Research capacity development and training

Abstract

The HSRC was awarded a large core grant specifically for research capacity development and training, with the aim of facilitating future high quality HSR in the UK. This was used to pursue three main areas of activity. First, the provision of small grants to facilitate the development of new work, help create new, multidisciplinary groupings and support junior researchers. Of the various schemes discussed, the research initiation grants (max pound6000) and workshop awards (max pound3000) appear to have been particularly valuable. Second, appoint cohorts of PhD students to pursue four-year training programmes (rather than the traditional three years), during which they received individualized research training and development opportunities with an emphasis on both multidisciplinary HSR training and generic skills training, as well as pursuing their own research projects. Third, improving research training opportunities by developing networks for research staff at various stages in their careers and organizing workshops and courses in specialist HSR subjects, and for generic skills training. The premature closure of the HSRC prevented us from fully evaluating these initiatives and, arguably, their real value will not be apparent for some years. However, we believe that the programme was successful and that it went some way to helping us break out from the traditional, entrenched approaches to research training, and to helping us think of research capacity development as being as important as doing the research itself. But much more remains to be done.