(S6E2) Narrative CVs in Research: Showcasing the Value of Every Contribution

Intro:

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.

Emma Spary:

Hi, it's Emma, and as a quick introduction, I lead the researcher development and culture team at the University of Leeds. My podcast episodes focus on areas of research leadership and research culture, and today I'm delighted to be joined by Dr. Elizabeth Adams from Scafell Coaching. And we're going to be talking about everything to do with Narrative CVS or the resume for Research and innovation. So if these are brand new to you or they're something that you're currently trying to write, then hopefully we'll have some hints and tips on how to approach them. If you're writing these as an individual, we're going to have a separate podcast episode that tackles the challenges of writing the team based Narrative CVS. So welcome, Elizabeth. Should we start with a brief introduction to you and also why you're interested in Narrative CVS?

Elizabeth Adams:

Hi, Emma, nice to talk to you today. I'm really interested in narrative CVS, partly because I do so much work with researchers, particularly early career researchers. And when I ask them about the things that they're most excited about in their research or the things that they're most proud of, I find that sometimes that gives people a bit of a pause for thought. Because immediately thoughts go to, oh, I've published here, or I've won this prize. And actually, when people slow down and really think about it, that's not always the thing that in five years time they're going to be most excited about or proud of. Quite often there's other things in how they've done the research that they're proud of. And so I'm really hopeful that the Narrative CV gives the opportunity to share some of those other contributions to research.

Elizabeth Adams:

So I work mainly with academics and professional services staff in the research environment. My work is about improving the research culture, and I do that either through workshops or strategy or one to one coaching. And I can see how the Narrative CVS sort of impacts on all of the things that I do, and they're one tool in a wider context of how we can sort of change and encourage change in the research culture.

Emma Spary:

One of the questions we get asked a lot here at Leeds in the workshops and sessions that we do is, why are we changing the format? Was the old way really that bad? Is this way going to be better now? I've got my own view on this, but I'm really interested to know how you'd answer that question.

Elizabeth Adams:

I think it's really important to realize that there's no one set in Stone way of recruiting or evaluating grant applications or anything like that. Anyway, a lot of universities had already been starting to use narrative elements in some parts of their recruitment processes as well as employers outside of academia. Some application processes now ask for answers to a series of questions. So maybe some case studies or even a short video that answers some questions as well as your sort of more typical list type of CV. I know that some universities are asking people to explain the context of their publications, so that's a bit of narrative as well. It's not necessarily a full narrative CV, but just encouraging people to think more broadly about what is it about this thing that I did that really matters, what's it changed, what's the difference of it? So I think there's always been a kind of opportunity to sort of blend different types of approaches and different processes. So the narrative CVS maybe aren't so much of a leap as some people think. It's not like a complete change, it's more of an evolution and a trial of something as well.

Elizabeth Adams:

And the reason for introducing them, really, the aspiration is to uncover some of the hidden work that people are doing to making research work, to sort of take the spotlight off the big name rock star PiS who have all the credit for the publications and other outputs and maybe showcasing some of the activities that people do, which don't always lead to a first author paper, but actually could be hugely valuable in shaping the design and the rigor of the research that's being done or in building and supporting the teams and the careers of the people involved in those research projects.

Emma Spary:

So you've mentioned there quite a few of the positives and I really agree anything where we can showcase the breadth of work that people do within research is always going to be hugely popular. What do you think are some of the challenges that people are going to face with these CVS?

Elizabeth Adams:

Time is the biggest one and that's the biggest challenge for anyone in anything in academia, isn't it? So the time for the people writing them, particularly where English isn't your first language or you're not used to these sort of more reflective narrative approaches, or maybe where you feel challenged to sort of big yourself up and maybe it's not even safe for you to sort of talk in positive terms about your contributions. I think time on the part of the reviewers as well. If someone's being handed a set of 500 narrative CVs to read, how long is that going to take them? Are they just going to default to scanning it for a few keywords or just googling someone and looking up their research gate page? So I think we don't know yet how long it's really going to take to get to a balanced view. We don't know how people are looking at these in review panels. There's very little sort of data and evidence about how they've been reviewed and assessed within the wider context of the rest of a grant application. And I think there's a lot to sort of work through there. I mean, these are one tool, but other parts of the system have to change to accommodate that. And there really is a case, I think, for slower peer review and more reflective.

Elizabeth Adams:

So hopefully these will encourage some of that reflection with good cheering. They might do that. Other challenges, I think, is just that they've been put into the system at a point in time and trialed with fellowship applications, where those individuals are at a really pivotal point in their career. And I really feel for people who are grappling with being the guinea pigs in a change. And any change does upset the system a little bit. And there will be people who are really well supported for writing those CVS from their institution or from peers, and there will be people who have no support and are just trying to muddle their way through and it could have huge impacts on their career.

