(S9E7) Enhancing Research Culture as an Early Career Researcher

earch Culture Uncovered Host [: 00:00:04

Welcome to the Research Culture Uncovered podcast, where in every episode we explore what is research culture and what should it be? You'll hear thoughts and opinions from a range of contributors to help you change research culture into what you want it to be.

Taryn Bell [: 00:00:22

Hello and welcome to another episode of Research Culture Uncovered. I'm Taryn Bell, a Researcher Development Advisor at the University of Leeds. If you're a regular listener, you'll know that on this podcast, we're just a little bit enthusiastic about research culture and how we can support the research community in shaping it for the better. I work a lot with early career researchers, or ECRs, and I often find that they struggle to know where they fit into this space. They might feel that they don't have the power to make a change and that the system is just too big and they can't make a difference, and this is understandable. Research culture is often presented as this big, complicated, heavy topic, and I completely understand why it can feel overwhelming. However, just because changing our research culture might be difficult, it doesn't mean we can just ignore it. Not only is it just the right thing to do, early career researchers are increasingly expected to be thinking about things like how they support those working around them, how they disseminate and communicate with broader audiences, and how they co create a research culture in which everyone is given the space to thrive.

Taryn Bell [: 00:01:29

With the advent of initiatives like the Narrative CV, it's clear that funders and research institutions expect our researchers to be thinking about these things way earlier on in their careers. I am therefore absolutely delighted to welcome two early career researchers from the University of York who both are really pushing the boundaries of research culture and showing what it's possible to do. Dr Ines Hahn is a lecturer in biomedical science. She studies neuronal axons that long and cable like structures that wire our nervous system. She's created or driven various initiatives to support ECRs at both the local and the national level, including postdoc career socials, postdoc appreciation week and enhancing research culture workshops. In 2020, she and her team won the University of Manchester's Outstanding Contribution to Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Award for their work on International Postdoc Appreciation Week. Dr Stuart Higgins is a lecturer in biomedical engineering at the University of York and a UKRI Future Leaders Fellow. His research focuses on developing bioelectronics and biomaterials.

Taryn Bell [: 00:02:35

He also explores research culture and its role in science and academia, primarily through his podcast scientists not the science, which was awarded Best Interview Podcast at the British Podcast Awards in 2017. Both already have a very long history of shaping and improving research culture for the better across a number of institutions. So we are really lucky to have them on the podcast. Welcome to both of you.

Stuart Higgins [: 00:03:01

Hi, nice to be here.

Ines Hahn [: 00:03:02

Hi, Taryn.

Taryn Bell [: 00:03:03

I'm going to start with you. You've done quite a lot, both at the University of Manchester and now at the University of York. Could you tell me a little bit more about some of those initiatives and in particular, what motivated you to start them in the beginning?

Ines Hahn [: 00:03:15

Yes, kind of all started after me being two years into my postdoc in Manchester. I came to the UK, heads down in the lab producing papers, and realized I have no idea how the UK system works. I have no idea how I can drive a research career basically here and what exists, and try to ask a bit around. So, okay, do postdocs in my space around me, there weren't a lot of posters, not PhD students. Yes. But I felt like there was a bit of peer support lacking. So I was asking, is there any group, is there any option where posters can meet up? And, well, long story short, there wasn't really. So I basically grabbed one of the postdocs I know around the corner.

Ines Hahn [: 00:03:57

We just initiated postdoc socials where we invited speakers that had different careers after their postdoc, got fellowships, got an academic career, also outside, got a head of department to also invest a bit of food and a bit of drinks so people could be coaxed to come and started from there. And at the same time, basically, there was this call around representatives, basically people that represent postdocs for the school and the faculty. And I kind of thought, oh, that's a cool way to understand things better. And after a while, basically, I ended up in the university representing postdocs in a university group that supports basically ecrs and research staff. And they were asking for ways to support postdocs and basically recognize the rollout process. And there this whole idea of starting postdoc appreciation week and Manchester came about, which I'm quite passionate about to drive. So we had a first round in Manchester in 2019, the one we got the award for, which went really well. Manchester is doing those events since then.

Ines Hahn [: 00:05:03

My fabulous friend John Chang took up this idea and made it now a national initiative. And, yeah, all growing from there. And then when I moved to York, essentially, you know, I was, I wanted to keep driving those things. And here in the department, when I came, they were just about to start those enhancing research culture workshops. They asked me if I want to be involved and I just said yes. So basically, yeah, I think it all started from this spark of, okay, I want to be connected to okay, I want to connect everyone.

