SIPR are delighted to share some exciting news. As many of you may know, Professor Denise Martin has decided to step down as SIPR Associate Director with responsibility for the Education and Leadership network. SIPR ran a recruitment competition to secure a replacement and were delighted to receive interest from a range of talented individuals, ultimately resulting in two applications – one from Dr Kirsteen Grant (Edinburgh Napier University) and a second as a joint application from Associate Professor Andrew Woof and Dr Andrew Tatnell (Edinburgh Napier University).
The interview panel (made up of Professor Liz Aston and Monica Craig from SIPR and Amanda Coulthard from the SPA) decided that the vision and experience of Drs Wooff and Tatnell was ideally suited to that required for the Education and Leadership network. We are absolutely delighted to announce that they have accepted this position and will be working with Professor Martin on a handover of network roles and responsibilities.
Professor Martin’s last official duty as a member of the SIPR leadership team will be to represent the network at the Board of Governance meeting before officially stepping down. I’m sure you will all join me in thanking Denise for her hard work in leading the network and lending us her skills and experience over the last seven years. We are looking forward to a celebratory toast in her honour at the Board’s reception dinner.
Additionally, and in line with discussions at previous Board of Governance meetings, SIPR has continually sought opportunities to build capacity. With this in mind, throughout her interview, we were struck with the passion and innovative thinking demonstrated by Dr Grant. Her skills in supporting postgraduate and early career research, as well as her experience in organisational development were felt to be of great value to SIPR and, after some deliberation, it was agreed that there would be great benefit in grasping these skills and seizing an opportunity to build our SIPR leadership capacity. As such, we have established a new role – Associate Director for Development – and have offered this to Dr Grant. I am thrilled to report that she has accepted with the intent to commence at the beginning of 2024.
The leadership team will work to refine this new role and its responsibilities, but it is intended that Dr Grant will develop the Postgraduate and Early Career portfolios across all SIPR networks while also supporting greater connectedness and alignment of network plans.
We are incredibly grateful to Amanda Coulthard for giving her time and advice so generously. We are delighted with the outcomes of these interviews and for the opportunity to continue to develop and grow the SIPR team.
