GT1 – My progress and my gaps

In terms of progress and gaps around academic outputs, the academics in one of the institutions that participated in the research had cocreated what they call a ‘Personal and Professional Development Planning (PPDP) Tool’. They have kindly donated it to the Academic Career Conversations tool. When thinking about academic career progression, instead of thinking about roles and grades, they considered different career stages against academic outputs: education, research, enterprise, professional practice and encouraged academics to consider the step change between them. The step changes were described as Emerging, Emerged and Established and can be distinguished as set out in the table below.

Emerging	Emerged	Established
Awareness	Integration	Change agent (identifies the need for and leads effective change)
Explore	Implement	Demonstrate
Contribute	Undertake	Lead
Local/regional	National	International

Conversation starters:

Where would you place yourself on the table in relation to the activities that you are involved with? Are you emerging, emerged, or established?
What brought you to this point?
Who helped you?
What might you need for the next stage?

Try GT2 – Career gaps – the headings tool, think about this in some more detail and to begin to generate some robust evidence of your achievements and potential gaps. GT2 offers a simple framework for self- evaluation/mapping this kind of evidence in relation to the four academic output areas: education, research, enterprise and professional practice. The outputs you identify can then be recorded in your academic CV.

What have I achieved so far for: my University, the Faculty, the Department and for myself? If my institution has an academic career framework, which outputs can I evidence already? Where are my particular strengths?
How do I want to develop my academic activity in the future? What would I like to develop?
If there is an institutional academic career framework, what do I need to develop in order to achieve the outputs relevant to a specific level of role? Focus on three key outputs that you need to achieve and why they are important at this stage in your career. It may also be useful to additionally focus on three that you want and are in a position to achieve, and the benefits these will bring to your institution as well as to your own academic career.
Which aspects of our University Strategy, Faculty Delivery Plans/Departmental Plans and strategies could offer opportunities that support or facilitate my career development? How can I create better synergy between these things?
Which of the following kinds of activities are appropriate to my development needs? The list below gives just a few examples:
- Further academic study
- Career coaching
- Career mentoring (ie being mentored, or mentoring others)
- Attending internal and/or external events
- External conference attendance and/or hosting conferences at my institution
- Using social media; blogging; webinars
- Networking internally or externally
- A sabbatical/secondment or job-shadowing
- Other forms of development not listed here
How can my appraiser / line manager / Dean / Head of Department / mentor / Organisational Development team help me realise my career development aspirations?