Tag: ref

Diversifying doctoral student programmes

Last week I attended the fantastic 3rd UKCGE Conference on EDI in Postgraduate Research over two days in Leeds. More than 50 doctoral students and leaders of doctoral education gathered to explore how to attract, support and empower a more diverse student body.

Starting with a panel of doctoral students reflecting their varied experiences, including their efforts to support inclusion, and ending with a panel of university staff leading projects to diversify doctoral student admissions, we shared our perspectives and approaches to ensuring we not only recruited a more diverse body of students, but that they were supported to thrive.

I was privileged to lead two round tables on the Tuesday morning based on our pilot study of how doctoral students understand research culture. Participants immediately saw the relevance, and recognised the value of exploring this alongside the hugely important work to establish an inclusive, positive research environment. Further discussions over the two days established a consensus that we can’t simply assume the work to shape the environment through culture change will naturally percolate across to change the influence research culture has on how research is carried out. This validated our assumptions and has encouraged us to progress with the work .

We are exploring other implications from our pilot study data, ahead of publishing a more complete analysis. In the mean time, we are interested in extending the collaboration to different academic disciplines, including doctoral students, supervisors and leaders of doctoral programmes. As our study develops, we will also be seeking a steering group.

Critical to our approach is the core inclusion paradigm of “nothing for us without us”. We are experienced doctoral supervisors, as well as leading research groups and doctoral programmes – and of course were doctoral students at the start of our research careers. But we know we need to include the perspectives of current doctoral students in shaping our work, and disciplines beyond our own experiences in science.

Please get in touch so we can keep you informed and seek opportunities to involve you.

Culture shaping research

Recently I’ve become interested in how all the work on improving research culture interacts with the how, who, what and where of the research itself. In the UK, funders are increasingly concerned with how research is carried out, that is the culture. The UK Government’s R&D People & Culture strategy defines the target culture as:

There is a positive, inclusive and respectful culture that attracts a diversity of people to work and thrive in R&D in the UK and encourages them to stay.

When I speak with university research leaders, many are grappling with what this means, be it in order to meet REF and UKRI expectations, align with university missions or improve the experience and success of researchers including doctoral students. Very often they are unsure how to support early career researchers and doctoral students to understand what these expectations mean.

There is a huge body of work focussed on creating a positive research culture, for example with the aim of improving the well-being and progression of doctoral students. It is incredibly important work, and done properly will improve the experience of all researchers, as it will not be effective if carried out in isolation.

But what if we end up assimilating a more diverse body of researchers into a research paradigm that remains rooted in the privileged perspectives of white, privileged, European men?

I believe that in order to assure a future where an increasingly diverse body of researchers can thrive, we need to consciously address the interaction between research culture and research. In my discipline of Astronomy, the explicit culture is that data is the arbiter of truth. But in practice many fundamental research questions, such as the origin of life, the formation of stars and planets, or the fate of the universe are being contested via individual personalities, priorities and interests. The implicit culture is one of individual leaders drawing together groups of supporters.

Without making any judgement on how the research “should” be conducted, nonetheless making the implicit explicit is essential to a healthy culture. Otherwise it is difficult to evaluate and make adjustments to improve that culture. It allows the convention that science is separate from the identities, personalities and life experiences of scientists to perpetuate, rather than it being a human endeavour with all the complexities that embodies.

In other academic disciplines, critical examination of the concepts, assumptions, modes and methods of carrying out research is a core element of training for doctoral students. I can’t comment on what I haven’t experience. But this diversity of approach, coupled with a public perception that research finds fixed definitive “answers” that is not even true for scientific results, led me into wanting to complement the essential work on positive research cultures with work to make explicit the interaction between research cultures (explicit or implicit) and how research is conducted. It may be that this is as important to the overall success of researchers as a positive culture that supports their wellbeing and success while they are students.

As a first step, I’ve worked with Dr Cristina Izura to pilot a survey with UK doctoral students that suggests they have both an understanding of and an interest in how research culture shapes the value given to their research. I’m looking forwards to sharing the results at the 3rd UKCGE Equality, Diversity & Inclusion Conference in Leeds on the 4th November 2025. I’ll report back my experiences here shortly afterwards.