This year saw a return to the in-person EARMA conference held in Oslo last May. The conference, which focuses on Research Managers and Administrators in Europe saw multiple ADAPT contributions over the course of the three day event.
EARMA represents a community of Research Managers and Administrators (RMAs) in Europe. They work with the EU Commission, national and international funding agencies, providing a networking forum, a learning platform, and a place to share experiences and best practice among RMAs throughout EARMA and in the wider RMA community in a myriad of sectors. Including a variety of exceptional contributions from our own ADAPT members who attend the event.
The conference this year revolved around themes like Open Science, Responsible Research and Innovation, Organising Support Services, Policy and Strategy, Post-Award, Pre-Award, Professional Development, and Research Information for RMAs. The themes were reflected in the contributions of our members which included two ADAPT hosted sessions and a poster in the poster presentation. ADAPT’s Paulo Soncini was also heavily involved on the Annual Conference Programme Committee (ACPC) responsible for created the conference programme and the post-award management sessions, and he was also the master of ceremonies on the last day of the conference, introducing the main panel and keynote speaker. Paulo going forward is now the vice-chair of the APCP for the upcoming EARMA conference to be held in Prague in 2023.
A Pecha Kucha talk ‘Establishing a cohesive cross-functional RMA team through COVID and beyond’ presented by Claire Whelan, showcased ADAPT’s Research Development Team (RDT) model of research support and development. It highlighted how the team has evolved and became more cohesive across its end to end function of pre- and post-award support as a result of the remote working conditions forced by Covid. Given the centre’s multi-institutional and multidisciplinary setting, there are numerous complexities pertaining to RMA. This talk presented how the RDT navigates these complexities.
The other ADAPT chaired session was chaired by Paulo Soncini on ‘MSCA Cofund management’. This round table session was delivered in partnership with two other Irish Cofunds Lero, Amber Centre and ELITE-S a Cofund of ADAPT and Horizon 2020, to explore both evaluation and selection, & training and development aspects of MSCA Cofund management.
Finally, the poster presented during the poster session on ‘Lockdown as a catalyst for Researcher Engagement’ presented by Sinead Gorham, explored supports offered by the Research Development Team pre-Covid and how the team initiated new strategies to address the communication void throughout the Covid pandemic. A number of new tools and techniques to assist with effective researcher engagement in remote working environments were piloted including a softer well-being drop-in service.
