# Skills Officer as a Research Infrastructure Role

> Drawing inspiration from the Training Officer and the Applied Skills Officer, a Skills Officer is the generic role that bridges the two and is applicable to work environments beyond the Turing.

Why is a skills officer not a teacher? When do they need to teach? Where do they differentiate from a a generic "officer"/coordinator type role? facilitation? What are the % share between these different roles that make up the "skills officer"?

## What does a Skills Officer do?

> Think about general responsbilities that can fall under this role

* *Example: support an organisation in upskilling people in areas relevant to the research remit*

* research grant management
* Run training or skills events and programmes
* Faciliate training courses/sessions with multiple expert speakers
* stakeholder engagement with funders, domain experts, pedagogical experts and end users
* programme and project management
* setting strandards, frameworks and templates for skills-related activities across the organisation
* convening bodies

## What are the day-to-day tasks of a Skills Officer?

> Think about the range of smaller, individual tasks that you do in your everyday job

* *Example: organise training events and operationally support the trainers in delivering it*

* write documentation and establish new processes
* work to understand the community their project involves and serves
* Manage the community/ies

* overseeing development of training material
* point of contact for their project for internal and external queries
* event development and support
* All training programme facilitation e.g. comms, logistics etc.

* planning/running campaigns to promote offerings
* liaising with delivery partners
## What qualifications and skills do you bring as a Skills Officer?

> Think about your background, previous roles and what helped you get your job - whether that's people skills, aligned interests and values, or something related to attitude. Maybe mention some useful qualification eg event management, programme management

* *Example: life science degrees with a strong component in data analysis, and a proven interest in education as a tutor; people skills and an active member of the wider community*
* teaching experience
* experience developing learning resources/materials/programmes
* experience of working with diverse groups of people and catering to multiple needs
* delivering training courses
* project management
* creation of online learning resources
* Developing bespoke training packages
*
## What are some of the challenges you have been facing as a Skills Officer?

> Think about the organisational culture, resources, as well as the personal and professional challenges

* *Example: develop innovative projects from scratch with little guidance besides a high level vision*

* lack of a solid definition of the role makes it hard to justify an activity as 'out of scope' - being a 'unicorn' with undefined support at times

* not a clear career progressions path, and not a role that can be accommodated across all organisations
* +2
* lack of clarity on future initiatives - limits ability to plan and get the word out
* +1
* How much read-across is there between Training Officers and ApSki Officers. Can/should there be?
*
## What are some of the benefits from having a Skills Officer in a community?

> Think about the additive value you've seen your role bring to the community

* *Example: bringing pedagogical knowledge and experience to support experts in sharing their expertise in a way that is effective for the learners*

* bring together all projects and individuals with a focus / interest on skills, thus desiloing teams and departments
* Extra hands and input to keep skills prioritised
* central contact point