Researcher Education and Development Scholarship Conference

By Dr Rhoda Stefanatos, Fellowships Development Manager, University of Glasgow, UK

Research Fellowships have and will always be about people. They are mechanisms for supporting individual talent which provide protected time, resources, recognition, and opportunity, at pivotal moments in a research career. This core purpose remains. What is shifting is the context. Fellowships schemes are doing more than supporting excellent researchers. They are also being positioned as instruments for developing the research leaders of tomorrow, shaping research environments, and contributing to healthier research cultures.

This raises an important question for those of us working in researcher development and research culture. Can Fellowships be understood as both funding mechanisms and cultural infrastructure?

This was the question at the centre of my work-in-progress presentation at the 2026 Researcher Education and Scholarship (REDS) Conference.

A shifting landscape

Fellowship schemes are still deployed to build capacity in particular disciplines or address national research priorities, however over the last decade we have seen a shift toward awards with ambitions broader than this, to developing research leaders of tomorrow.

This shift has developed alongside wider sector conversations about the importance and value of Culture and Researcher Development. The Researcher Development Concordat (2019), and the standards it sets for the development of researchers, their employment and environment, plus the widely recognised fact that research excellence relies on healthy research cultures (Wellcome, 2020) is reshaping how Fellowships are designed and assessed. Aspiring Fellows are being asked to articulate a vision beyond their research, one for their development, their teams, the communities they are a part of, and the cultural contributions they want to make.

One visible indicator of this change is the move towards narrative approaches to research assessment in funding processes. The UKRI Resume for Research and Innovation (R4RI) format asks applicants to describe contributions that extend beyond research outputs alone, including their leadership, support for others, and wider contributions to research and society. This represents a significant reframing of what counts and is valued.

Fellowships as cultural levers

Intentionally designing Fellowships with leadership, inclusion, and culture in mind, shapes them as powerful cultural levers.

The UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship and the Wellcome Career Development Award invite applicants to explicitly articulate ambitions and leadership potential. In evaluating these applications reviewers and panels are asked to consider the research teams they will build, the environments they will shape, and the broader impacts of their leadership on their workplace, sector and society.

This creates an opportunity for us to think differently about researcher development. Can we go beyond thinking of Fellowships as research awards secured by talented individuals? Might we instead consider how fellowship processes contribute to the development of people, practices, and cultures. Fellowships define what excellence looks like and their design matters, the criteria they use, the behaviours they reward, and the expectations they all send important cultural signals.

So how do we develop researchers towards Fellowship and strengthen research culture?

Transparency of purpose

At the University of Glasgow, this question has informed several strands of work. A particularly valuable lesson emerged through the development of the Glasgow Engineering Futures Fellowship, a positive-action recruitment initiative designed to attract and appoint three new Research Leaders to the School of Engineering.

The experience highlighted that their development begins at application.

Grounding the scheme in the principles of transparency, inclusion, and equity, we chose very deliberately, to be explicit about aims, expectations and timelines, clarifying the package of support and the continuation pathways that all Fellows could expect. We structured the selection conversations and criteria to gauge research ambition and additionally assessed collegiality, leadership, and contributions to culture and to community. Most importantly we planned out the development offer early, setting clear foundations and expectations that could be built on, or tailored as Fellows’ needs emerge.

After the applause

A second area of reflection concerns what happens after the applause when our researchers secure their Fellowships.

Across the sector, institutions invest significant time and resource in supporting Fellowship applications and comparatively less in the post-award phase. This can create a gap between the recruitment of Fellows and their long-term delivery and sustained development. For Fellows, success frequently brings new and complex responsibilities. They may be leading teams for the first time, navigating institutional systems, managing budgets, supervising researchers, and making a step change in contributions to their environment. In short, their development needs evolve rapidly.

Given how much host institutions commit to Fellows, from facilities to proleptic positions, being vocal and intentional about what Fellows can expect, access and what is expected of them it helps to protect that investment especially in times where Fellowships will be key recruitment mechanisms.

At Glasgow, these considerations led to the relaunch of the University of Glasgow Fellows Network. The network aims to support our Fellows in developing a broad understanding of research leadership that encompasses research excellence, and community-building, cultural leadership, and inclusive practice.

The work draws inspiration from fellowship development models across the sector, including the emphasis on leadership-in-practice evident within the Future Leaders Fellowships Development Network.

Towards a Fellowships Development Framework

These conversations also inform the development of an institutional Glasgow Fellowships Development Framework. Work on the framework began in 2025 with the aim of bringing greater clarity, consistency, and equity to Fellowship support across the institution.

The emerging framework connects different stages of the Fellowship journey, from aspiring applicants through to the first steps beyond Fellowship. It will bring together processes relating to readiness, internal selection, onboarding, development, and progression, while contributing to delivery of our Research Strategy and Research Culture Action plan.

We aim to create coherent and transparent systems that enable researchers to thrive while reducing variability in experience and access to support.

An invitation to the sector

This work remains in progress and has prompted a broader reflection about the role Fellowships play within our institutions and across the research landscape.

If Fellowships and the support we offer for those who aspire or hold these awards can shape our research cultures should we be looking beyond success rates and funding outcomes, to consider the longer-term effects on our researchers and research communities.

Do we as researcher developers, research leaders, and research culture practitioners, need richer ways of understanding the impact of these prestigious funding opportunities?

I end with an invitation to share your stories, indicators, and evidence which capture the cultural effects of Fellowships.