If you have identified any weaknesses in your current network you might now want to meet and connect with new people. This section will look at how to build your network through a combination of structured and informal approaches.

As a researcher you should have access to at least two important networks – the one in your institution and the network made up of people in your research field. Some research areas and academic subjects have formal communities in the form of subject associations (as they are often called in the Arts and Humanities), learned societies and professional bodies (more common in sciences and engineering) or councils, groups or networks.

These networks will often run events, have specialist sub-groups arranged around particular interests or issues and may have mentoring programmes. Some of these networks and societies have memberships which run to thousands of people, but very few of them make an active contribution to the organization and few make the most of the networking opportunities available.

A number of researchers have written about the potential benefits that these networks offer, including:

• Mitzi Watlz on jobs.ac.uk
• Jonathan O'Donnell on the Research Whisperer blog
• Alyssa Sbisa and Sally Grace, who set up their own student focussed network

In research, conferences are clearly an ideal place to develop new connections but it’s important to make best use of them. If a conference or meeting is happening in your research area, you can also build your network by volunteering for workshop groups or panels and accepting invitations for the same. A number of the resources pointed to earlier in this resource offer advice on networking at research conferences (look again Athene Donald’s post on courage and conferences), but for those who intend to go to different types of meeting, more generic advice might be useful, such as this article from Dave Kerpen on LinkedIn.

Social media is clearly fantastic at forming and building connections, but is explored in more detail in an accompanying resource. However, to get started it may be useful to talk to someone in your department who has an active online profile and to ask them what value it has added. You’ll probably find that Twitter users are particularly positive about academic communities. Those who use the research networks – ResearchGate and Academia – to connect with people will also probably be able to share good advice on good practice.

If you are geographically mobile, travelling and visiting other groups and researchers will build strong connections and the process of securing the funding you are likely to need for a research visit will also boost your CV.

For those without the freedom to travel you can also build your network by:

• Socialising with people in your department, and also wider university events
• Asking your colleagues to network for you at events you can’t attend
• Inviting people to Bristol to speak

When you are trying to grow your network don’t feel that you have to behave differently, but think about how to develop connections if you aren’t comfortable approaching people. More advice for shy connectors can be found in Sacha Chua’s presentation on her more introverted strategies to build her network.

When you make new connections, it is vital to sustain any good first impressions with a respectful attitude to other people’s time and prompt follow ups. There is some excellent advice in Michael Goldberg’s blog which reports the impact of a bad networking attitude.

Before we move on, here’s a question to consider: 'Do I know how to identify and connect with more people who can help me with my career? '

If you feel that you have some clear goals and ideas about how to build your network, the next section looks at what your network needs to know about you in order to help you.

Move onto Part 6: 'What they need to know and useful tools and approaches'