Researcher Education and Development Scholarship Conference

Michele Underwood, Researcher Development Manager, University of Warwick

In 2017, I stepped into a new Researcher Developer role at a new university (new to me, at least). Unlike my previous roles, where I had built programmes from the ground up, this time I was inheriting an existing one. The role sat initially within Careers (moving in 2020 to the Doctoral College) rather than Educational Development, and the institution itself was shaped more by departmental autonomy than by a strong centralised voice.

Any move like this brings a period of reflection and comparison. As I settled in, I found the programme I had taken over to be more didactic in nature than the performance coaching pedagogical approach I had developed previously; and I also began to wonder about Researcher Development (RD) as a whole. Was researcher development being done to Postgraduate Researchers (PGRs), rather than by or for them (Gough, 2009). More than that: what gave me—or anyone else—the “right to be right” (Fish, 1980)? Was I positioned as the primary holder of knowledge and leader of action, and if so, why? (Healey, 2014, p. 187)

To explore these questions, I turned to McWilliam’s (2008) ‘Unlearning How to Teach’. I didn’t see myself as the traditional ‘Sage on the Stage’, the all-knowing teacher providing answers. But nor did the ‘Guide on the Side’—a passive presence, unchallenging from the sidelines—feel like enough. McWilliam’s third model, the ‘Meddler in the Middle’, resonated more deeply. It suggested a role that involved dismantling and disassembling existing cultures, then collaborating, questioning, and co-constructing knowledge with the PGR community.

I had a process—to meddle—but still needed to unpack who holds the power in researcher development spaces. Who is doing the developing, and for whose benefit? Looking around at the demographics of Researcher Developers, I often saw myself reflected—white, European, female. But in the teaching spaces we facilitated, this demographic wasn’t always the case.

I wanted to bring in different voices and perspectives, yet my ability to diversify the tutor pool was challenging. Recruitment had to come from within existing academic structures—a group that, according to HESA data (2024), remains predominantly white, European, and male.

Learning from a ‘Students as Partners’ research project

During this same period, I was managing an undergraduate research bursary scheme, designed to help students secure funding for summer research projects. The impact on participating students was significant, particularly in terms of confidence and academic growth. I believed the scheme would be especially valuable for students from widening participation (WP) backgrounds—but they were not applying, and I needed to understand why.

With a background in feminist, collaborative research in sport, I was uncomfortable with the idea of researching WP students without their direct involvement. Inspired by the Students as Partners (SaP) framework (see any work by Mick and Ruth Healey for example Matthews et al, 2018,  and also Glover and Moulton, 2024),  I secured funding for a two-year project and recruited five student partners: two undergraduates, two at Master’s level, and one PGR, together devising and delivering the ‘widening research and participation’ project (wrap)

Adopting the Meddler mindset

As the named supervisor on the project, I faced questions about the management of the wrap project, how would I manage an inexperienced group of researchers, and ensure we delivered. In the spirit of working with Students as Partners; we discussed this question as a team. We returned to McWilliam’s idea of the Meddler in the Middle and looked her views on good teaching. Her following ideas resounded and became my ‘management/supervision’ practice:

1. Spend less time giving instructions and more time being a usefully ignorant co-worker
2. Spend less time being a custodial risk minimiser, and more time being an experimenter and risk-taker.
3. Spend less time as a counsellor, and more time as a collaborative critic and authentic evaluator.

Eight months into the wrap project, I realized that the insights I had gained through this partnership-based model could—and should—influence my approach to Researcher Development. This experience reshaped my understanding of what inclusive, co-created development could look like. In 2018 I set out to apply this to my Researcher Development programme.

Establishing a PGR partnership model

After an initial scoping exercise and meeting with the PGR community to garner interest, I budgeted and set a recruitment process into action. By no longer providing catering at all our workshops, I could fund four roles, pay for their training time with me and then for their design and delivery of ten workshops and three single day summer schools. What followed was the recruitment and development of the Getting Real Training Team, four PGRs from three disciplines.

Over the next six months we went through a training process together, consisting primarily of flipped learning sessions led by them, discussed our understanding and thinking on the writings, and how or if we would use them. Coming from three separate disciplinary areas allowed us to reflect on our own learning process to this point, examine the concepts and theories of andragogy (Knowles 1970) and performance coaching, and discussions on how to facilitate effective learning and development. In addition to discussions, PGR colleagues co-tutored with me which allowed us to reflect on practice and challenges.

When marketing the summer Researcher Development programme out to the wider PGR population, the Getting Real Training programme was identified as a distinct identity, designed by PGRs for PGRs. Partially this was a practical issue due to timings but also it firmed the message that PGRs could own, be involved and inform Researcher Development, for themselves and for other learners.

Did it work?

Yes, it did, and we learnt a lot along the way. The wider PGR community saw themselves in their facilitators, welcoming the ‘diversity of the tutors,’ and hearing their own stories, their own challenges reflected in the narratives used by the Getting Real Training tutor team. Collectively we had begun to address the question of who was holding the power and for whom; the Researcher Development programme had become relevant and targeted. It has empowered our wider PGR community to shape and influence how and what we deliver, influence their community and culture, and see themselves and reflected in what is being delivered.

 What started as a pilot project has become an established work practice; we had asked for support from the wider PGR community whilst we tried something new, but eventually the Getting Real Training programme lost its name and became incorporated into the main programme; no longer needing to be distinct and separate. All four PGR tutors remained with the programme throughout their PhD programmes, two remained working whilst they completed postdocs, and a third remains working sessionally with me seven years later. The fourth has gone onto a career in Educational Development. All have been able to draw on their experiences and knowledge to support the next stages of their careers.

Beyond the initial four tutors, we have recruited again with a colleague who has been collaborating with us for three years, and another for 18 months. We have broadened our scope into recruiting guest PGR tutors, those with specific knowledge or experience in a focussed area; or teams of PGRs working collaboratively to develop workshops around a particular theme. All receive training, support and developmental advice from myself and the wider team. All are paid. The Researcher Development programme has become broader in its ability to deliver topics and areas according to the tutors’ specialisms, previous or current career, and qualifications allowing me to access training providers in areas I would otherwise struggle to find.

Using a Students as Partners praxis and adopting a meddler role has allowed us collectively and as individuals to engage in a complex and nonlinear learning process. By not “following a path staked out in advance by experts” (Mowles et al 2008) ( see also Iversen, A-M et al 2015)  we have begun the conversation of who is doing the developing, to whom and why? Furthermore, in a small way, we have collectively created a space where knowledge and practice can be trialled, a place to make mistakes and to empower challenges. Over 75% of our workshops are delivered by PGRs or alumni PhDs, seeing over 1200 people per year. Our reach is not enormous, but it is incremental; empowering researchers to support themselves and their colleagues, hopefully reviewing what it means to lead in academia and what we want the research space to be.

If we are serious about developing academic leaders for the future, then we need to meddle, challenge the prevailing narratives, explore alternatives, support meaningful change, and empower a broader range of voices and actions.

The final voice is from a PGR colleague, reflecting upon the process of teaching in this space. For me, it summarises my thinking about the Students as Partners process, how we can build a leadership style and environment, and what can be gained from being a Meddler in the Middle.

They say, “Teaching my peers was challenging. Working with them made me reexamine ideas of hierarchy and power in teaching. I stopped seeing teaching as a student-teacher relationship, but rather as a dynamic of community learning, self-learning and community support.”