Outcome of the 3 Impact Workshops held by the ReMO COST Action between 21st and 28th January 2021 Dataset uri icon

abstract

  • These documents are the result of a series of three online workshops held by the Researcher Mental Health (ReMO) COST Action that focussed on the specific impact priorities of each of ReMO's three Working Groups: Working Group 1: System level - the ERA working environment Working Group 2: Institutional level - Wellbeing Practices in Research Institutions Working Group 3: Local actors - Promoting researcher well-being on a practical level These three-hours long impact workshops were based on the outcomes of a previous process to perform SWOT analyses and followed the guidelines and methodology that the ReMO community adapted from the "Impact+ Exercise” that was originally developed for European Commissions’ Erasmus plus projects (https://www.erasmusplus.org.uk/impact-and-evaluation). In these workshops the following procedure was executed: First, participants established their impact targets for the ReMO network: the network (itself), the researcher, stakeholders, and the research system. These targets were derived from the methodological guidelines of the “Impact+ Exercise”, but participants tailored them to the context of ReMO. Participants, randomly assigned to small discussion rounds for brainstorming, identified the most important issues and topics when it comes to researcher mental health and well-being. They also associated those issues and topics with the impact targets. Outcomes were discussed in a plenary session with duplications and similar items (issues and topics) being merged. Participants went through a voting procedure. Every participant could distribute three votes across all topics and issues identified by all participants. Votes were counted and topics were ranked based on the number of votes they received. Participants discussed the ranking and generated an action plan for the ReMO Action, which also served as a guide for research and intervention development to improve researcher mental health. As a result, the three Impact matrices for the three working groups were finalized and synthesized to a project level Impact matrix. The process aimed to distill a number of key themes and actions, which are critical for developing a model of doctoral education and more general research culture embracing researcher mental health as a key priority. This process led to the publication of the Researcher Mental Health and Well-being Manifesto. The audience’s responses were anonymous, and they were recorded in a padlet, whose contents are available here.

publication date

  • 2021