world
problems and the issues.
I think that the overall aim is about reach and impact. So it
is about how do we reach beyond the university walls, to our
partners, to our alumni, to our stakeholders, beyond the region
beyond nationally, so that we can be that centre of
excellence around research skills and be recognised for
that, and then have the impact because of that.
What we’re hoping in the future is they'll be more consistent
pathway. All the way through from student
researchers to more established researchers within
the faculties.
We want to create, in the enterprise Academy, a network
basically. It's really just a melting pot to bring academics
and industrialists together to compare ideas, compare
technologies, compare notes, and look at how they could
could be working better.
Technicians do things that academics and researchers
simply don't have time to do, and they do things that
researchers academics simply can't do if they don't have the
skill set. As technology moves forward and science moves
forward, the case is becoming far more complex than it has
been in the past. And that's why we need those specialisms,
in order to get the best out of the case, to be creative
and to follow up innovation.
From my perspective, particularly in relation to
professional services community, I'm really keen for
professional services colleagues to be working very
closely with academic colleagues, in terms of
identifying where we can be doing things better. How can we
improve processes and systems to make life as easy as
possible for PI’s out there when they want to submit the
application for external funding.
What makes me most proud about the Global Challenges Academy, is
when we can bring together academic colleagues from
totally different parts of the university, that have never
thought of working together before. But can together
produce transformative research that can impact positively
the lives of people across the globe.
So the Policy Academy is really about creating opportunities
for our researchers, for our professional services staff, to
really engage with and understand public
policy better. It creates those situations where
individual staff members can engage with experts and people
who are working outside of the university, to talk to them
about their experiences. And that makes a
real difference, I think, for our staff. But also it means
that we can make sure that the expertise we have within the
university, can contribute to the development of policy.
The NUCoRE in Energy provides a way of mentoring different
people at different career stages, so we are bringing our
NUAcT Fellows into our NUCoRE, so that we can raise
their profile in the university, link them to people who have
complementary expertise, and also provide opportunities for
more advanced researchers to apply for large, ambitious
research projects and to apply their skills in ways that they
wouldn't otherwise be able to do on their own.
This really is an exciting moment of opportunity for
this institution. We're at a stage where we're getting high
investment in research, high expectations from universities,
and we as an institution are perfectly positioned to use our
strengths and our attributes to play to the drivers in our
current ecosystem. We want to be sure that Newcastle will
still be in the position of being a big hitter in the UK’s
research ecosystem. To achieve that, we will need to
grow, and we’ll need to contribute to the growth in
capacity for research and the activity in research.
We want everybody to be involved in the research agenda
and to contribute to the collective excellence of what
we do at Newcastle.