Emma Spary:

And that's obviously one of the things that we're all trying to change within our own institutions. How do we support not only the people that are writing these, but the people who are going to have to review them? Now, this is an approach that's being adopted by many of the research funders in the UK, particularly UKRI, but there are also moves to adopt the style more widely. So, for example, in promotional recruitment procedures, and you've already touched on some industries that are doing that. Do you think this is something that is a long way off in academia or something we could see quite soon?

Elizabeth Adams:

I think certainly the narrative elements you would see very quickly in either recruitment or in promotion applications, and I think there already are some in promotions applications or even at the last ref, people were being asked to articulate, why have you chosen these top three, four outputs and what's important about them? So people will be getting familiar with the way of doing this and it not just being about quantity of publications, but actually the quality and being able to articulate your contribution to those. We're seeing things like increasing numbers of authorship statements in publications and actually those are just another form of narrative about who did the work. It's giving people the opportunity to talk about what did I contribute to this particular output? What did other people contribute? And those conversations are hugely important too. So I think we're already moving in that direction and this is just another tool and another way of thinking about it.

Emma Spary:

That is a really nice way of thinking about it, actually, because when you start thinking about it in that sense, it doesn't seem quite so daunting. But just for a second, imagine I am somebody that is completely new to this, approaching this style of CV for the very first time. What advice would you have for me?

Elizabeth Adams:

Write it with a friend. That's my top advice. For whether you're writing a CV or you're writing your LinkedIn profile. I know it's really natural to think, oh, I can't talk about myself, but also you forget things you need someone else to say and what else did you do? And tell me a bit more about that and oh, that sounds interesting, what feedback did you get? What was the impact of that? Just get someone else to ask you some sort of reflective, sort of appreciative questions that get you to think a bit more deeply about what you actually did. And remember that it doesn't have to be just formal jobs and formal roles like you might list on a CV, but actually, if you have contributed to supervision, even without being the formal supervisor, you can still talk about the activities that you did and the impact that they had.

Emma Spary:

So you've mentioned there about the impact, and that's really important because one of the things we keep trying to say to people is it doesn't matter what you did, it's how that has contributed to other people's development or the development of the methodology. So it very much is a different approach, isn't it, that context what they did, but crucially, the benefit that it had, the importance that it had. Now, within our programs, we do a lot of career development and we know that people really struggle with identifying all of those amazing things that they do and you just mentioned a few of them there and that they really struggle to sell that experience. They often dismiss it as not relevant or oh, just part of my day job, I only played a small role in it. And you can get some of those feelings of impostor syndrome creeping in. Is this something that you think is widespread, that everybody goes through?

Elizabeth Adams:

I think it's probably a normal and quite helpful thing to question yourself and have those sort of imposter feelings. I mean, that's good, isn't it? Otherwise we'd all just think we're amazing at everything and we'd not want to do any development. So yeah, it's normal and the key thing is not to let it take over. But actually, can you look for sort of unbiased evidence or feedback? So are there situations where you can articulate what the outcome was of supporting others, for example, or doing other types of work? And if it's not quite the sort of the evidence and the data, can you also ask people around you in your research group or collaboration, just ask them to say, what is it that I bring to this and how we do our work? What do you notice that I bring to meetings or that I do that's different to what other people do? What do you like about what I bring to our collaboration? And you might get a sense of things that you didn't even realize that you do and that might help you to think about what do you want the reviewer to know. But in the case of a narrative CV for a grant, it's about demonstrating that you've got the skill set and the networks and the capabilities and potential to deliver on that grant. So you've got to demonstrate that you've got the right skills to do the public engagement or to manage the project or manage the people and bring in different disciplines. So if you're thinking about it in terms of I really want to do this grant because it's important, I know the work is important, then all you're doing is just filling in the evidence. You're not trying to write a totally separate document that's singing your own praises and just about boasting.

Elizabeth Adams:

You're just trying to provide that evidence that you are capable of delivering an amazing research project.

Emma Spary:

And you also mentioned that difference between what we do through part of a formal role, for example, and all of the other stuff that the researchers are doing, because they just do it, it doesn't necessarily have to be formally recognized. So when we're thinking about the whole purpose of these CVS, it is to widen the experience and the examples that they can use to go beyond the contributions to just that research project. What advice would you have to people to get them to think about their broader experience? All of the things they can do, both formally and probably more importantly, informally.

Elizabeth Adams:

I think having a journal, having a notebook that you write this stuff down in all the time. I don't mean you have to spend all your time writing in it, but once a week, just note down some of the things that you've done this week. You might realize that actually you're contributing in a lot of different ways. Maybe you're supporting a health and safety audit, or you're helping people develop new methodologies, or you're writing sort of procedures for use of equipment, or you're mentoring others as they start to learn how to use that equipment. Think about all of these different things you're doing. It's really hard to sit there with just a blank page and list them, but if you've just got a notebook where you can write them down on a Friday afternoon, asking other people. Also having a look at things like the VTi researcher development framework. I mean, that's a framework which lists all of the skills, attributes and behaviors that researchers demonstrate at different career stages.

