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The ECR Development Series 2025-26 launches this week, with September to December online and in-person workshops open for bookings.

Organised by the Sussex Researcher School, the series covers the skills you need to be an effective and successful researcher as you start to build your research career.

‘ECR’ is defined as staff on a research-only contract at grades 6-8, but many sessions are open to other academics too – check the listing before you sign up.

Workshops are organised into four themes that map to Vitae’s Researcher Development Framework (RDF), a tool to help you identify your training needs:

• Learn – Knowledge and intellectual abilities
• Grow – Personal effectiveness
• Realise – Research governance and organisation
• Thrive – Engagement, influence and impact

This helps you find the sessions you need right now, plan your time effectively, and focus on particular skills alongside other ECRs.

This year we’ve switched our listings to Eventbrite, for a smoother booking process. We’re also working to make our sessions more accessible, and you’ll be asked if you have any accessibility needs when you sign up. We’ll work with our facilitators to make sure everyone can engage with our workshops. Contact researcher-development@sussex.ac.uk if you want to know more.

The Autumn schedule includes workshops on project management, open research, ethics, time management, research proposals, the UK funding environment, and managing your data. There’s also a monthly one-day writing retreat for all researchers, holding facilitated space for intensive writing in a supportive environment.

Register now via the scheduled event listings on Broadcast, or visit the ECR Development Series webpage to browse by theme, with an overview of every session on offer this year.

Further information: https://www.sussex.ac.uk/internal/sussex-researcher-school/early-career-researchers/ecr-development/traininganddevelopment/allevents

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