Taryn Bell [: 00:05:35

And then I guess, Stuart, that's something else that you've also managed to do as well in connecting to other people through the podcast. Now, this podcast has been going on for years, so I guess you were quite ahead of the curve when it came to podcasting.

Stuart Higgins [: 00:05:49

I consider myself as second wave podcasting. This is the kind of post serial world for anyone who's a podcast geek out there. So it wasn't, you know, not on the, not on the forefront of podcasting, but like following on second wave.

Taryn Bell [: 00:06:00

So why did you start the podcast and what did you learn from interviewing scientists?

Stuart Higgins [: 00:06:06

So what was fascinating is it's kind of the same reason that, you know, and it's described kind of an absence of knowing when you're doing the job. And I'd finished my PhD and I started a postdoc, and I knew I liked experiments and I liked doing science, and I kind of wanted to go down that route, but I didn't understand the system. And I realized really quickly that I didn't understand the system. I got a postdoc and thought that was it. Great. I'm a scientist now. And then they go, oh, sorry, that is a fixed term contract. And actually, soon you're going to have to try and do again and this other job and do this other job and so on.

Stuart Higgins [: 00:06:39

And I had to find a way of educating myself about the career path. And that started off as by asking other people. And then what has been really interesting for me is that a lot of the topics that kind of emerged from that. So a lot of things that are very prevalent in research communities. So issues around mental health or imposter phenomena, or managing different combinations of demands in your time, or different priorities or family commitments. In academic work, where we started that's now got a name and we refer to it by this kind of research culture label, which didn't exist at the time. So in essence, it became a kind of research culture podcast in many ways. And so, yeah, it's been a really nice vehicle to learn about different aspects, something that's come up recently.

Stuart Higgins [: 00:07:23

So I've just started kind of supervising as a kind of formal supervisor, my first PhD student, and there's this huge amount of pressure because it's the first time you've done it, and often you're trying to do everything perfect, do everything the way you really want to do it, and you remember what you didn't like about your experience, and you're trying to cram all that in. And so being able to go back and learn from the people I've spoken to has been really useful. An example, being around, setting kind of positive role models, setting really good examples in the workplace. So it's all well and good. Me talking about research culture and saying you need to balance it, and having my email footer that says about not sending emails, not doing emails out of hours. But if I'm not actioning that myself, if I'm not actually being respectful of their time, then I'm actually kind of setting the bad example. I'm kind of implicitly affecting that environment and setting a certain kind of research culture. So that's been a real thing that I've picked out from that podcast and really like at the moment, is really affecting my current practice.

Taryn Bell [: 00:08:16

So you both talked a lot about what you've gotten out of these projects yourself, which is, I think, really interesting because if we're going to be really honest about it, we often talk about research culture as a very selfless thing. But actually it's something that it sounds like you've both really benefited from getting involved in. But obviously with these things, it's not always plain sailing. So what have some of the major challenges been in implementing these things?

Ines Hahn [: 00:08:40

So what around a lot of the initiatives I've done is around basically is around team equity or giving people a voice, getting people together in a room that normally might not connect. So it was a lot before, it was a lot around postdocs because they, like Stuart nicely described, you know, you're on a fixed term contract, it's quite a stressful situation. Try to get them in a room. And now currently also, you know, trying to get basically people from all stuff in a room. And one of the challenges I find is that people that are already in an environment where you say, oh yeah, they're supportive or, you know, there are some good examples of what's going on, they tend to come to those events and there's no problem. But how to reach people that are in environments, right, that maybe the culture is not the best or they're not best supportive because there's often times, you know, an idea that there's not a lot of value in those socials, it's just a waste of time. Get your head down, do your research and basically trying to figure out who those people are and how to reach those people, I actually honestly don't have a really good answer to yet. So it's something I'm still trying, trying to find out, because I think if you want to change culture, we want people to attend that are currently in environment that's not supportive.

Ines Hahn [: 00:09:53

And with our research workshops that we run here in York, a lot of those researchers, we feel like some of the team leaders that might benefit from it, they're not coming. So basically, how to get people also that you think you might benefit to attend. So this is the. Yeah, basically, long story short, how to reach people is maybe the core problem that unconscious.

