News
UCCRSA AGM 2014 Report
The UCCRSA AGM was held on Tuesda the 25th of November 2014
Dear all,
The UCCRSA AGM was held last Tuesday on the 25th of November. The night was a great success that was well attended, put in place an even larger committee for 2014/2015 and saw a wide range of discussions on researcher affairs take place.
It is with great delight that I introduce the UCCRSA committee for 2014/2015:
Chair: Mark Jessopp
Vice-Chair: Ehsan Sooudi
Treasurer: Cathal O’Mahony
Secretary: Gordon Dalton
Ordinary Committee Members: Andrey Temko, Zeina Sabra, Andrew Allen, John O'Toole, Rosarii Griffin
Motion to reform the constitution:
The outgoing Chair, Ruairi O’Reilly, lead us through the constitutional reforms which were unaminously approved by the meeting. It is my belief that these reforms will improve our capacity to function as a committee and enable a greater focus on the issues that directly affect you. For your information, the updated version of the constitution is attached.
Motions submitted by members:
- UCCRSA endorsed the candidacy of Gordon Dalton for the UCC Governing Body as UCCRSA’s researcher representative. It is a key aim of the UCCRSA to ensure that researchers are represented at all levels of management within UCC. Gaining a seat on the Governing Body will give researchers a strong voice in decisions that not only affect current research affairs but those that will affect the future of research careers within UCC. With elections looming there will be more to follow in the coming days.
- UCCRSA endorsed the work of the International Consortium of Research Staff Associations (ICoRSA), and agreed to canvass its members to promote membership of ICoRSA
- UCCRSA agreed to support the Irish Research Staff Association (IRSA) with administrative support, and the Committee will investigate levels of financial support that can be provided to IRSA to represent researcher issues at a national level
- The UCCRSA Committee was tasked with investigating the granting of a researcher travel bursary award for members of the UCCRSA as a means of recognising their research.
The year ahead
UCCRSA are making significant gains in researcher representation throughout UCC. In a very short time period we have gone from little or no representation to having quarterly meetings with the VP of Research and Innovation, being de facto members of the Staff Development and Enhancement Committee (SDEC), having two candidates appointed to the Academic Council (Gordon Dalton and myself) and recently arranging to have a representative appointed to the upcoming Charter and Code review group.
However, the source of our strength is in our membership and that means you. Currently UCCRSA represents approximately 30% of all academic research staff within the University (this rises to over 50% for contract research staff) making it the single largest representative body of researchers in UCC. It is my intent that we build on this strength in 2015 as we work towards addressing a number of outstanding researcher issues including contracts, redundancy, pay conditions, teaching opportunities, and the Research Career Framework. We are in an excellent position to begin addressing these issues, made possible only by the previous efforts of a number of people working to get us to our current position. My thanks go to the 2014 Committee for their dedication and willingness to address issues head-on. Special mention must be given to the previous Chair, Ruari O’Reilly, who is moving on to new challenges outside of UCC. Ruari has been particularly proactice, accomplishing a great deal during his time as Chair, and I hope to prove myself worthy of following on from him while wishing him luck in his new endeavours.
I look forward to working with our members and UCC management to increase the international standing of UCC as a research institution, and improve the research landscape in Ireland.
Mark Jessopp
In-coming Chair of the UCCRSA committee