-
- Student administration and academic policy
- Student skills development
- Taught students
- Research students
- Researcher Development Programme (RDP)
- Whats new in 2011/12
- Researcher e-Profiles
- What PhD students should be able to do
- Frequently Asked Questions
- Online Booking System and Programme of Events
- Researcher Development Online
- Useful Training Links for PhD Students
- International, Distance and Part-time Students
- New Research Students
- Exeter Research Relay
- What You Think: Student Feedback
- Maths and stats support
- Personal Development Planning (PDP)
- Employability
- Skills e-resources
- Learning and Teaching in Higher Education Programme (LTHE)
- Researcher Development Programme (RDP)
- Staff development
- Education Enhancement projects
- Student counselling
- International student support
- Disability support
- Chaplaincy
- Community
What PhD students should be able to do: The Researcher Development Statement
An Introduction to the Researcher Development Statement
The Research Councils, and the Quality Assurance Agency (QAA) for Higher Education, play an important role in setting standards and identifying best practice in research training for PhD students. They have set out a 'Reseacher Development Statement' (RDS) that doctoral research students would be expected to develop during their PhD research training and beyond.
The RDS sets out the knowledge, behaviours and attributes of effective and highly skilled researchers appropriate for a wide range of careers.
The RDS is derived from the Researcher Development Framework (RDF), a major new approach to researcher development, which aims to enhance our capacity to build the UK workforce, develop world-class researchers and build our research base.
The RDS and RDF will contribute to researcher training and development in the UK by providing a strategic statement (RDS) and operational framework (RDF) to support the implementation of the Concordat to Support the Career Development of Researchers
The RDS is structured in four domains, which encompass what researchers need to know to do research, how to be effective in their approach to research, when working with others, and in contributing to the wider environment. Within each of the domains are three sub-domains and associated descriptors, which describe different aspects of being a researcher.
The RDS is an evolution of the Research Councils’ Joint Skills Statement (JSS) and replaces the JSS as the key reference statement for the development of postgraduate researchers’ skills and attributes and researchers employed in higher education. All the skills and attributes of the JSS have been incorporated into the RDS and their distribution is identified in the table below. A two-way mapping of the RDS and the JSS is available on the RDF section of the Vitae website.
For more information on the Researcher Development Framework and associated Statement go to www.vitae.ac.uk/rdf