Taryn Bell [: 00:10:16

I mean, I know in research development, I think that's something we struggle with as well. Sometimes the people who turn up to the research culture workshops are probably the people who already are working towards improving research culture. They're already invested. So I think there's always that problem of communication and motivating people as well.

Stuart Higgins [: 00:10:32

I was thinking as well that it's a kind of reflection as well of the pressures that both students and staff, postdocs and academics are facing at the moment. So if I think back to some of the projects I ran. So we ran a monthly researcher meetup, and it was essentially a kind of personal development session with the opportunity to do some technical skills. But we called it a kind of forum. We designed this space where researchers could come together. And any of those initiatives you're looking at, the students, it's about how are you reaching them? Firstly, initially, how are you offering them some value to be there? Because they're in an incredibly intense, busy work environment. They are doing experiments. You know, the further they get through the PhD or, you know, they're doing research.

Stuart Higgins [: 00:11:15

And it's the further through the PhD, the more the tension is building to reach this target of a thesis. And so what are you offering them that's got value? How are you persuading them to come and take some time out of their day? How are you creating an environment that's receptive to them, that can be really challenging, and then it's about when you're trying to launch those initiatives, depending on what stage you are as a postdoc, you only have so much agency, especially if it costs things, costs some monetary value. How are you getting buy in from senior figures? How are you finding the right people in your organization to support you as a real challenge? And then, as you say with the academics, I'm having a greater appreciation now. On the other, the time pressures, there's an element of engaging in terms of finding the people you most want to reach. How do you reach them? Because they're not already engaged in this topic. That's always a challenge, but there's also just a sheer workload volume challenge of how do you create space for things that we consider to be really important inside systems and frameworks that aren't necessarily always prioritizing it. We're prioritizing delivering teaching, we're prioritizing delivering research. We're prioritizing the running of the institution.

Stuart Higgins [: 00:12:23

And some places have managed to carve out space for that. And, you know, York, whether it's research culture workshops, has done a lot of really good work in this area, but it's always a challenge because it's not the main priority. So how do you find ways of creating that space? How do you convince, again, even more senior figures to carve out space for it? That feels like the real challenges in this area.

Taryn Bell [: 00:12:43

Yeah. And it feels to me like there's kind of two things there. Firstly, there's that thing of motivation motivating people to turn up, but there's also giving people the space to think about these things on top of either for permanent staff workload and teaching and the balance of juggling everything, all for postdocs who are on short term contracts, you know, giving them the space to think about this when they're actually dealing with a lot of instability and insecurity. And I think both of you are in the unique experience that you've been in both of those positions. So you can speak to what it's like to be on a short term contract, but to be still doing these things and to be still doing them when you're on a permanent contract as well. So what keeps you going? What is it that keeps you motivated to keep thinking about research culture?

Ines Hahn [: 00:13:30

For me, my intrinsic value system is basically on equal footing to the research I do. Someone in the department at some point told me, oh, you know, you do great research, but maybe actually the research culture work you do will have more impact than your research ever will. I mean, I'm fine either way, but it's just that this is, for me, not just a side thing. It's really a core drive, intrinsically and especially knowing, you know, being a postdoc, knowing the insecurities been through that, being basically grateful that I am now in a position where, yes, I do complain about workload and all of those things, but I'm at the place where I wanted to end up, where I can actually make a difference in my team and potentially, you know, the department, university, I find highly rewarding. And it's a major drive of what I do. Just. Just in general.

Stuart Higgins [: 00:14:24

Yeah. And I think for me, it's kind of this. Let's take the two extreme ends of the spectrum, right? I'll do the negative first, then we'll do the positive. For me, at least there's lived experience and going, oh, this wasn't nice, or these things were good. Or if it's not my personal experience, having seen other people go through the system and, you know, I have said it a few times over the years, seeing in my case, you know, a brilliant scientist leave the system not because of choice, not because of their own volition, but because they don't find a place for themselves in that system, is a huge loss. That's not how they should work. And so that's a strong motivator. And there is a kind of sense of when you reach a kind of position of agency where you have more agency to do things like as a lecturer now, that sense of responsibility to get it right to nothing, have another generation go through the same mistakes, is definitely there.

