Professional Development Plan

Professional Development Plan

Professional Development Plans (PDPs) provide a planning process that identifies both professional development needs and career objectives. Furthermore, PDPs can serve as a tool to help facilitate communication between you, the postdoctoral researcher and your line manager or PI.

Goals

A PDP is one component of our professional training program and can help postdoctoral researchers identify:

• Long-term career options they wish to pursue and the necessary tools to meet these goals
• Short-term needs for improving current performance

Benefits

Postdoctoral Researchers will have a process that assists them in developing long-term career goals. Additionally, identifying short-term (annual) goals will give them a clearer sense of expectations and help identify milestones along the way to achieving specific objectives. The PDP also provides a tool that can be used to provide structure to conversations between the you and your PI.

Use the tools and services available to you here in UCC so that you can gauge your professional training needs.  The workshops and seminars advertised not just on this website but also those available throughout UCC are here to assist you with this.  Look out for the e-mails advertising these programmes – don’t just delete them!!! Avail of as much professional training as possible whilst here in UCC.

Regular professional training is important, but it is critical that postdoctoral researchers in UCC also develop a career-development dialogue with their PI or supervisor. Reviewing progress and discussing career goals is a necessary part of career development.

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UCC's Template for Research Skills Development Training PathsTraining Paths

UCC's Template for a Professional Development Plan UCCPDP

UCC's guidelines for Career Planning for Research Staff Career Planning