PostDocSocietyCommitteeMeeting Minutes

Meeting: / Invited: / Amanda Barnes AB, LizRylottLR, Fiona Frame FF,TimGandertonTG,Simon Baker SB, James Fox JF
Katrin Besser KB Ellie Purser EP, Roxana Teodor RT,Tim Doheny-Adams TD, Andrew Suggitt AS, Robert Howlett RH, Ellie Harrison EH, Thilo Winzer TW, Georgina Palmer GP (those in red did not attend) / Date: / Tuesday 27th June 2016
2pm / Apologies: / Amanda Barnes AB, Katrin Besser KB, TimGandertonTG, Simon Baker SB / Venue: / Williamson Rooms
DiscussionPoint / Outcome / Actionrequired
Checkminutesfrom8th Marchmeeting / Fine
Summary from Ellie Purser / Ellie confirmed her actions from last meeting. She held the postdoc Performance review meeting. This was well attended (50 postdocs). She spoke to HR about getting annual leave forms online. She sent a link regarding annual leave rules and recommendations. She sent the link to Qualtrix. Induction process is ongoing within HR. The streamlining of the process from recruitment to induction is ongoing. / The only thing left to do was the Redundancy flowchart.
- a round-up (from Amanda/Katrin/James/Liz) on the Research Staff Dev. Conference, and how/if we present this to the Biol post doc community. / This was the Concordat shared practice event. There were PIs / Postdocs / Fellows. Katrin, Liz and James attended. / Follow up can include further liaison with Chemistry, Environment and Computer Science on helping them set up their own Postdoc societies.
-a discussion on post-doc soc. name (Research Staff Association?) and logo (Phil Roberts?) / This was discussed in relation to the idea that since there is now a Faculty there should be a standard way to call Postdocs and different departments call them different things. We want to be inclusive of all researchers. E,g, Research Staff / Research Associates. There are 9 NIBS (research manager / research admin) – would they society be relevant t them? / Decision was to remove the green arrows logo from the Postdoc page. No plans to replace it because the university don’t like people or groups within the university having their own branding.
- promoting biology social events (organised by biol socialcommittee) and/ororganisingour own. / There is the York maze on 24th July. There is a Ghost bus tour on 10th November. / Postdoc society should advertise the departmental social events.
There is still a vacancy for a postdoc on the Social Committee – to be advertised.
- promotion without the pay rise for postdocs / The promotion issue with postdocs is a contentious one. There can be no promotion without shortening of contracts. However, there is a desire within more senior postdocs who may have been on Grade 6 for many years to be able to call themselves something different without necessarily increasing pay. At the moment there is no distinction between postdocs who have been a postdoc for one month and those who have been postdocs for 10 years. All are called Postdoctoral Research Associates. / EP to research the Chemistry department here and other Russell Group universities. What do they call their postdocs? Is there a hierarchy? Are there titles that indicate progression? E.g. Research Fellow and Senior Research Fellow. The proposal is that there would have to be a set of criteria e.g. number of papers / number of grants / supervision / teaching etc. that would allow postdocs to be called something different. Also, this is not intended to replace the current promotions procedure because there are postdocs who could and should go through this process. (but what are they called? i.e. a Grade 7 or Grade 8 postdoc – do they have different titles?)
Website updates / James has updated the Teaching training part and added the Fellowship website.
PDSCNextmeeting / Coffee and Pastries and Meeting to be held in 19th – 30th September / Be sure to invite Ellie Purser next time. We forgot. She will be available for people to talk about performance review forms and to talk in confidence with anyone if they have HR related issues.
LR to doodle poll
Other business? / Surveys
Careers day / EP requests that we encourage postdocs to fill in the Athena Swan and culture surveys that will be coming round.
LR suggested that Helga is booked – she took part in the Concordat day and could be a good addition.

1