Stuart Higgins [: 00:15:18

That's the negative framing. The positive side of that is actually, you know, what it's like when it's good. Like that buzz, that sheer delight of ideas flowing around the office, and the intellectual curiosity and the brilliance of having the opportunity to explore things in such an open ended manner that is so rare in life, you know, to have that much freedom to explore and to indulge in ideas and concepts, concepts is exciting and enthralling. And when it's there, it's a brilliant feeling. And that's the feeling you want people to have when they're doing research. It's, I think, a strong motivator for many academics to be in this career path. And so the opportunity to create moments like that is really exciting, and that's the positive side of it.

Taryn Bell [: 00:16:08

And that's quite a nice framing as well, because I think that is one of the things when we talk about research culture, we're often talking about, what are we not doing right? What, you know, what's. What's not going well. But actually, I think that's a really nice way to put it in that research culture is also about creating an environment in which there is that buzz and there is that positive feeling, and people. People feel good being in the research environment, being in our institutions, things like that.

Stuart Higgins [: 00:16:33

And it links to the quality of the research. And I'm framing everything in the sciences because that's my background. But, you know, when we are working well, we are coming up with new ideas, we are generating new things. We are at the forefront of new discoveries, and we're working across disciplines with different colleagues, and we can bring together those disciplines and different ideas of thinking. That's where new, exciting things happen, in my opinion. And the other side of it and the other thing that came quite apparent. So if you read the work of, say, Angela Saini or so on, you realize that especially within the sciences, a lot of the historical systemic issues around misogyny and sexism and racism emerge because of the research culture environment that's created them. So there is a kind of active area there where you want to kind of, if you understand that and you're working towards a better place of working, not only are you creating these new ideas, not only are you creating an environment that creates exciting science, you're also doing it in an inclusive manner that has broad benefits for society as a whole, and not just a subsection of society, has historically been the case with a lot of science.

Taryn Bell [: 00:17:34

I think one of the challenges that I often hear is that, as I talked a little bit about the beginning, from an ECR perspective, they might be working in geographically very different locations. They might be moving around quite a lot. They might be coping with those short term contracts or instability, not being sure where your next contract is going to be. So having both been in that position, how do you think early career researchers can shape research culture, even though they may be in one institution for a year and another institution for a couple of years? There is that constant movement sometimes two things, right?

Ines Hahn [: 00:18:11

Because as a, as a postdoc, you know, I was quite involved with, again, I was not a group leader, but I had students, you know, that I was supporting and, you know, so you do have like a realm of influence where, like Stuart says, you can try to already practice to implement those things you think are good research culture in terms you interact with, with the students, the way you interact with your peers. And basically, you know, create this micro bubble, basically. Even then, it might not be the whole app. If it's the whole app, that's awesome. But basically start to create your micro bubbles earlier, basically. Don't wait because that's what I started then and I'm trying to do now, the bubbles basically become bigger scarily, but kind of create your micro bubble earlier. And the other thing is, Stuart, in my example, show that if you have the capacity, because I know life situations are very different, but if you have the capacity to get involved in some of the things, you know, to link up with other postdocs or people that department, to get involved in some initiatives, I mean, it does take time and it does take time away from research, I'm not going to lie, but it's been hugely rewarding for me to help shape the place you work in, make the connections. I wouldn't be where I am now if I wouldn't have done those things.

Ines Hahn [: 00:19:27

So on a selfish way, it was worthwhile. It's very easy to think. I mean, it's true, you know, as a postdoc you don't have a lot of agency and basically, you know, who am I? I just here on a short term contract and my experience is trying to find the right people, try to sense who the right people are to knock on the door that are supportive. I had very massively supportive department heads throughout my, in Manchester and in York. And basically if you bounce an idea off them, they were very receptive and you might need to find those people. The other ways is if there's a postdoc society, if there's a society in research culture workshops, there are those places where you can meet like minded people. And I think it's absolutely, in my view, it's if you have the time and if you in a situation where you can do it, it's absolutely worth trying to get involved in those things.

Stuart Higgins [: 00:20:18

Yeah. And I think to echo Sims points, they're like that. Starting with that, what can you control? What do you have agency over? And, you know, even if you're, if you're a postdoc, you, you are working potentially with some students, you may be working with some master's project students, you know, start to prototype some of the things, you know, start to practice some of that early on and that can, that's something you can to some extent control and feel agency over and that's something you can carry forward with you. And if you are thinking about these things and you're caring about them, that's great.

