Investment Management System (IMS) Portal

So Welcome, Tena Koutou Katoa to the Endeavour Fund Narrative CV Webinar for Researchers.

So, my name is Joanne Looyen. I am currently the interim General Manager for the Science System Investment and Performance branch of MBIE and I will be giving this presentation alongside my colleague Farzana Masouleh, one of the Investment Managers in the Contestable team. 

What I’d like to do is to open with the MBIE karakia, and which I will do now. 

Tāwhia tō mana kia mau, kia māia

Ka huri taku aro ki te pae kahurangi, kei reira te oranga mōku

Mā mahi tahi, ka ora, ka puāwai

Ā mātau mahi katoa, ka pono, ka tika

TIHEI MAURI ORA

And the English translation is:

Retain and hold fast to your mana, be bold, be brave

We turn our attention to the future, that's where the opportunities lie

By working together we will flourish and achieve greatness

Taking responsibility to commit to doing things right   

And when I was reflecting on this, I thought something like the narrative CV is something that is a forward-looking thing. It is something we have been working towards. It is a shift in the way that we are doing things. So, I felt that this was quite appropriate. 

Just before we begin, we have a couple of wonderful people doing our technical issues that come up, Aarti and Sophia.

Alison Slade, our Endeavour Fund Lead will be here for Q&A at the end.

We have disabled the chat, but we will be putting in a couple of links as we go and then we can send those out later as well. The other thing is, we are recording this. I don’t think there is anything I have missed out but we will have a Q&A at the end and hopefully we can get through all of them. But I am very excited to be here. At this point because quite a lot of work has gone into this, to get this in, hopefully it is something that you consider benefit in. And we will just move on to thinking about why are we here today.  

So, we have introduced the narrative CV for the Endeavour 2023 round, and why we are here to do is to give you some tips and information on completing the narrative template.

So, we are covering a bit of an intro, why we are doing this, and some tips. The Q and A as I mentioned and then we will send out a link to an optional survey. Because we really want to get feedback. Feedback has been key to get us to this point. 

So, we are using the term all-encompassing Researchers for all project team members. Because we know it is not just researchers who need the narrative CV template. It is for all project team members. 

So, what we will do now is we will move onto the global shift. 

So, we are doing this, we have been working along side our colleagues internationally. We have got particularly closely with Colleagues in UK and Luxemburg. We are working through the Global Research Council (which if you don’t know is a virtual organisation, comprised of the heads of science and engineering funding agencies from around the world, and who are dedicated to promoting the sharing of data and best practices for high-quality collaboration amongst funding agencies worldwide). So, and I am on the ... We have got one around Responsible Research Assessment Working group, which I am on. And we have another one with my colleague on the agenda working group. The narrative CV has been one of the key outputs to be able to achieve our objectives in those two areas.  

So, the other things that is happening around the narrative CV is through DORA. I went to a webinar that talked about using narrative CVs to facilitate the development of new policies and practices for academic career assessment. And I am not here to talk about that but this is just a way that we are shifting. One clear lesson that we have heard time and again is that we need to make sure that there is clear guidance for the narrative CV for both researcher and the assessor. From our perspective, there is no disadvantage to either template that you use. Because we have given people the choice in Endeavour. It is all about the information that you put in to best reflect who you are. 

So, we don’t see from an assessor perspective that that’s a disadvantage. 

So, moving on. We have got so what have we done about this in our local. Bringing it down to New Zealand. 

We do have a working group with the Royal Society and HRC. They are very happy for us to take the lead in developing this for the Endeavor 2023 and we are hopefully working together on something that can work for all three agencies. 

We worked on a draft with our research office people. If you have heard of STRIVE, it’s that the group of people. 

With some researchers that we reach out to, particularly Māori researchers and for some very experienced assessors. And I also note that if you have read the White Paper for Future Pathways that the narrative CV is one of the early outputs of the valuing our people objective.  

So, as I said earlies, we have given people the decision. We haven’t firmed up whether we’re gonna use the narrative CV for all future funds as the only option. Those decisions are still to come. Thank you.  

So, one of the key things is that the narrative CV moves away from a metrics based CV as we are asking people to give a more rounded view of their career, their experiences and skills and beyond as I said before for all project team members. But of course academic contributions are something that are very important and we are asking you to put your ORCID ID, your relevant publications those sorts of things. 

I mean, it is flexible for you to describe how what your contribution in a way that supports the proposal or project that you are part of. And just repeating the point that it is suitable for all contributors. 

We have, to get some feedback developed 4 examples that we put up. We sort of what we were expecting but actually it’s for anyone. You can use the. .. we spent more time on them with the tips, but it is designed for all project team members. 

So then watch in a bit more detail, on to the next slide. 

