Report

Teaser, summary, work performed and final results

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - RItrain (Reseach Infrastructures Training Programme)

Teaser

Within the last 18 months the RItrain project developed due to the high demand of skilled managers and operators of Research Infrastructures, RIs, a pilot curriculum for the Executive Masters in Management of RIs. The first step was the definition of the organisational...

Summary

Within the last 18 months the RItrain project developed due to the high demand of skilled managers and operators of Research Infrastructures, RIs, a pilot curriculum for the Executive Masters in Management of RIs. The first step was the definition of the organisational competency framework, followed by the existing course mapping and inclusion into the on-course database®. Only after that a course gap analysis could be performed. The result was a white paper on training needs, which fed directly the activities of WP4 and WP5 to develop the tailored pilot curriculum.
This tailored Executive Masters enables RIs across all domains to gain expertise on
• governance,
• organisation,
• funding,
• international law and compliance,
• strategic, financial, infrastructure, and resource management,
• innovation and business development,
in an international RI context, which is as well depicted on the two page flyer below (Figure 1 and Figure 2). Through webinars and staff exchanges accompanied by the regular face-to-face lectures, continuous professional development for the current and future generation of managers of RIs can be guaranteed. For the time being 3 webinars have been recorded and the first calls for applications for staff exchanges have been published and are expected to take place in spring 2017. Programme details and the call for applications for the Executive Masters in Management of RIs will be launched in April 2017.

Work performed

WP1 has setup the necessary platforms for both internal as well as external communication, i.e. website, intranet, mailing lists, teleconferences etc. Two interim person month reports were developed and the Management Team as the steering body has met regularly (monthly) to discuss challenges, WP overlapping issues and general aspects. WP1 also organised the kick-off meeting in 2015 (Vienna), and first Annual General Assembly in 2016 (Milan). WP1 has also organised and coordinated dissemination activities for the whole consortium, like the presentation during the presentation of the ESFRI roadmap in Amsterdam 2016 or the booth at the International Conference for research infrastructures in Cape Town in 2016. The External Advisory Body was setup and has met (see report in the Annex of the work package 1 report).
WP2 defined the competencies required by research infrastructures at each phase of their life cycle, from initial conception to maturity. The main deliverable was an organisational competency framework that can be used both as a diagnostic tool, allowing research infrastructures to identify gaps in competency, and as a planning tool for the project to base its curriculum development on. WP2 provided the underpinning research on which the training content and delivery, produced by WPs 4 and 5, will be based. Work on WP2 is now essentially complete with the exception of part of D2.3.
The starting point of all activities performed by WP3 over the reporting period was to define an appropriate search strategy for identifying relevant existing training opportunities for the professional development of managers and leaders of RIs. This has been performed by developing an online survey to seek input from existing European Research Infrastructures on prioritised course format, course duration, topic areas and training needs and applying these findings to existing training opportunities matching the competency categories and requirements as defined by WP2.
Based on the corresponding search approach, WP3 carried out its comprehensive search activities resulting in a set of more than 400 courses, which were incorporated, described, tagged as appropriate for RI management and made searchable in the publicly accessible on-course® database. This compilation was used as the basis of the following mapping of the specific competency requirements to the identified courses and the subsequent systematic gap analysis. The identified gaps were shared with the consortium and presented to the participating project partners at the General Assembly in Milan, 8-9 September 2016.
A white paper of training needs of managers and leaders of RIs is currently under preparation and will be published shortly.
The Infrastructure Empowerment© model has been developed to prepare a new generation of executives of national and international RIs who understand the necessity to undergo professional training to acquire state-of-the-art managerial and leadership skill tailored to scientific service providers. In the longer run, RItrain Master programme will provide guidance to and serve potential future RI managers and leaders to develop the required competencies before applying for a job with RIs. This will make RIs appealing employers that attract highly-skilled candidates. (D4.1 Develop the Infrastructure Empowerment© model - M12)
The curriculum of the Executive Masters in Management of Research Infrastructures has been developed in partnership with research infrastructure (RI) leaders taking into account the competency profile developed in WP2 and the Infrastructure Empowerment Model (D4.1). The Curriculum is aimed to support the development of management education in this specific organisational context (D4.2 Develop Curriculum for Master in Research Infrastructure Leadership -M18)
The Masters programme is targeted to busy executive therefore the teaching activities have been designed into a mixture of face-to-face and online activities held by inter

Final results

tbd at the end of the project lifetime

Website & more info

More info: http://www.ritrain.eu.