Developing Academics

The Cambridge Conference has been planned by Dr Liz Elvidge of the University’s Staff Development Office together with a small team of colleagues from universities around the UK. It brings together an eminent international group of over 50 staff development experts and academics from at least seven countries including the UK, USA, Canada, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, and Norway. Their brief is to discuss strategies to encourage academic and contract research staff to engage in and undertake training and development.

The conference challenges participants to explore issues in academic professional development in higher education. Conference delegates will identify key issues and will work in small groups to tackle particular issues in depth. The intellectual debate stimulated at the conference will result in a ground-breaking set of papers to address the challenges faced by all involved in academic staff development.

The papers will be edited into a book which will be essential reading for all those involved in and interested in the issues involved in academic development throughout the world.

Liz Elvidge, organiser of the event said:

‘This conference is an opportunity to bring together different institutions to explore a common problem - encouraging and maintaining staff involvement in professional training programmes. The book we are planning to produce from this conference will address the misconceptions of staff development and benefit both staff and students in the higher education experience.’

The University plans to run the conference every two years to reflect changing ideas and to make sure the issues meet future needs.