Researcher developers: an emerging third space profession

Abstract

Following the publication of Sir Gareth Roberts’s SET for Success in 2002, the UK government invested millions of pounds in universities to improve the readiness of doctoral researchers to work in universities and beyond. Many universities hired what have become known as researcher developers to design and deliver suitable programmes to develop generic and transferable skills. In 2008, Celia Whitchurch identified the concept of third space as an emergent territory between academic and professional domains, which is colonised primarily by less bounded forms of professional. This article demonstrates how the researcher developer is an example of a third space profession in higher education, and specifically an example of what Kehm calls new ‘higher education professionals’, being highly qualified professionals who are not primarily active in research and teaching themselves, but who are generalists and experts – rather than specialists – working within higher education institutions.