Elizabeth Adams:

And that might give you some ideas. You might think, oh yeah, actually I do sort of help people to sort of think about what good research looks like or understand what open research or reproducibility are in our discipline. Actually, I've done some work in this area, or maybe I've done some public engagement social media work that you might not have thought of so explicitly, but it just might give you some ideas.

Emma Spary:

And then we've got the other side of that. How do you actually tailor it specifically to the resume that you're writing. So for the narrative that you're writing, we could end up with people having loads of experience, which would be fantastic, but we do only have a set word limit or a set page structure. So how do you then get people to think about what they include and what potentially they don't, or how they can demonstrate the breadth of their experience in one or two different examples?

Elizabeth Adams:

Yeah, you don't have much space. I mean, quite often it's a sort of two page limit and there's four different questions. So you just have to think about what are the skills that will really be needed for this project and what do I need to demonstrate that I have or have the ability to get or to sort of bring in from elsewhere and then try to map your experiences onto those. So, quite often I recommend for all types of CVS that people have a sort of master CV that's everything, and then you just pull out the right stuff for the particular thing that you're applying to. So the same applies here and then just getting other people to check it because obviously they'll have a perspective on whether you're meeting the needs of the project, but they'll also be able to feedback to you on whether they sort of understand things like the timeline in your career. Because if you started putting stuff in from here, there and everywhere, it might come across as quite jumbled, unless you've really thought about that sort of timeline and what is the story of your career and how does one thing build on the other? And that can include outside experience that's not from previous work experience, for example, that could go in any of the four boxes and it might be about your people management skills, for example, but just trying to make it clear that you've got these skills and that they map against the project you're applying to.

Emma Spary:

So one of the examples that I use is if you're writing a proposal and you're including postdoctoral researchers as part of that proposal, then you really need to be demonstrating how you've previously supported other people in their career development, where perhaps, if that isn't something that you're asking for in the application, you might not spend so much. Focus on that and you might focus on something else. What about the people who are worried that they might not be strong in every box?

Elizabeth Adams:

And I don't think many people are strong in every single box. The purpose of the narrative CVS is to show that there's breadth in the research and innovation community in the UK and to reflect that and rejoice in it, I suppose. So if you have particular strengths in one area and less so in others, that could be because of your career stage, because of the opportunities you've had to date, because of your discipline. There'll be people who their research is really applied and actually they might find it difficult to know which box different things go in, because for some people that might sound like a very sort of commercial focused thing and maybe they think that goes in box four, but actually for them it goes in box one. And so I'd say, don't stress about the boxes, it's about using the entirety of the CD to tell the story of how you've taken up the opportunities that you've had and how those build to tell the story of your career and why you're the right person. And just use the prompts as prompts, but don't sort of be a slave to them.

Emma Spary:

That's a really good bit of advice there. Just look at it as a whole and not as these individual boxes, because we know ourselves there is some repetition that is going to happen between those four areas. So, Elizabeth, we are almost out of time, but is there anything else that you would like to encourage people to do or to read or to try as they're starting to put these CVS together?

Elizabeth Adams:

I think to give it a chance, be positive about it. If you feel like you're writing something that feels really icky and hand wavy, like I am a paradigm shifting researcher, if it's starting to feel awful, then don't write it and just sort of go back and think, actually, what am I trying to say here? What is demonstrating that I can deliver this project? What evidence do I have? You probably won't have evidence for everything that's normal. So what can you say about what your approach was and maybe the things that you did and any feedback that you've had or just any results you've seen? But you won't have evidence for everything because obviously some things just take a long time to have impact. So don't worry about that. If it's not possible, just do what you can. And then if you have particular sort of perspectives on the experience of writing a narrative CD, UKRI have a box where you can provide feedback and I think they'd be really open to feedback on how this has worked for different disciplines and different career stages in particular circumstances. So please do use that to feedback and feed into the system in a way that's sort of positive and constructive and helps make this a meaningful introduction. Brilliant.

Emma Spary:

Thank you very much. And I would also like to plug at this stage that the University of Leeds through my team, we do have some resources available to people who are writing these CVS to help them think about the active language and to avoid some of the repetitive phrases that come out. Lots of the I Dids, I haves, I aimed all of those things and they are openly available and I will drop a link into the show notes at the end. But that is it for today. Thank you very much, Elizabeth, for joining us to talk about these individual narrative CVS. If you are thinking about how these work in a team context, remember there is going to be another podcast where we're going to focus on those in a bit more detail and again, that will be in the show notes at the end. And on that note, thank you very much for joining us. And Elizabeth, over to you for the final word.

Elizabeth Adams:

Good luck everyone. Enjoy.

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