Organised by the UKRMP Project Managers, this retreat brought together PDRAs, RAs and PhD Students from across the UKRMP Hubs for two days of workshops and networking opportunities at the Manchester Conference Centre.
The event opened with a series of workshops facilitated by Dr Sara Shinton, focusing on career development, maximizing opportunities, marketing skill sets and promoting involvement within UKRMP both within academic careers and out with academia. Participants were encouraged to mix and interact with colleagues from different hubs and to think about how they could use the experience of being involved in a prestigious programme such as the UKRMP to further develop their careers. Feedback from this session was positive and included comments such as: “The session was very thought provoking (Niche Hub)” and “Topics were relevant to the stage of my career, advise was useful and I went away with many things to think about (Safety Hub)”.
Day two was led by Dr Rachel Smith and Dr Sarah Dickson from the MRC Regulatory Support Centre who provided insight into the Regulatory Landscape surrounding the research journey from basic research to late clinical trials. The focus however, was on basic research, prototype stages, preclinical and early clinical trials, which accurately represented the activities of the audience. Again the workshop was interactive and involved discussion tables with representation from multiple hubs and again participant feedback was very positive “A very helpful overview of this area which is very relevant to the work we are doing (PSCP Hub)”, and “It provided a clear understanding of regulations with Human tissue (Acellular Hub)”.
The whole event was very well received by the participants, who seemed very engaged with the activities provided. We have received universal requests by the participants to hold more of these events to foster cross platform activities and therefore, if anyone has any suggestions of future topics, please do not hesitate to pass these on to your Project Manager and we will see what we can do.
Thanks to all the participants and the facilitators for making this such an enjoyable and worthwhile event.
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