Innovation Academy completes first Postdoc bootcamp

Posted on: 27 September 2017

The Innovation Academy’s first foray into training Postdocs took place last week. This three day Bootcamp focused on the fundamentals of creative thinking, teambuilding and communications with an overarching aim of supporting Postdoctoral professional development. Participants from Trinity were joined by others from DCU, UCD, UCC, Tyndall National Institute and NUI Galway representing SFI Centres ADAPT, CONNECT and AMBER, and included a range of research areas from geospatial modeling to biomaterials.

This new programme is a result of increased recognition of the importance of developing the career of professional researchers and how critical this is to delivering value to both the individual and society. Dr. Dan Rogers from the Innovation Academy who manages the programme added "We are facilitating talented post-doctoral researchers in exploring structured methods of ideation and problem solving such as Design Thinking’. The Innovation Academy are uniquely positioned to provide this training based on their transferable skills training experience for PhD students and academics. Richard Twohig, Programme Manager for the EDGE Marie-Sklodowska Curie Fellowship Programme, which will fund 71 ICT Postdocs over the next five years and including the majority of the course participants commented, “This type of training gives researchers skills that will both aid them in achieving success in their current research projects, and improve their value to colleagues, potential collaborators, funders and future employers’.

This new course is the first in a series of Innovation Academy Postdoc Bootcamps to be rolled over the next three years with the aim of enhancing both Trinity’s and Ireland’s reputation for supporting and continuous development of excellent researchers across all levels and disciplines.