(Episode 127) Turning Barriers Into Enablers: Insights from the 2025 AdvanceHE Symposium

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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.

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Taryn Bell: Welcome back to another episode of Research Culture Uncovered.

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Taryn Bell: I'm your host for today, Taryn Bell. And I work at the University of Leeds as a Researcher Development Advisor. If you've listened to some of my previous episodes, you'll know that I'm interested in the subject of failure, how we fail in academia, who we allow to fail, and how we can fail better.

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Taryn Bell: And after my first episode on this subject, which was all the way back in December, 2024, I received an email in my inbox from our guest today, Ireen, inviting me to come along and speak at a symposium focused on barriers and enablers to a thriving research culture. I was the keynote in the morning talking unsurprisingly, about the subject of failure, but the whole day was filled with a huge variety of talks and sessions, tackling some of the major challenges and opportunities in research culture from a variety of viewpoints.

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Taryn Bell: It was a really interesting day and it gave attendees a lot to think about. So it makes sense for Ireen to come onto the podcast herself today to discuss what she learned from leading the symposium and to talk about some of the work going on at Advance He to change research culture for the better. So, I'm joined today by Ireen Litvak-Zur, who is a senior consultant in leadership and management at AdvanceHE.

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Taryn Bell: He. Ireen joined AdvanceHE in September, 2023 from the University of Essex, where she worked as lecturer in the government department. Ireen has a PhD in international relations from uc, Davis, and specializes in negotiation and team dynamics, both very useful in the arena of academia as well as outside of it, and she defines herself as a recovering academic.

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Taryn Bell: I've asked her to come and speak today because she brings a really interesting combination of experiences as both an experienced researcher and a consultant in the higher education sector. Welcome to the podcast, Ireen.

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Ireen Litvak-Zur: Hi Taryn. Thank you very much. It is lovely to be here.

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Taryn Bell: For listeners who aren't familiar with Advance HE, could you tell me a little bit more about what their role is in the UK higher education sector?

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Ireen Litvak-Zur: Yes, absolutely. So if we're broadly speaking, , Advance HE's role, , is to convene sectors around key challenges to offer expertise and support, discussion and dialogue, and to work towards solving. Different challenges facing our sectors in the UK and globally. And when we think about this from a research culture perspective, we're thinking about the entire research ecosystem and supporting it in achieving excellence.

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Ireen Litvak-Zur: This is part of our 2030 strategy, and this includes programs such as some of the ones that I lead like research leadership development program, like research team leadership, partnerships across the sector, bespoke consultancy and events like our research culture symposium. this is the second year that we held it.

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Ireen Litvak-Zur: And again, thank you for being a keynote speaker on it.

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Taryn Bell: Well, it was an absolute delight. Could you tell me a little bit more about what your role is at AdvanceHE? You talked a little bit about a couple of the things that you lead on, but could you give us a little bit more of an insight into what your job looks like?

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Ireen Litvak-Zur: Yes, I would love to. So I'm a senior consultant of leadership and management, and formally I was a senior consultant of research. So my role is, is to build an offer that is aligned with the sector needs. With our strategy, this means that I'm the program director for research leadership development, which is RLDP for our research.

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Ireen Litvak-Zur: team leadership, RTL, our bespoke consultancy program. developing our member benefits with the focus on research, ecosystem, and again, building various events for the sector. So I think that what is interesting about AdvanceHE is how each of our areas of focus, teaching and learning and governance and leadership, and EDI intersect with the research ecosystem and part of my role is to identify those intersections and offer some convening and support and solutions around that.

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Taryn Bell: So as part of that, then you convened the barriers and enablers to a thriving research culture symposium, which took part in June this year. Could you tell me a little bit about the overall focus of the symposium and why you chose that specific topic of barriers and enablers? Because it's a very big topic, a very broad topic, potentially.

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Ireen Litvak-Zur: Absolutely. And, and you're right, it is a big topic and, it's, it's also part of the reason that we chose, so the focus of the symposium is in, in its very broad sense, is research culture. The goal is to bring together innovative ideas. And allow fresh thinking on the research ecosystem.

