National Postdoc Appreciation Week Celebrations 2024/25
David Gavaghan, Academic Advocate for Research Staff, and Rachel Bray, Head of the Researcher Hub, reflect on the importance of celebrating our researcher community as we approach National Postdoc Appreciation Week from 16-20 September
David Gavaghan, Academic Advocate for Research Staff, and Rachel Bray, Head of the Researcher Hub, reflect on the importance of celebrating our researcher community as we approach National Postdoc Appreciation Week from 16–20 September.
National Postdoc Appreciation Week (NPAW) is an opportunity for the University to highlight and celebrate the work of several thousand postdoctoral researchers across its departments and colleges who are making such positive impacts on a local and global scale.
Recently, we’ve seen researchers develop a revolutionary approach which could generate increasing amounts of solar electricity without silicon based solar panels, reducing the cost of solar to make it the most sustainable form of renewable energy. Others have led work showing how group psychology can help tackle global problems, from the climate crisis and poverty to food insecurity and terrorism.
Researchers in a humanities-led initiative have developed an automated speech recognition system based on modelling of how the brain processes sounds, while others are investigating the importance of controlling our data. And medical science researchers have developed a new small molecule that can suppress the evolution of antibiotic resistance in bacteria and make resistant bacteria more susceptible to antibiotics.
This is just a snapshot of the calibre of work across Oxford and why it’s so important to recognise postdoc contributions. Below are some events and activities for researchers to mark each day of NPAW, and we encourage you to celebrate researchers in your departments and faculties.
Wishing everyone a wonderful Postdoc Appreciation Week!
Into the Postdoc-verse: building relationships across dimensions (National online event)
Monday, 16 September, 10am–12.30pm
Building networks is a valuable skill and resource for researchers, so the NPAW team are putting together an interactive online event to help postdocs build their networks authentically, beyond their boundaries. This will include an upbeat skills session with Dr Steve Cross and insights from experts to kick off the week.
Register for Into the Postdoc-verse, or view previous event recordings.
OxRSS board games night
Tuesday, 17 September, from 8pm
Meet other Oxford researchers in a fun and relaxed way at a board games night, hosted by the Oxford Research Staff Society (OXRSS) at the Oxford University Club.
Register for the OxRSS board games night
OxRSS garden party at Balliol College
Wednesday, 18 September, 5–7pm
Researchers are invited to celebrate Postdoc Appreciation Week in the beautiful grounds of Balliol College at a garden party hosted by OXRSS. Tickets cost £5, sold through a booking link in the OxRSS email to researchers.
Join the mailing list. For enquiries, please email committee@oxrss.ox.ac.uk.
OxRSS pub social
Thursday, 19 September, from 6pm
Meet other Oxford researchers and raise a glass to celebrate Postdoc Appreciation Week at OXRSS’s Pub Social at The Chequers pub in the High Street. No need to register.
Explore the Researcher’s Trailmap created by the Researcher Hub
Friday, 20 September
Postdoc Appreciation week is a great time to discover or revisit the Researcher’s Trailmap. The Trailmap signposts researchers to personal, research and career development opportunities at different points in a researcher’s career at Oxford, e.g. from arrival, early contract, mid-contract and late-contract.
It can be used as a tool to help researchers and line manager/PIs to have more structured conversations during career development reviews (CDRs) or equivalent, and to think about how a researcher can use their 10 days of professional development time.
CDRs and professional development time are both part of the University’s commitments to researchers in the Concordat Action Plan for the Career Development of Researchers. Please keep an eye out for more information on Action Plan progress.
In the meantime, if you’d like a hardcopy of the Researcher’s Trailmap or you’d just like to find out more about how the University is supporting researchers, please contact the Researcher Hub. They also run weekly open office sessions every Thursday from 3–4pm, in person or online, where all researchers, or colleagues who support researchers, are welcome.