So, there will be more on this, but we really wanted some key point of recognizing the broader valuable contributions to the wider research environment, thinking particularly of Māori and pacific peoples. There are diverse career pathways. We have bene talking to people around diversity and updating stories on our website about people’s research journeys and where they ended up and particularly around their associated transferable skills, familiar and community obligations, career breaks for women is particularly important to recognize. And you know, lots of other areas of expertise around impact and what you are contributing to the development of individuals and collectives, hapu, iwi etc.

The last section I want to talk about is assessment.

So, just moving on. So, as I said earlier, we worked with, we identified a group of assessors who were really keen and helpful in providing. We ended up with 25 assessors to provide feedback and we made considerable changes to the template based on their feedback. But they had some common themes. Please provide evidence where applicable. You know, we are talking about bullet points but of a narrative way as a tip. You know, you showcase your expertise in a narrative form. Describe your roles as an excellence or impact contributor. Be very clear about your role and the evidence that supports that. 

We also did use some of that information in other advice that we have been giving, and worked through the feedback and then to do a CV module which Farzana has done in the assessors training pack. 

We also spent a bit of time in that, looking at bias and stereotype to, you know, for the assessors to be mindful of the information that you are providing because we know lots of effort goes into this. 

So, the last thing I sort of want to talk about is, we did poll, just to get a bit of sense of was the narrative CV useful. So, we polled the assessors and of those assessors, I also should have made clear that actually we had 22 of the 25, assess Excellence, 16 of them assess Impact, and 8 assess Vision Mātauranga. So, we really had a good range of people. When we asked them on the excellence, 39 found the use of the narrative CV to be very/extremely helpful, very helpful, 17 somewhat helpful, and 7 not so helpful. 

So, based on, for impact, 33 extremely and very helpful, oh I can’t see the number, that’s 2 something somewhat helpful and 5 not so helpful.

So, we used that feedback as well to build on the template that we have now published. And as I mentioned it was helpful input for our assessor training. So, that’s the end of intro. I’d like to now hand over to Farzana who will take you through the next section of the narrative CV. And you will see me again for the Q And A. So, thank you. 

Kia ora koutou. Thank you, Joanne. I am Farzana, and I am delighted to talk to you in the next few slides on the content of the narrative CV.

Before starting to go deeper into what a narrative CV includes, we just wanted to mention that the intention of providing such as narrative template was to Provie that flexibility for contributors in expressing their expertise and capabilities and also allow them to select which section of the narrative questions are relevant to them, given that there is no requirement to fill in all sections. I know most of you might have seen our narrative CV template already but if you haven’t, it can be accessed through the link that is on the slide. I think my colleagues will also share it with you. Otherwise, you can go to google just put IMS MBIE narrative CV. You will be able to see the template, and the four examples that we have developed. 

Please note that the content of the examples that are provided on MBIE website are examples only and not at all the right way or best way to do it. I am sure many of you would do a better job in putting your narrative CVs together. In fact, you’d better avoid using the same wording, as those are just there to inspire you to write about yourself. As Joanne Mentioned earlier, we tried to develop the CV template in a way that in all of them you will find a mix of academic and also societal and community activities. 

And just a comment that “The stage is yours so explore and make the best use of this opportunity."

We continue with providing a few more important points regarding what a narrative CV includes:

We would like to ask you to please only provide relevant information to the project, there is no merit in having a long CV. But also, you might think that in order to provide relevant information each time you apply as part of a proposal you need to re-write your CV. But that’s not the case, if you actually take your time and develop you CV once, you will see that most of the time going forward, very little tweaks are needed to align your CV with the project you are applying to. And that’s because you normally contribute to the project based on your expertise which does not change over a short period. But the effect that this clarification would have on the assessor’s knowledge of your capability and your role may be massive, in some cases. 

Also, there is a section on your role as part of the project team so try to take the opportunity to focus on your role in there. Also, there is a section about areas of expertise, so please try to provide information on your expertise in there, too. I will provide a bit more information regarding these sections as we go forward. 

Now, moving on to the narrative CV template itself. So, as you can see, this is the exact opening paragraph of the template if you download it. To avoid confusion, I just wanted to mention that you can see the narrative CV and RS&T CV on top because we have combined these two CVs in this round. And here I just wanted to emphasize that there is no advantage or disadvantage if you decide to use one of them over the other. And of course, there is just some generic notes regarding instructions that are in italic and instructions that are in coloured boxes could be removed and of course you will need to only use one of the CVs that are provided. 

Now moving on to the Narrative CV itself. 

We recommend that you have a quick look through the text in blue boxes in the case of the narrative CV, to be inspired by what you can describe in each section. Having said that, this does not mean that only what has been described in blue boxes are eligible to go into that section. That’s only an indication of what could potentially be put in. There is no limit on the content you can provide as long as it is relevant to your role and the project.