Stuart Higgins [: 00:20:48

And be kind to yourself along the way because not all the time, you know, you're going to have the capacity to do this and you need to be in the system if you want it to change and there's no good you being burnt out and out of the system if you want that to be the case. So you're into you, you're allowed, as I say, you're entitled. But, you know, you can, you can be selfish at times, you can step back from it when it's too much and you don't have to be a figurehead of all the things, you know, it's. There are loads of, there's loads of. That's what's perhaps really changed, I think at least in my experience over the last ten years, the prevalence of other projects, the prevalence of work, that's already happening. It's a lot easier now, I think, to tap into, at least in the UK system, to existing schemes and when you're getting a little bit delusion, disillusioned with it and you've switched jobs and you're not sure about what's happening, just finding that little community to tap into, find those people to go and chat to. For me, it was ns when I joined York and we had a chat and I went, oh, thank goodness I found you, you know what I mean? Like there's that sense of, okay, right, yeah, we've got a thing here we're working on, and it's messy and it may not happen straight away and we're balancing it against all these other demands for our time, but there's a common sense and a common purpose there and that's what sustains you, I think, through all those transitions and all those things that are happening.

Taryn Bell [: 00:22:04

A lot of our listeners are, you know, working in the research culture area or working in the research development area in terms of capacity building, in terms of giving researchers the capacity, what support do you think institute institutions and funders need to be putting in place to make it easier for early career researchers to be doing this kind of thing? And I want us to think big and really optimistically here.

Stuart Higgins [: 00:22:27

So I think the key word in that was funders, because in reality we're in extremely high pressure, high workload at the moment, reasonably money poor settings. So if you want a thing to happen, attach some money to it. So in the case of the funders, more than just writing it into the stipulation on the grant, the paragraph you've got to fill in, stick some money in there. And actually there are examples of that happening and that's worked really well and you can see good case studies of where that really values the system. So I think if you're a funder listening to this, then keep funding that stuff, keep funding the change you want to happen, because the reality is, in the current UK higher education climate, that is how you can enact some change because it's linked to money. Yeah, I'm trying to think of there any other ways that aren't money based for getting things to happen. That's.

Ines Hahn [: 00:23:18

Yeah, yeah, we were, I was trying to think as well, but I think ultimately all of it is down to, okay, what do we actually count or how do we evaluate work and, you know, in terms of ref and all those things and it's essentially, everything is about. It is essentially about the money. So I think my answer is probably.

Stuart Higgins [: 00:23:37

The same, which, which isn't very helpful because there isn't much money at the moment. So I don't know, again, thinking about agency and the kind of the things we can control and trying to come up with practical solutions, I'm trying to think, you know, what we're doing locally in terms of trying to improve culture. It's, you know, if it's senior managers in departments, then it's supporting and enabling staff who are, who are bringing these things up. Let the good ideas flourish. Be generous with your support. That support might not extend to money, but it will extend to vocal leadership. And I think that's really empowering. We both referred to kind of like our interactions with different senior figures throughout the time and how that has a huge impact on what you can deliver.

Stuart Higgins [: 00:24:17

The same is true now, you know, at academic level, for me at least, you know, if I can get support from senior figures around the university, then it's far more likely to happen because I feel supported and able to do that work.

Ines Hahn [: 00:24:27

In some ways it's, yeah, a little bit like what you said about your own lab, that you want to be a good role model to show. So basically, I feel like senior leaders need to do the same thing so I can, you know, show presence at those workshops to make it, just to show that they feel that this is important. There might be discussions around how could we include research culture and research culture values in promotion criteria and things of that that are, you know, beyond paper outputs and grant outputs, basically. So kind of be included in how we evaluate someone's career as well. But I think the role model and just signaling, you know, that as a department, as a university, this is something we value, I think is really important.

Stuart Higgins [: 00:25:10

But also money, because just more money for it.

Taryn Bell [: 00:25:14

I could talk about this all day with both of you, but unfortunately, that is all we have time for today. It has been an absolute pleasure chatting with both of you, as always, and for listeners. We will share all the resources mentioned on this episode in the show notes, including some links to what Ines and Stuart are up to at the moment. But in the meantime, thank you so much for listening and we will see you next time. Goodbye.