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The Hub >

The Hub is a new initiative that will extend postgraduate learning into an office-based environment where they will work on actual research projects – ‘learning by doing’ – and in doing so will enhance their career prospects and their research capabilities. The programme has been developed with the aid of a UTLC Innovation Fund grant, which enabled SERU to conduct a survey of staff and students for the project. During their time at the Hub, postgraduates will gain hands-on experience in a number of vocational skills and activities, including ‘hard’ skills such as statistical analysis, data charting, qualitative writing and market research, as well as ‘soft’ skills such as learning to work to tight deadlines, interaction with work colleagues, team working and adding value to projects. The goal will be to ensure that the students understand they are operating in a work-oriented environment, with the associated rules and responsibilities as well as the associated opportunities for progression through experience.

Adding Value to Postgraduate Research and Training

The Hub will deliver a dual benefit to the university. Aside from offering an attractive package to potential and existing postgraduate applicants and students it will also act as a ‘bank’ of postgraduate expertise from which university staff may draw on to further their own research activities or to deliver a specific piece of work and will benefit both the faculties of HaSS and SAgE in this capacity.

It will be based in the SERU offices in the Porter Building of the University of Newcastle, using facilities already in place, including extensive proprietary databases and a considerable archive of business-support related materials, including ESF and ERDF research projects, market research reports and in-depth statistical information on the SME segment. Students will also benefit from attendance at the numerous workshops planned for 2007 at the SERU offices relating to IPR and patent searching, innovation and market research.

Increasing The Research Capacity of the University of Newcastle

All employees at the University in Newcastle that are engaged in research will be able to tap into the resources available at the Hub. Both grant-funded and non grant-funded researchers will be able to effectively ‘outsource’ items from their research requirements, paid through differing fee structures, by utilising the expertise of research students. As the Hub progresses, this expertise will be compiled into a ‘database’ of research talent to ensure that researchers and the work required are paired as effectively and efficiently as possible. This extensive pool of cross-disciplinary talent will add value not only to the output of employees currently engaged in research activities at the University, but will also aid and encourage further output from employees who previously may not have been engaged in research due to concerns relating to time management or teaching responsibilities.

Anyone interested in using the Hub to aid their research work or students who are interested in working at the hub should contact SERU directly.

Positions at the Hub are for an initial period of 25 hours, paid at a rate of £10 per hour (inc. NI contributions). Hours of work will be negotiated with SERU according to the demands of the project. Participants may be invited to work at the Hub on other projects for potentially longer periods of time if they have demonstrated a particular level of expertise.

To register on our database of Hub researchers, please fill in the attachment below;

HUB APPLICATION FORM

You should return the form by email to SERU@ncl.ac.uk