The limit of this template is 5 pages. Also, please note that the value of the narrative CV is not in its length but the succinct information that is provided and how it describes you as the correct person to be part of that team. At this stage we selected this page limit to be consistent with the length of the standard RS&T CV that is available. Also, I just highlighted a few things in this slide. One of them is that in order to provide evidence for the narrative that you put in your CV, you can use images and tables if you like to. And also, we recommend that you use bullet points and short descriptions rather than long paragraphs of narrative. 

Moving on to the part 1 of this template. You can see that the information in the box is similar to what is available in the RS&T CV with a few additions. The main ones being iwi affiliation, Pacific identity and/or any other. And personal websites like Linkedin Profile or employee page and you can put them as you like. And research identifier. 

If you have an up-to-date ORDIC ID or ResearchGate account, you do not need to provide a full list of publications. this might indicate a culture shift but it is the way to go forward in the fast pace world that we live in. However, if you have a paper that was featured in a journal or hit a citation milestone and it is relevant to the project in any form, you can mention it along with the narrative you provide in one of the sections in the CV. This might provide a benefit for you in the assessment process.  You can also talk about the number of papers you published in a given year or on a specific topic if it showcases your depth and breadth of capabilities. 

Moving forward, in this slide, I have 4 questions that we have asked. They have almost the same style, but the information asked for each one of them is different and you do not have to fill in all sections here. we would like to highlight that this CV template intends to suit researchers or contributors to the project with diverse backgrounds. As you can see, we have asked about qualification along with merit-based roles. We have asked for professional or community positions. We have asked for expertise and finally publications. And I wanted to mention that You can be an expert but do not have a publication list. And that’s ok, you do not need to fill in all sections.

Another point regarding these 4 questions is that in some of them you see “up to 5”. we don’t expect “up to 5” be a limiting factor in describing each of these questions. 5 points more or less should be enough to cover most relevant information about your role and the project you are applying to. 

For example, in the expertise question, if you mean to provide other expertise that you believe will help you in delivering the project, but 5 simply is not enough, please provide this information elsewhere in the body of your CV. So, there is flexibility in there.

And finally, in the box at the bottom of the slide, the total years of relevant experience, we believe it is important that years of full research in the context of research funding be accounted for just to provide that extra support for early career researchers. However, this does not mean to indicate that experience in a field is confined to academic research. So, you can use it not only to focus on your full-time research or study years. 

Moving on to other sections in part 1: we have Your role as part of the project you are applying to which is mandatory: This might look similar to the expertise section that I talked about before but is narrowed down to your specific contribution to the project. This is a section to make it easy for assessors to be able to assess your role in the context of the team as you are required to provide some sort of narrative about your contribution. 

And the last section but not least is the Career break. And this section is not meant to be a critic be rather to include and acknowledge all sorts of experience that shape your career, is relevant to the project you are applying for and helps you to do your work better. A reminder that it does not have to be filled in, if you don’t like to. And I just wanted to highlight the red line, the red sentence that I have there. These might not have hindered your career prospects; but rather might have opened up new horizons and insights. So, it is a positive section in our view. 

Moving on to the part 2. We have a few questions you can provide your narratives there.

The questions could be perceived similar and that’s ok, you only select the ones that fit your story better. Sometimes people prefer one way of expressing the same thing over the other. So, we would like you to feel comfortable putting your narrative in this template, that’s why we maybe decided to have a bit of overlap between some questions. 

As mentioned, there is value in skimming through the points mentioned in blue boxes for each of these questions to give you an indication of what could potentially be written there but again you are not limited to the point that are mentioned. You can put something that is not mentioned in the blue box as long as it is relevant to you and the project. 

There is one point in the second question, which is about generation, revitalization, preservation and dissemination of knowledge. I wanted to particularly focus on that. That’s the number of Grants you applied for but were not successful. You don’t have to address this, as I mentioned before, but if you want to, it is supposed to show your connectivity within the sector, your willingness to generate knowledge and all those positive things.

We move on to the next two questions. these two questions might look in nature to be similar again. They are covering mentorship. You can use both, or either, or maybe none. Based on how you most feel comfortable about it. 

The last two sections in part 2:

The first one that is on the slide is about. So, this question that we have here is not confined to but could be best utilized by impact contributors to showcase their capability in developing economic, social, environmental impact, benefit across multiple sectors, faster uptake of results in multiple area, and potentially any other area that you perceive relevant to generation of impact.

And the box number 6, which is personal statement. The global shift towards the use of the narrative CV shows that we eventually might need to shift to this type of CV. In that sense, we would like this template to be appealing to all contributors with all sorts of backgrounds from the conventional in the lab researchers to social, art and creative researcher and contributors with a focus in community and societal development. 

In that sense, the last word for me is that, if you think you cannot fit your narrative in any of the existing questions, you can use the personal statement section which is supposed to be a free style section without any limit, and you can talk about the topic that you like as long as it is relevant to you and the project.

So that’s me. I will hand over now to Joanne to continue. Thank you.