The role of the Development and Opportunities Committee (DOC) is to monitor and advise on aspects of department life relating to culture and organisation, with the aim of developing an environment where all members can flourish and reach their potential.

The DOC is made up of the chairs of the staff and student working groups, making it easy to feed back ideas and initiatives, garner support, and share best practice. The DOC also provides a conduit to the Departmental management board which provides a mechanism to influence Departmental policy, and ensures that staff and students have a voice in the decisions that are made.

Within this remit the DOC has overarching responsibility for Equality and Diversity in the Department, and is the driving force behind seeking external accreditation, such as with Athena SWAN.

The Early Career Working Group is made up of PhD students, including Clinical Research Fellows, postdoctoral staff, career development fellows and Clinical Lecturers.  It advises the Development & Opportunities Committee (DOC) on matters of departmental culture and organisation related to career development and environment, with a particular focus on career pathways.

The group has strong links with the Postdoc Development Centres local reps to ensure flow of communication and allow easy collaboration on events.

We are currently seeking to appoint two co-chairs to the group, one clinical and one non-clinical. If you are interested then please write to Dr Victoria Salem (v.salem@imperial.ac.uk) outlining your reasons for applying and the skills you would bring to the role.

The Early Career Working Group has responsibility for a number of recurring initiatives:

Postdoc Travel Award Scheme

The ECC has funding to allocate to postdocs for the purposes of attending conferences. The awards are open to all postdocs and academic research fellows in the Department of Medicine, applications from researchers who need assistance with extraordinary costs, such as childcare, are particularly encouraged.

For further information and to make an application please download the ECC Postdoctoral Awards (doc) form. 

The Professional, Technical and Operational Staff Working Group (PTOSWG) focuses specifically on professional and technical staff in the Department, looking at communication, recognition, training and development, and opportunities.

The PTO Working Group is currently chaired by Charmaine Porter (c.porter@imperial.ac.uk).

This group is focused on the experience of academic staff working in the Department. It is made up of clinical and non-clinical academic staff, and senior fellows. The group has elected to look in depth at the expectations of academic staff, development and promotions, internal partnerships, infrastructure, and equality and diversity.

The Athena SWAN SAT is responsible for self-assessment, action planning and monitoring. It meets bi-monthly and is chaired by the Head of Department, Professor Martin Wilkins. The Athena SWAN SAT is specifically focused on preparing applications for Athena SWAN awards. The team will request and analyse data, and will identify trends that may need further investigation. Where this process highlights a specific concern, the SAT will pass queries to the DOC working groups to explore in more detail. While the Athena SWAN charter is focused on women working in Higher Education, the team will look at a range of diversity data in pursuit of providing equality of opportunity for all staff and students.