Here you will find an overview of our most recent (2024) activities - summaries of meetings and social events, status of work on reports, et cetera.
For continuous updates, please check out our social media: (opens in a new window)Twitter (X) and (opens in a new window)LinkedIn!
The RSA will host an event centred around providing information on leave entitlements for
temporary research staff at UCD.
We will be joined by Valerie O’Neill (Senior HR Operations Lead at UCD), Eimear O'Reilly (Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Project Officer at UCD), Miriam Hamilton (Deputy General Secretary of IFUT), and Dr Ieva Zumbyte (Postdoctoral Research Fellow, UCD School of Social Policy, Social Work and Social Justice).
The event will outline your rights to leave as an employee at the university and in Ireland in general
in the context of family-related leave (e.g. maternity/paternity/parental). There will be a brief
introduction to what the process of taking this leave may involve at the university. We will finish
with a Q&A session.
The event is aimed at research staff but we welcome others who may find the session relevant (e.g. final-year PhD students, other temporary staff). If you would like to attend, please indicate your interest (opens in a new window)here.
Wednesday 10th April, at 16:00–17:00, L013 Moot Court, UCD Sutherland School of Law
Postdoctoral researchers often assist in supervising students' projects, yet this work often goes uncredited without a formal role or recognition. To address this, UCD established the Assistant Supervisor Working Group. The RSA conducted a study to assess the prevalence of postdocs performing assistant supervisor duties, challenges faced, perspectives on formalizing the role, and suggestions for improvement. UCD Research Staff Association (opens in a new window)Postdoctoral Assistant Supervision Report is out now.
During our last Annual General Meeting we elected new committee members and discussed matters related to teaching (including the assistant supervisor role) and funding opportunities for research staff. Officers gave reports from last year. More updates will follow soon!
We have an online general meeting on the 19th of November, 5 P.M. Please follow the information provided in the email or connect to us to get the link to a virtual meeting.
In cooperation with the Irish Research Staff Association and IFUT, we have sent an open letter to the Government of Ireland, the Irish University Association, and the three main funding agencies (SFI, IRC, and HRB). We expressed our concerns about the impact of the Covid-19 crisis on research staff and we called for the implementation of the following measures:
1. Emergency funding should be made available by the Government to provide for costed extensions wherever possible, thereby ensuring continuity of research.
2. Funding Agencies should have more uniformity in their policies, converging toward higher standards, taking into account international best practices.
3. At a minimum, greater detail and clarity should be provided about the criteria that extension decisions are made on.
You can download the letter from (opens in a new window)here.
SIPTU sent a (opens in a new window)letter of support for the Irish RSA on the matter.