Empowering and Supporting Operational Leaders by Expanding the Community of Practice

Supported by previous DisCouRSE funding, we established a community of practice (CoP) for digital Research Technical Professional (dRTP) leaders and aspiring leaders with operational leadership responsibilities.

We built initial membership across N8 universities, defined the terms of reference and aims, and open-sourced an operational management tool developed at The University of Manchester to be owned by the group moving forward. We also launched a website as a platform for sharing resources.

This project will transform the pilot community into a sustainable and valuable resource. We will grow membership to include a broader range of dRTP role types and wider geographical distribution. We will build community-owned assets and resources, run focused sessions on tackling shared challenges, and create a library of case studies that can help members learn from one another and adapt good practice to their own contexts. We will also support institutions to explore and adopt the operational management tool (CapX) where useful.

Many dRTP leaders take on operational leadership without suitable tools, frameworks or peer networks. By growing the community through this project and supplying knowledge and useful resources, the CoP will increase confidence, capability and collaboration across institutions, laying the foundations for wider adoption and longer-term impact.