Research Councils UK (RCUK) congratulates Imperial College London for winning the award for 'Outstanding support for early career researchers' at this week's Times Higher Education Supplement Awards ceremony.
The award, sponsored by RCUK and UKGRAD, celebrates excellent support provided by a UK higher education institute in making research an attractive career path and helping early career researchers achieve their full potential.
Imperial College London was commended by judges for its forward looking approach to training and staff development. Imperial is building a research base on which to base its training policy, with bursaries on offer to those wanting to pursue research into transferable skills. A strength of the programme is that, skills development is not seen as something bought in or tagged on, but an integral part of researchers' development that staff across the college work to produce. One of the most successful aspects of Imperial's programme is a three-day residential course for first-year PhD students that teaches them how to be effective researchers and includes in-situ training of postdoctoral staff as tutors.
Professor Julia Goodfellow, speaking for Research Councils UK, said: "The Research Councils are committed to raising the quality of support for early career researchers across the board. We are particularly pleased to congratulate Imperial College London for being a leader in this area. By establishing well-supported, attractive career paths in research universities and the Research Councils can help to maintain the strength of the UK research base."
Imperial College London was presented with the award by Dr Iain Cameron Head of the RCUK Research Careers and Diversity Unit at an awards dinner on Wednesday evening in the Hilton Hotel, London. RCUK also congratulated the other finalists in the category. These were the Universities of Bristol, Edinburgh, Oxford and Plymouth.
Dame Julia Higgins, founder and past director of GSEPS and now Principal of the Faculty of Engineering said: "We are delighted to have won this award. When we set up the graduate schools we aimed for something very different from most of the existing graduate schools where postgraduate admissions and examinations matters take precedence. The high-quality provision of skills development has been a principal concern of the schools here and our major success."
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Contact
Research Councils UK Press Office
Matt Goode
Tel: 01793 413299
Notes to Editors
The RCUK-sponsored category of Outstanding Support for Early Career Researchers is 1 of 18 awards in the Times Higher Awards 2006. Other categories include Research Project of the Year, Higher Education Institute of the Year and Young Researcher of the Year
About Research Councils UK
Research Councils UK (RCUK) is the partnership between the UK's eight Research Councils. Through RCUK, the Research Councils work together to champion the research, training and innovation they support.
The eight Research Councils are independent non-departmental public bodies, funded by the Science Budget through the Office of Science and Innovation. They are incorporated by Royal Charter and together manage a research budget of over £2.5 billion a year.
The eight UK Research Councils are:
- Arts & Humanities Research Council (AHRC);
- Biotechnology & Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC);
- Council for the Central Laboratory of the Research Councils (CCLRC);
- Economic & Social Research Council (ESRC);
- Engineering & Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC);
- Medical Research Council (MRC);
- Natural Environment Research Council (NERC);
- Particle Physics & Astronomy Research Council (PPARC).