Thank you to everyone who attended today’s Fab meeting, which made use of the Wellcome Café Culture activity pack. This was a short discussion of research culture and how we can improve it. Research culture, as defined by the “Realising Our Potential” report recently published by the Russell Group comprises the “behaviours, values, expectations, incentives, attitudes and norms of a research community. It determines the way that research is conducted and communicated and can influence researchers’ career paths and mental wellbeing.”
I think that everyone in academia recognises that there are shortcomings in our research culture. Our discussions, though brief, raised a number of issues including a lack of diversity in academia and the hyper-competitive nature of our research environment, which itself leads to a loss of talent, poor mental health and can enable research impropriety, bullying and harassment. A lack of support in career progression, inadequate career pathways, deficits in training and poor management skills were also discussed. What seemed clear from this meeting is that these issues are intrinsically interlinked – for example, failing to train new PI’s can facilitate inefficient or even inappropriate working practices further down the line. One issue highlighted as an area of concern was supervision of PhD students and staff. It is clear there are wide variations in training provided or engaged with and not all are aware of the systems in place for dealing with problems that arise. Some new fellows receive this training as part of their induction, whereas other recruits may receive very little. There are also variations in the requirements of funders in this regard. While there are no doubt many good practices, and undoubtedly many of us absorb good practice by osmosis and through informal chats with colleagues, it is clear that discrepancies in training could easily undermine our research environment. At our next Fab meeting we will be hearing about new training programmes available in this regard from Lucy Bartrick of Research Services (RS) – some of our discussions may have provided ideas about what we may require and RS are keen that this is a two-way conversation. The lack of alternative career pathways outside of Fellow/Lecturer status was highlighted as a problem alongside the unsettling effect of moving from one fixed-term contract to another ahead of a permanent position. These are complex issues that require involvement of Universities, funders and beyond, but the impact on researchers cannot be underestimated, particularly as the transition to independence often coincides with the years when many researchers are considering having children and starting a family. This situation adversely affects those who take career breaks, particularly women, and therefore contributes to a lack of diversity in academia. The need for support and training to aid career progression was a topic the conversation returned to a number of times. For example, one area in which new fellows feel overwhelmed is financial management of grants – support for which may vary across the University. Writing of fellowships and grant applications is obviously key to researcher development so this was a good opportunity to signpost some of the assistance available (alongside sharing grants with colleagues during the writing process and any formal grant review requirements a department may have) – this includes the Bateson AIMS meetings at which a single page document covering the aims and objectives of a new grant can be discussed and theme grant meetings in IICD; Fab meeting sessions are also available for researchers to discuss grants at a range of stages in their development (just get in contact with a committee member to express an interest). Attendees of these meetings pointed out that simply attending these meetings as a participant (i.e., rather than presenting a grant) can provide insights into the grant writing process and aid development of this key skill. Our meeting was too brief to touch upon all the aspects of our research culture, but we are hopeful that this was a worthwhile exercise. We intend to use these discussions to inform future Fab meetings and use these conversations to shape researcher development and support transitions to independence. The Russell Group report, case studies of good practice and a toolbox to improve research culture can be found here: https://russellgroup.ac.uk/policy/publications/realising-our-potential-backing-talent-and-strengthening-uk-research-culture-and-environment/ Details of how to run your own Café Culture discussion can be found here: https://wellcome.org/what-we-do/our-work/research-culture/hosting-your-cafe-culture-discussion Results of a survey conducted by Wellcome into research culture can be found here: https://wellcome.org/reports/what-researchers-think-about-research-culture
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August 2021
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