Researcher Identity Development: Strengthening Science in Society Strategies (RID-SSISS) Erasmus Project

Project Title

Researcher Identity Development: Strengthening Science in Society Strategies (RID-SSISS)

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for higher education

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2017

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Labour market issues incl. career guidance / youth unemployment; Research and innovation; New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses

Project Summary

The Researcher Identity Development: Strengthening Science in Society Strategies (RID-SSISS) project addressed three intertwined objectives: a) To design, create and assess interactive on-line research-based resources to help ECRs (PhD students and post-doc) to face research challenges and strategies for developing resilience and regulating emotions; b) To develop, validate and set up digital tools that contribute to developing ECR identity and career trajectories through effective participation in the professional and scientific communities of reference; and, c) To showcase and disseminate proven methodologies, tools and practices for ECR to successfully address challenges faced in advancing their careers. All the activities contributed to the ultimate goal of raising awareness within the European scientific community of the importance of researcher identity and career development.
Specific outputs of the RIDS-SSISS project consist of a set of resources addressed to different target groups and covering the variety of objectives aforementioned. The first group of resources aims at helping educational institutions and early career researcher -ECR- training units (e.g. Universities, doctoral schools, educational administrators and policymakers) to rethink their training proposals and approaches to equip not only early career researchers but also experienced and consolidated researchers with the competencies for developing Responsible Research and Innovation in cross-disciplinary and cross-sectional teams. These resources focus on transversal competencies such as research communication, equity and justice, ethics, personal development and resilience and wellbeing for researchers working inside and outside academia. A total of 7.537 participants have benefited from those resources through workshops, seminars and courses developed in the partner universities and other associated institutions. Among those participants, 5.350 were early career researchers (PhD students or postdocs) and 2.184 consolidated researchers, responsible for training units or doctoral policymakers. The RID-SSISS project’s resources are open access (https://www.researcher-identity.com/erasmusproject), and most of them are also integrated into one of the project’s outputs, the interactive platform: “Researchers like Me” ( https://researchers-like-me.com/). This interactive site for researchers is the first open-access social community for early career researchers to improve their activity and develop as researchers, gathering 988 active users at the end of the project. The interactive platform allows members to assess their competencies and set objectives for their development as researchers, find help in areas where improvement is required, discuss thematic issues, develop resilience and share a wide range of diverse tools. The second group of resources are targeted to researchers in the field. We created and offered practitioners and researcher community four validated cross-cultural and multilingual questionnaires to explore doctoral and postdoctoral experiences and a manual for using and interpreting them in different contexts. A protocol for multimodal interviews is also available on the project website. These instruments have been disseminated through scientific papers and conferences. A total of 57 scientific articles, 23 books and book chapters, 62 conference contributions and 143 workshops and seminars have been produced during the project, most of them accessible on an open regime basis on the project website. Finally, the project has established stable relationships with regional and national funding agencies and relevant stakeholders to move forward towards the development of early-career researcher European profile able of generating interdisciplinary and innovative projects required to face societal challenges in cross-sectional contexts

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 377817 Eur

Project Coordinator

UNIVERSITAT RAMON LLULL FUNDACIO & Country: ES

Project Partners

• TALLINN UNIVERSITY
• OULUN YLIOPISTO
• NEW PROJECT NETWORKIING SL
• UNIVERSITY OF LANCASTER