Researcher Education and Development Scholarship Conference

By Rosie Wadman, Principal Teaching Fellow in Academic Development, University of Southampton, UK; Dr Vani Naik, Researcher Developer, Edinburgh Napier University, UK; Alison Monkhouse (ORCiD), Academic Researcher Development Manager, University of Huddersfield, UK; Lisa Thompson SFHEA, Ulster University, Northern Ireland; Dr Hanan Farah, Senior Programme Manager, University of Birmingham, UK, and Dr Heather Mackenzie (ORCiD), Researcher Development Coordinator, University of Southampton, UK 

Journeys by air start with a reminder that we should put on our own oxygen mask before helping others. Working in research can result in a journey with some turbulence – usually light, occasionally severe. Support for developing the skills, knowledge, and behaviours necessary for success often supplies crucial ‘oxygen’ needed for researchers to build their career. To provide high-quality support for researchers, researcher developers must first look to their own development, but this is often more difficult than it sounds. This blog outlines how the Vitae Peer Mentoring Circles Scheme for researcher developers has helped provide time and space to articulate, and begin to meet, our own needs for professional development. 

The role of researcher developers (and why we need development) 

Researcher development (RD) is a relatively new profession, with its roots in the 2002 Roberts’ Review and related sector support for the professional and career development of researchers (Vitae, 2022). The remit of RD has always been broad, mirroring the breadth and depth of the research landscape, and researcher developers come from a wide range of career backgrounds. We undertake varied and complex work, often working as the sole researcher developer in our organization, or as part of a small team (Freeman & Price, 2024).   

Mackenzie et al. (2022) describe the relative invisibility of much of our work. This relates to the poorly defined pathways to progression outline by Freeman & Price (2024), who also note that professional development is largely left to the individual to find (or create) for themselves. Such efforts are increasingly difficult to achieve amid current sector-wide pressures, but with growing responsibility to deliver against institutional agreements and national frameworks, such as the Concordat to Support the Career Development of Researchers and the REF, the development of researcher developers is more important than ever. 

Piloting the Vitae Peer Mentoring Circles for Researcher Developers  

Without intentional development space, researcher developers struggle to identify, articulate, and plan their own growth. The Vitae Peer Mentoring Circles (VPMC) pilot demonstrated how community-led, collective, cross-institutional approaches can support professional development in RD – helping us find the oxygen we need to continue supporting better researcher development and the rise of a more inclusive, equitable, and healthy research culture.  

Starting in 2024, in collaboration with Vitae, we created a steering group to launch a peer mentoring circle scheme for researcher developers in institutions with Vitae membership. Our aim was to provide a space for researcher developers to identify and resolve issues  We designed the peer mentoring circles in the hope of turning the diversity and isolation of researcher developer roles into a collective strength.  Based on our collective experience in participatory leadership, coaching, and social learning approaches, we incorporated circle practice, action learning, and Nancy Kline’s (1999) ‘Thinking Environment’. The aim was to create an opportunity for researcher developers to come together in small groups of 4-6 people, establishing peer support to explore challenges and creating meaningful professional networks across institutions. We wanted to create a mid-point between 1:1 mentoring provided through the Mentoring for Researcher Developers (M4RD) scheme and broader support from regional RD networks in the UK. 

Vitae provided essential administrative support to both organising the pilot and supporting the peer mentoring circles once they were set up. Circles met a minimum of three times between January and April 2025 and were provided with a toolkit of resources including guidance, recordings, FAQs, and information about the scheme. At the end of April, we ‘closed the circles’ with a collective debrief, encouraging reflection, feedback, and future planning.    

How did the scheme go? 

The VPMC pilot in 2025 brought together 62 researcher developers across 11 circles, generating 39 meetings in total. We used a manual matching process ensure diverse and balanced circles, with a mix of new and experienced RDs from a variety of institutional settings.  Encouragingly, 91% of survey respondents (n=33) said they would recommend the experience to colleagues. Participants valued the protected time to explore challenges, the psychological safety of the space, and the opportunity to gain greater clarity around their own strengths and development areas. Some logistical challenges emerged too, along with differing views on how much structure circles should have. 

One clear message was that participants appreciated these peer mentoring circles as intentional reflective spaces, often missing in their day-to-day work lives. They used the ‘oxygen’ provided by the circles for problem solving, learning from each other, and intention setting. The collaborative problem solving and sense of community and belonging were particularly helpful, especially since researcher developers are often relatively isolated within their institution, whilst dealing with same issues as RD colleagues across the sector.   

Participants also reported increased confidence in the use of ALS as a tool within their practice – a very meta outcome for developing developers! It has been particularly heartening to witness and hear about participants extending the use of peer mentoring circles in other contexts, such as Ulster adopting this model for their PGR provision, and a group of VPMC participants combining ALS with Power Hour of Writing to support their HEA Fellowship applications.   

What does the scheme mean for researcher developers? 

Following the success of the 2024/25 pilot scheme, the second year has allowed the steering group to further refine it. During the pilot scheme, the use of action learning was encouraged, rather than stipulated, as we wanted to allow the freedom for circles to design their peer mentoring in their own way. Feedback from the Closing the Circle event and from new steering group members who had participated in the pilot suggested that action learning be more strongly integrated as foundational principles of the VPMC scheme. We also used the induction for the second cohort as an opportunity to model an example action learning set, demonstrating the different roles and how this approach works in practice (e.g. presenting an issue, clarification and a focus on open questions to help the presenter to refine their thinking, without giving them ‘the answers’).   

Being development-focused is descriptor 1.1 in the refreshed Researcher Development Framework (Vitae, 2025). As researcher developers, we know this attribute starts with us. If a ‘culture of development’ is fundamental to positive, inclusive research culture, then this must extend to research professionals, as well as researchers themselves. The ‘oxygen’ of our own peer support gives us the energy, clarity and drive we need to continue to breathe life into supporting others. 

Vitae members can sign up for the Vitae Peer Mentoring Circles Scheme 2026/27 (before Friday 2 October 2026). 

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Acknowledgements: We are grateful to the rest of the Vitae Peer Mentoring Circles Steering Group for their contribution to the conversations behind our presentation at REDS 2026 and this blog post: Dr Susan Black, University of Oxford, UK; Jennie Cripps, Oxford Brookes University, UK; Dr Loice Natukunda, University of Lincoln, UK; Hannah Still, Vitae, UK. We also want to acknowledge Dr Saneeya Qureshi, whose original action learning set for researcher developers was such a huge inspiration for the Vitae Peer Mentoring Circles scheme. 

Use of GenAI: we used CoPilot to convert our conference presentation slides into a bullet point outline in Word