Researcher Education and Development Scholarship Conference

By Dr Kay Guccione, REDS Conference Director.

The theme of the 2024 REDS Conference was Developing Research Leaders Fit for the Future.

In the last decade, the sector has brought new focus to the consideration of leadership in research and the responsibilities of research leaders for creating a productive and positive research environment. In the UK context, this has been reinforced by the new Concordat to Support the Career Development of Researchers (2019) and the Wellcome Trust’s (2020) report cataloguing the negative experiences of researchers, often at the hands of their direct managers.

The sometimes shirked responsibilities and poor behaviour of those holding research leadership roles has been a message underscored by many personal accounts shared as news articles, publisher editorials, and via blog and social media accounts. The UK response has included a new focus on the culture of our research institutions and those who lead them, including through large scale investments (e.g. ‘Future Leaders Fellowships’). This is supported by new national ‘people and teams’ strategies characterised by the desire to move away from individualistic, elitist and competitive leadership, encouraging more open, inclusive, team-focused, interdisciplinary, collegial and collaborative ways of leading.

This is not just a UK-centric issue. In the USA, there are sector targeted programmes such as the ‘Emerging Leaders Career Development Award’ and the Australian Universities ‘Group of Eight’ (Go8) have had their ‘Future Research Leaders Programme’ for several years.

Being seen by others as ‘a leader’ may be sought or circumstantial, intentional, uncomfortable, or inevitable. Becoming, being, and viewing oneself as a ‘research leader’ can be experienced differently at an individual level. For some, it may be seen as a mark of promotion or esteem; for others, a proxy for gaining the freedom to explore research topics independently of other senior colleagues’ preferences. It may, for some, be seen as a specific job title or the natural progression of a particular career trajectory. For others it may be a title that is inaccessible.

This conference asked:

1. What are the key skills, behaviours, attributes, and practices required of a research leader who can bring about the desired research environment for all researchers?
2. Who counts as a ‘research leader’ in a complex space that requires different forms of knowledge and expertise?
3. When does leadership begin, and how do we identify instances of meaningful leadership?
4. How can we identify and support leaders who are effective in reshaping the culture in which they work?
5. How can the community that supports the personal and professional development of research leaders (e.g. Researcher Developers) ‘teach’ the skills needed to carry out complex leading roles such as line manager, principal investigator, and supervisor?
6. How does the growing researcher developer specialism need to evolve to meet the challenges of developing research leaders?

To bring these themes together, REDS 2024 explored two further contexts for research leadership: the increasing emphasis on the consideration of research culture as a whole; and the evolution of the Researcher Development profession from a ‘skills-based’ profession, towards a focus on developing complex leadership practices.

The 2024 REDS Conference focused on how all those who make up the research ecosystem and community, including (but not limited to) funders, employers, senior leadership teams, PGRs, supervisors, principal investigators, research staff, researcher developers, careers advisors, directors of PGR programmes, culture specialists, research professional staff and HR colleagues can engage with research leadership development that is ‘fit for the future’.

We included papers related to empirical or theoretical perspectives on our questions above and the following:

• What does ‘future ready’ leadership look like?
• What shapes the identities of emerging research leaders?
• Who is leadership open to, and who is excluded?
• How do we re-frame the term ‘leader’ to encompass far more than only those with senior management responsibilities?
• How do the identities of emerging research leaders intersect with other characteristics of identity, including (but not limited to) gender, race, age, national/cultural background, and non-academic background?
• How do we recognise and value the different kinds of leadership (professional and academic) operating within the research ecosystem?
• Who develops the leaders? What range of professional backgrounds, skills, and expertise is required?
• Do research developers have the skills and competencies needed to develop future ready leaders and, do they feel prepared to take on that leadership journey? Do we have communities and working relationships with research professionals?
• How do we enable the value of leading from below and leading laterally? How do we break down leadership hierarchies and develop agency and proactivity through distributed leadership approaches?
• Any other topic related to the themes of research leadership and developing leaders would also be welcome.