Researcher Connect:successful steps in Ukraine

The nineworkshops delivered in Ukraine in 2015-2016 under theBritishCouncil’sResearcherConnectprojectraisedenthusiasmandsupportoftheirparticipants,youngresearchers, PhD students, universitylecturers. ResearcherConnectuses a uniquemethodology and approachbased onmany years’ analysisandpractice of effectivecommunicationinmultipleculturesaroundtheworld.

Manyof us may have experienced the situationswhena seeminglywellwrittenarticle, abstractordelivered presentationwerenotsuccessful. ResearcherConnectis a professionaldevelopmentcoursethatprovides participants with the insights, understanding and tactics to avoid such situations. It allowstoobtainexcellentcommunicationskillsinaninternationalenvironmentby offering a seriesofthematicallyselectedmodules:

  • Foundationmodule–offers a simple but challenging toolkit to improve communicationeffectivenessthrough better understanding the audiences and their specific needs and serves as the foundation for all ResearcherConnectmodules;
  • Abstracts–are critical as roads to futurepublications in peer-reviewed journals, to international conferencesorcollaboration. This moduleenablesparticipantsto become bothcriticalreadersandwriters of abstracts through review, skills development activities and practice;
  • Academiccollaboration - equipsparticipantswith a toolkitforclear, accurateandsuccessfulcommunicationandcollaboration; it also looks at relationship building, effective follow-up emails and communication through social media;
  • Persuasiveproposals–helps researcherstounderstand what qualities make a proposal effective, and how to develop well structured, clearandwinningproposals;
  • Betterpresentations - has a strongpracticalorientation, it providestheknowledgeandskillson how toclearly articulatekeymessages, apply a generic presentation structure and use non-verbalmeansandtechniquesforeffectivepresentationsat international conferences.

Over the last few years, ResearcherConnecthas been successfullydeliveredinmanycountries, fromtheEuropeanUniontoChinaandJapan. Thefirstworkshops donein Ukraine revealed agreatinterestanda large-scaledemandwithinacademiccommunityforsuchknowledgeandskills. Here are somefeedback comments fromtheparticipants: "Manythanksforthewonderfulseminar. I received a lotofvaluableexperienceandinsight",“Thankyoufortheexcellentorganizationand a largeamountofusefulknowledge. I feel like I have visitedthe UK",“Thetrainingwasveryinformativeandinspiring ","Therehave been threegreatdaysfullofemotions, interestingchallengesandnewexperiences. ManythankstotheBritishCouncilforthiswonderfulopportunity! Myamazingteam, youmade mythreedays! Itwasreallygreat! "

TheBritishCouncilisplanningtocontinuetheprojectin winter2017 by delivering workshops in Kyiv and Dnipro.