Research Services division

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Research Services Division

Our new division is a great opportunity to collectively help deliver our University research ambitions, develop our inclusive research culture alongside our research infrastructure, and support the student experience.

Drs. Astrid Wissenburg, Divisional Director of Research Services

The division is organised in the following service groups:

Doctoral College, covering:

  • Distributed DC strategic leadership and coordination
  • Recruitment and admission services  (EEG)
  • PGR student lifecycle (enrolment to viva) support for students, supervisors
  • Student Wellbeing Services  (EAS)
  • Quality assurance (EAS)
  • Careers & Employability services (EAS)
  • Governance and policy support
  • Researcher Development and Research Culture

Research Services, covering:

  • Research Finance
  • Research Development and Management
  • Institute Management
  • Research Strategy, Policy and Performance
  • Faculty PS partnering DC/IIB/RS

Research Software Engineering Group

  • Academic Software Engineering project resource
  • Advice and training on software programming

Technical Services

  • Technical Support for research spaces
  • Technical support for teaching spaces
  • Technical support for research facilities
  • Dedicated technical services research support for PIs
  • Scientific stores
  • 24/7/365 out of hours cover for technical spaces

Headed by Drs. Astrid Wissenburg, the Research Services Division is a key enabler to the delivery of the University’s Strategy 2030, the Research and Impact Strategy, successful REF performances, and meeting research income targets. Working with our academic colleagues in our Faculties, we achieve this by:

  • supporting the full research project lifecycle from inception to impact: ensuring local delivery of support to academics from horizon scanning through research development, bidding and contracting, research project management & delivery (including financial post-award management) to post-project development and reporting, through our Research Funder Clusters.
  • offering research (and education) infrastructure support through our Technical Services Group, our Research Software Engineering Group (co-managed with our Institute for Data Science and Artificial Intelligence), and working closely with other services, including Library and Archive services and Research IT.
  • providing overall Professional Services leadership for the Exeter Doctoral College (DC), which is a distributed Service with contributions made from multiple Divisions, supporting our Postgraduate Research (PGR) and Early Career Researcher (ECR) communities and the management of the resources, facilities and spaces required to maintain a high quality PGR and ECR experience.
  • delivering joint strategic, policy, performance and planning support to the University, its Faculties and Institutes to build and sustain an excellent research environment for our academics and students, in collaboration with colleagues in the IIB division. This includes the support for strategic initiatives in support of institutional strategies.