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Ireen Litvak-Zur: So when we think about research culture for the symposium, we think about new frameworks. We think about case studies, we think about applied tools, and we think about. Challenging existing perspectives and offer new ways to shape research culture, in a more sustainable way. So this year we, we heard from the higher education sector and, and this was happening globally and not only in, in the UK that challenges are increasing and resources are becoming more and more scarce now.

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Ireen Litvak-Zur: This is nothing new, but we see, these two increase rapidly. And while we can and should raise our concerns about the negative impact of limited resources on research culture, we can, and again, I think we also should focus on what we have and what we can do to enable the research culture that we want to have.

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Ireen Litvak-Zur: And this is also why I was so inspired by your podcast episode on failure. It seems like such a barrier in academia. At first sight, but there are tools to think about failure and turn them into drivers. So this dual focus on, we see this as a failure and we could choose to, to see this as an enabler is exactly what we hope to bring.

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Ireen Litvak-Zur: And to challenge existing perceptions. Once again, thank you for delivering the keynote. I thought it was provoking and inspiring and set the tone for the rest of the day, and the feedback from the symposium also highlighted your keynote and the need to hold further discussions on different barriers and enablers.

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Taryn Bell: Absolutely. And I think you make a, a brilliant point there that we do spend a lot of time at the moment in higher education talking about what we can't do, but as a result of budget cuts or as a result of, people losing their jobs of the uncertainty in the sector. And so it was, from my perspective, the whole day was a lovely opportunity to talk about what we can do in spite of that.

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Taryn Bell: You know, what's getting in the way, but also I think what was, what was key to the day was that it wasn't just about those barriers, it was about those enablers too. so for you, thinking about the day as a whole, could you talk to us about some of your highlights from the day?

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Ireen Litvak-Zur: I could, and there are so many.

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Ireen Litvak-Zur: So I hope I will not answer this too elaborately. So absolutely so many highlights for the day. First, like I already said, it's your keynote. It sparks so many conversations and it was reflected in each presentation and poster that followed. For me personally, the failure bingo was a real light bulb moment and what, because this is what we see versus what others see as a failure.

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Ireen Litvak-Zur: From the feedback that we got, we heard that many of the ideas that you proposed resonated with the attendees and validated their thoughts and feelings around failure, allowing them to process it and build on it moving forward. And following your keynote, we had a plethora of innovative ideas. We heard a case study on interdisciplinary supervision training for PGR, standardizing assessments.

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Ireen Litvak-Zur: We talk about the impact of EDI, as a nice to have versus need to have, which is, which is key to me when we build systems and when we build research cultures. Whether we treat EDI like a nice add-on or as an essential part of the structure. We explored researcher development model. We looked at how research culture looks like for independent providers, which I found is interesting because we can see different structures.

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Ireen Litvak-Zur: Bring them back to how they apply to the traditional structures that we have. We talked about how field war can, we can be made accessible for diverse bodies and mind. I found it fascinating because it's very much practical, and I think this is true for the entire day. It was very much practical and not only theories and ideas that are vague.

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Ireen Litvak-Zur: We talked about how we support research culture in developing countries. We talked about funding structures and building research leadership for the future. There were tools. We talked about leading with empathy. There was a whole toolkit around how to lead with empathy, a framework on leading in higher education and so many practical knowledge to be applied.

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Ireen Litvak-Zur: So I think that the highlights were. In the conversations and the questions and discussions that each presentation has sparked, I always say that these spaces are biased because. If you present it or if you attend a research culture symposium, you are already more invested in improving research culture than most people.

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Ireen Litvak-Zur: So it's easier to talk about how and what to do and get inspired, but then you go back to your home environment and you face a lot of barriers. So I think that what's important in these spaces is that they give you the support to move forward and they offer you sharing knowledge and building networks of change makers.

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Ireen Litvak-Zur: Then the barriers, if you allow me to be a little, , optimistic, then become opportunities.

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Taryn Bell: Yeah, I think, I think you're right, and I completely agree. I just think for me, one of the best parts of the, of the day overall was the amount of practical tools and, and opportunities and suggestions that people were making because I think in.

