ECR resources
As a postdoc in the School of Biology, you have access to various resources. Here are some that might be useful.
Information for new postdocs
A copy of the staff induction handbook is available on the staff internal website. If you have problems accessing this, please contact Sean Earnshaw, Biology IT support.
Many grants have eligibility requirements in terms of contract and/or time since PhD completion. While contract staff cannot be the Principal Investigator on UKRI grant proposals, there are other grants for which post-doctoral staff can apply and it is worth looking around for opportunities. Also it is possible to be a ‘named’ researcher on a grant submitted by a PI if you contribute to writing a grant, so it is worth speaking to a mentor if you wish to be involved in a UKRI application.
Research Funding Support offers support in all aspects of research awards and contracts from pre-application (idea/finding funding and costing stage) to award (contract negotiation, project account setup, invoicing and financial reporting).
Within the School of Biology, we have initiatives underway to help junior researchers improve success rates for grant/fellowship applications:
- We provide recent successful grant exemplars via the internal staff website bioInternal (password protected). If you need access to the website, please contact Sean Earnshaw, Biology IT support.
- We offer internal review for all grant/fellowship application submissions. Please allow sufficient time for this process (contact the Biology Director of Research by email to set this up).
- We run in-house grant and fellowship-writing workshops.
- We have a research grant application checklist on bioInternal with items to consider from 3 months prior to the grant deadline.
Anyone conducting research using animals should consult the University Teaching and Research Ethics Committee (UTREC) website.
It is expected that all staff undertake an annual appraisal, held in January each year. For postdocs, this appraisal will generally be conducted by your line manager, but you can request an alternative assessor if you prefer.
There are various networking schemes run across the university:
You can also engage with improving university policy and practice for research staff via involvement with the Research and Teaching Staff Forum. Contact the School of Biology reps for further details.
The University offers the Teaching, Research and Academic Mentoring Scheme for postdoctoral staff.
A complete summary of the major mentorship schemes for which staff in the School of Biology may be eligible can be found on the OSDS webpage.
The Organisational and Staff Development Services (OSDS) offers a selection of training courses. Visit their online catalogue to browse the courses on offer.
OSDS also runs a new staff induction program.
A listing of the various resources available to you as a member of the University of St Andrews are available on the health and wellbeing website .
We also have specific wellbeing resources for biologists.
The University provides guidance on teaching for postdoc staff, including information on payments.
Semester dates can be found here.
You can keep up to date with news in the School of Biology newsletter, which is circulated to staff each Friday.
We have developed advice and a policy to provide clarity on expectations for those with independent research funds.
