Capitalising on and enhancing the impacts of early career research

The proposed programme will boost significantly the applicant's academic career prospects for a number of reasons. First of all, the fellowship will allow the applicant to capitalise on the important research experience he has gained so far. This includes studying complex procurement processes in construction (PhD research), and healthcare commissioning in four NHS organisations (most recent research). It should be stressed that the applicant does not plan to conduct any further research during the fellowship period. Rather, the applicant plans to refine draft papers and develop new papers, which build upon important research findings, and will be submitted to top-ranked journals in the ABS list (please refer to the communications plan). This is essential for enhancing his employability in the UK academic sector.

Secondly, throughout the duration of the fellowship the applicant plans to lead on the co-authoring of papers in order to benefit and learn from interacting and working closely with leading scholars in his field;such as his proposed mentor Professor Jacky Swan. Co-authoring will facilitate the transfer of some important tacit skills of writing for publishing from the very experienced and successful in publishing mentor to the applicant. This experience will have a lasting effect on the applicant's career development.

Thirdly, the applicant plans to use the fellowship award in order to disseminate in an interactive fashion research findings to a wider, non-academic audience. This will be conducted in two ways. In particular, the applicant will organise a workshop, which will involve participants from a number of different industries, including, but not limited to, the NHS and the construction sector. The workshop will be organised as part of the KIN (Knowledge and Innovation Network) consortium of organizations (www.ki-network.org), which is an established vehicle the IKON centre uses to improve the practical impact of its research. The applicant also expects to circulate short reports, which summarise key research findings. In addition, the applicant will organise a webinar, i.e. a web conference, which will give the opportunity to a wider group of policy makers and practitioners to learn about key insights from his research. The applicant will finally create a public website, where he will include not only publications, but also short articles, resources and webcasts that present and discuss policy making and practitioner implications from his research.

Fourthly, the applicant will take full advantage of the training opportunities that are available by the Warwick University's Learning and Development Centre (LDC). He also plans to attend training workshops organised by the ESRC National Centre for Research Methods (NCRM). The applicant will select and apply for specialist research methods courses in conjunction with his objective to develop a full research grant application.

Fifthly, the fellowship will allow the applicant to plan sufficiently an application for a large research project to be submitted to one of the following research funding bodies: ESRC, The British Academy, The Health Foundation, or the NIHR SDO. In preparing his grant application, the applicant will benefit greatly from guidance provided by his mentor, Professor Jacky Swan, who is very experienced and successful in designing and delivering large research programmes.
Finally, throughout the fellowship, the applicant will be able to gain important teaching experience. He will be able to lead on the 'Managing Knowledge and Innovation' module (which is currently led by his proposed mentor) for the Masters in Management and Organizational Analysis at Warwick Business School.

Overall, the fellowship will enable the applicant to capitalise on his important research experience through establishing the essential publication track record, and therefore to compete in the highly competitive academic sector.