Once you have recruited individual researchers, it’s important to develop them into a team. A group of individuals may be working towards the same goal but in a team, there is an interdependence i.e. they rely on each other to achieve the goal.
In a research group you may have several individuals working in separate projects without much interdependence, but there is still a job to do to bring them together to support one another in their work and careers and to create a thriving research environment.
In this collection of resources, you will ideas that will help you to take a step back and think about what might currently be happening in your team as well as things that you can do to actively develop a functioning team.
In this section you will find:
- Theories that explain how teams develop and what might lead to a dysfunctional team
- Suggestions to help with expectation setting with individuals and teams
- Ideas to help you to understand how to establish trust with your team
The ideas here are also relevant to other groups such as research collaborations or committees that that you are engaged with. Irrespective of whether you are the leader of those groups, there is always a leadership role to play so that you can influence the success of the group from the inside.
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Resources
Internal resources and guidance
Training provided by People and Organisational Development:
- Building resilient teams
External resources and guidance
- Guide: A career in research - Tips for running your own research group – from the Wellcome Trust
- Hugh Kearns’ downloadable toolkit for PhD supervisors includes a valuable set of resources and checklists includes recruitment, induction expectation setting, feedback, delegation and so on. There is also a corresponding set of downloads for students.
- Short talk - Rick Dufour on Groups vs Teams
Previous and next
Go back to the previous section: Recruitment and induction of your new research group
Go to the next section: Team development and leadership