Career progression pathways for DRI professionals
- Apart from the DRI Retreat, of course, what is your favourite conference or workshop to attend?
- Do you have to maintain a list of recommended training courses for your team? If so, do you publish it?
- Does/should not having a PhD limit the ability to progress in DRi, particularly in academia? Does the ability to run services eg HPC need a research background?
- Is it possible to progress one's career in HigherEd without managing other people? If so... how can we get complex work valued properly?
- When I hire a DRI professional, what should I look for on a CV? Or, if I'm applying for a DRI position, what should I put on my CV?
- Would it be valuable for RSEs to be recognised by chartered status? through BCS etc
- To enable promotion do you have to open new posts or is there an evaluation of DRI roles performance with a framework you can share?
- How do we fill the lower-grade jobs as others get promoted? There isn't a clear pipeline of staff, particularly sys admin-type roles.
- What career pathways exist for professionals from diverse backgrounds, like the humanities, to succeed in DRI?
- Can progression recognise skills and knowledge rather than just management?
- How useful are competency frameworks when DRI professionals are often expected to do extra digital skills in addition to their core role?
- What are some of the potential quantitative metrics that are/could be considered when promoting people who work in DRI?
Accessible training and staying relevant in a rapidly changing environment
- Where does part-time work fit in DRI career paths?
- How do you support progression for those who lack the opportunity to develop technical depth because they're forced to do work outside of their expected remit?
- Many people loop in and out of DRI-like roles at universities, private and public sectors and benefit from it. Are we at risk of discouraged this?
- Why does the most skilled technical person in my group need to spend their time approving my leave and expenses?
- If a DRI professional doesn't have a PhD, then how can a hiring team assess their ability to be creative, tenacious, and self-learn to solve a problem?
- To the panel: how do you facilitate peer learning?
- How do you balance over and under-committing to the current latest hot thing with limited resources?
- What resources/training are available to DRI folk who develop or deliver training to help us make things more accessible (as in disability/neurodiversity/etc.)?
- Can you suggest any communication channels that are underused by DRI that could reach a wider audience?
- How do we keep training up to date with the latest technology and the needs of research in all fields?
- Do you have any advice or experience in explaining disability/neurodiversity to management who might not be aware or familiar with such things?
- How is AI changing training? Is it reducing need? Can you use AI in training?
- In terms of making RDM accessible to all disciplines, how much is the issue just the word “data”? (As Kirsty hinted at, lots of people don’t think they do data)
- Should we have EDIA leaders or does this take away from the importance of shared responsibility?
- How can you include training in an institute that does not have a library or teaching expertise?
Developing leadership skills for DRI professionals
- How can you figure out whether you would enjoy/be good at people management when not (yet?) in a leadership role?
- Are you a leader or a manager?
- How do we develop community leaders outside of team structures? Particularly supporting those who may not have institutional resources to lend time for free?
- How do you spot leadership skills in those who work remotely (or separately from you)?
- What are in your view the collaborative (rather than individual-focused) qualities and skills of (DRI) leadership?
- Do you have aspirations of leadership roles beyond team/technical leads such as senior leadership in departments/organisations? What's your plan?
- Talking about DEI in leadership roles, representation really matters. What practical steps can be taken to have better representation in leadership roles?
- How can you support the development of leadership skills when people are working on projects with more senior members
- Would co-leadership models be more practical, especially when responsibilities are shared one person does not always take all the authority with them.
- Does culture influence leadership? How much does it influence your leadership style? For example, leadership in the UK, Asia, or the U.S. might be different.
- In what way can leadership job descriptions and roles be owned by the DRI community? re-shaped towards an inclusive leadership we would recognise and validate?
- Does anyone feel bold enough to talk about how their neurodiversity has helped or hindered them in leadership positions?
Mentorship in DRI
- Do the panel members (or audience) have any mentorship programme recommendations for the range of DRI pathways? https://hpc-sig.org.uk/index.php/mentoring-programme/
- Is informal mentoring a good substitute for formal schemes? And vice versa.
- Is mentorship distinct from being supportive colleagues who are invested in each other's success?
- Mentoring was very useful for my integration into a workplace with a different culture to that of other workplaces and/or countries.
- Has anyone had a formal sponsor? What was the impact?
- Does anyone have experience with reverse mentoring?
- Comment: As a coach I was explicitly advised to work with people in different teams and roles. It avoids drifting into mentoring & avoids conflicts of interest.