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Taryn Bell: In the area of research culture, we can often, like I said earlier, become bogged down in talking about the barriers without thinking about what the possible solutions are. And I learned so much from finding out about the research projects that other people had been doing, the, the, the things that people had been doing behind the scenes at their own institutions to try and make a difference.

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Taryn Bell: You talked a little bit about the challenges of, of the people who attend these events are the people who are. Who are already interested. So how then, beyond just using the people who do attend as a, as a way to, to share this knowledge, how do we, how do you think we reach those harder to reach audiences?

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Taryn Bell: Can, can we do that?

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Ireen Litvak-Zur: I think that this is a great question. Because, because this is true, we always see this, we always see people that, that engage and want to change and then face so much resistance to this change. And I think that, I don't want to propose a solution, right? There is no one solution.

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Ireen Litvak-Zur: But I think that a critical mass is key here. The more. People want change and the more they engaged with more people and amplifying those voices, I think can, can bring this change and say, look, we're here to make this place better. Let's do this together. And these collaborative approaches are key.

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Taryn Bell: Absolutely. I completely agree. I completely agree. So thinking about changes that are being made generally as a result of the symposium, what changes or, or developments are going on behind the scenes at AdvanceHE?

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Ireen Litvak-Zur: So thank you for this question. I love this because like you said, the key is then to go and actually make, make this happen.

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Ireen Litvak-Zur: So what we always try to do is to turn ideas into actions. And after the symposium we've sent down, we'll listen, and now we're working on bringing this change into our programs and our toolkits, we work with our me on. We are currently working on our member benefits for next year, which will address multiple issues around research culture and around building sustainable research ecosystems.

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Ireen Litvak-Zur: We’re implementing the ideas and practices shared in the symposium into both our open programs and into our bespoke consultancy, and we're working on the next symposium. To build on the work that we have done, so far this year. So this is also an opportunity to invite everyone who wants to collaborate and work together on building thriving and sustainable research cultures to reach out.

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Ireen Litvak-Zur: We always welcome collaborations across the sector and with other sectors.

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Taryn Bell: So if people want to get in touch, if they'd like to collaborate with Advance HE or with you, what's the best way for them to do so?

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Ireen Litvak-Zur The best way to do well first is to reach out directly to me, and, and I hope people will.

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Ireen Litvak-Zur: We have a range of events, our conferences, our symposiums, our next symposium, we're planning this for next June. We have a range of programs around research leadership. So if you're interested, please do take a look. I, I lead those programs, and just, just come and say hi.

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Taryn Bell: Yeah.

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Taryn Bell: If people weren't able to attend the symposium, but they like to learn more about what happened at the symposium or find out more about the speakers, how can they do so?

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Ireen Litvak-Zur: We are working on several outputs. To cover the symposium. We are reaching out to some of the presenters to see if they will be willing to share their own outputs.

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Ireen Litvak-Zur: And there will be follow up blogs and, and recordings for you.

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Taryn Bell: Brilliant. Yeah. Perfect. So Ireen, to end on a more personal note as well, what's coming up next for you? What are you working on over the next few months?

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Ireen Litvak-Zur: Oh, that's exciting. I am working on building. An offer for our members, around the research ecosystem.

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Ireen Litvak-Zur: I'm working on developing programs around the research teaching Nexus. I'm working on programs, around the intersection between research and EDI and we keep developing our research leadership programs. So a lot is going on and I'm very excited about that.

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Taryn Bell: Sounds like a exciting rest of 2025 for you.

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Taryn Bell: Absolutely. So that's all we've got time for today. but thank you so much for joining me, Ireen. It's been a delight to have you on the podcast.

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Ireen Litvak-Zur: Thank you, Taryn. Thank you very much for the invitation and once again, thank you for delivering the keynote. It was brilliant and inspirational and I hope that we will keep building on this and turning barriers into enablers.

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Taryn Bell: Absolutely. Absolutely. I completely agree, and if you've enjoyed listening to our discussion today, I have good news for you in a follow-up episode in about a month's time. Ireen is also going to share her own experiences of failure and what she's learned from those as a part of our ongoing series on failure in academia.

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Taryn Bell: So thank you so much for listening, and we'll see you again soon.

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