The Researcher Development Group (RDG) continues to provide a variety of excellent activities for the Centre! The RDG collaborates across the Centre’s Nodes to identify and develop learning programs that improve research culture and practice. This year, several new members have joined the working group which has helped to bring fresh ideas and initiatives that are empowering Plant Success Early Career Researchers (ECRs). Below, leaders of the three Domains have provided an update on initiatives that the RDG have recently facilitated or are in progress.
Wellness Domain
The Wellness Domain has recently become chaired by Wil Harris and Kanishka Chandora. The focus of this Domain is the best ways to incorporate work-life balance, healthy workplace environments, and other aspects of wellness into the broader Plant Sucess community. The primary project of the Wellness Domain currently is the setup of a November workshop about the importance of recognising neurodiversity in the workplace hosted by Untapped. This will be the first of several future workshops focusing on wellness. The meeting will serve as a template for future workshops at larger Centre events such as the research retreat.
Engagement Domain
The Engagement Domain is run by Sam Barton and Tom Fisher. The core focus of this Domain is to provide opportunities for Plant Success ECRs to connect and share their research knowledge, this is primarily achieved via the Webinar series. The Webinar series is in its 3rd year — hosting at least 6 webinars a year, and to date has provided 28 ECRs with a platform to share their research with the Plant Success community. Sam and Tom are always looking to connect with ECRs to encourage them to present their research to Plant Success but they also welcome ECRs to reach out if they have something that they want to share! Attending a Plant Success Webinar is also a great way to learn about interesting projects and find new collaborations, plus Webinar recordings are available for Centre members on Teams so you can catch up on any that you missed.
Science Domain
The Science Domain focuses on providing opportunities for ECRs to develop their scientific skills and is currently led by Caitlin Dudley and Arlie Macdonald. The Domain has provided several workshops this year, primarily during the ECR Workshop days of the annual Research Retreat. Earlier in the year, the Science Domain hosted a workshop and feedback session on poster design, presented by Animate Your Science. During the Research Retreat sessions, four workshops were hosted to build skills in delivering scientific presentations, applied statistical thinking and programming, designing figures for presentations and papers, and mathematical techniques for multivariate data analysis. Recordings and relevant materials for the ECR Workshop days are available for Centre members on Teams. As an opportunity for casual networking, the Science Domain also ran an ECR trivia night which was a big success!
Domain Leaders of the Researcher Development Group
Wil Harris, Kanishka Chandora, Tom Fisher, Samuel Barton, Caitlin Dudley, Arlie Macdonald
