Reaction Winter 2025/26 - ISSUU

RESEARCH AND ENTERPRISE MAGAZINE WINTER 2025/26 | ISSUE 30

People powered

The initiatives building an inclusive, supportive, and collaborative environment – and driving better research – from the ground up THE POSTGRADUATE PIPELINE Supporting journeys into research from diverse backgrounds

FRESH IDEAS AND ENERGY The importance of nurturing early career researchers

HIDDEN HEROES The technical professionals making research possible

PAVING THE WAY Recognising and developing the leaders of tomorrow

Welcome

WELCOME TO RE:ACTION

The University of Southampton’s strategy is based on a triple helix of education, research and knowledge exchange, interacting synergistically, with people at the heart of all we do. Our success is profoundly dependent upon realising the potential of our people, staff and students alike. Our culture is the largely intangible framework, shaped by our behaviours, language, norms, interactions, expectations, and indeed traditions. It binds us together and is central to our identity as an organisation, playing a key role in how we feel and behave. Hard to define, and even harder to influence, culture is universally understood to be a critical factor in determining organisational and individual performance and success.

This edition of Re:action highlights our ongoing work to understand and positively influence our Research Culture.

Rebecca Hoyle, John Holloway, and Genna del Rosa – who have led this work – explain the context and key activities in the introduction (p4). I would like to thank them for their leadership and the significant initiatives and improvements that have resulted.

My thanks also go to everyone across the University who has contributed to shaping our culture, through formal

programmes or the everyday actions that foster inclusion, collaboration, and support. The articles that follow showcase some of our collective progress, from addressing inequalities amongst different groups regarding promotion, to creating networks and increasing engagement among our doctoral students, to enhancing inclusion and recognition of research technical professionals.

I am immensely proud of the work that we are doing as a university but particularly so in this instance, as I believe that we have managed to significantly improve our research culture as a result of the activities described here.

As always, I would welcome feedback on this edition and the subjects that it covers.

Best wishes

Professor Mark Spearing Vice-President (Research and Enterprise)

PLEASE SEND US YOUR FEEDBACK We are keen to receive your feedback about Re:action.

If you have any ideas, comments or suggestions, please send them to riscomms@soton.ac.uk

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Re:action is created by Kate Williams and Sophie Lister, Research and Innovation Services

CONTENTS ‘Creating an environment where people thrive’

4–7

Listening and learning: postgraduate research culture

8 – 11

The initiatives shaping postgraduate research culture

12 – 15

An open book

16 – 17

“Fresh ideas and energy”: supporting Early Career Researchers

18 – 19

Championing Early Career Colleagues in Arts and Humanities

20 – 21

Paths beyond the PhD

22 – 25

Creating space for academic writing

26 – 27

Hidden figures: recognising Research Technical Professionals

28 – 30

Technical expertise shaping a new vision for heritage preservation

31

Change in action – the Technician Commitment

32 – 33

Reshaping research culture: the power of public participation

34 – 35

Smoothing the path to promotion

36 – 37

Nurturing research culture in the arts

38 – 39

Mentoring matters

40 – 43

On the rise: developing women in leadership

44 – 45

Leading questions: challenging leadership dynamics

46 – 49

Research award highlights

50 – 55

Image from ‘Bring your perspective’ PGR recruitment campaign, featuring PhD student Nour (see page 11).

Credit: Burnt Tree Studios.

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Introduction

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‘ CREATING AN ENVIRONMENT WHERE PEOPLE THRIVE’ Why research culture makes a world of difference

The environment where research takes place has a profound impact on the quality of the resulting research, and its usefulness in the real world. As this principle gains greater recognition, Higher Education institutions and their funders are paying more attention than ever to research culture: who does research, how it’s done, and how it’s shared and recognised.

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Introduction

“Here at the University of Southampton, our research culture strategy is tied into our wider research strategy,” said Research Culture Manager Genna del Rosa. Genna is based in Research and Innovation Services, and her remit includes measuring and evidencing the impact of research culture initiatives.

“We have specific objectives around creating an environment where people can thrive and increasing the diversity of our research community.”

The University’s priorities around research culture, she explained, fall under five themes:

Genna del Rosa

Our approach at Southampton isn’t primarily about topdown initiatives, but instead everybody within their role using their own agency to shape culture.

Research culture is something everyone can contribute to at any level.”

• fostering a supportive, inclusive and respectful culture • enhancing conditions for recruitment and employment • developing, retaining and inspiring people • promoting rigorous research practice through openness and integrity • creating routes for collaboration “There’s so much happening in each of these areas, with many people involved at different levels,” said Genna. “Our approach at Southampton isn’t primarily about top-down initiatives, but instead everybody within their role using their own agency to shape culture.

“Research culture is something everyone can contribute to at any level.”

The rise of research culture “Research culture is about how we look after our people – not just academics but everyone involved in research, including technical professionals,” said Associate Vice President Interdisciplinary Research Professor John Holloway, who shares this role with Professor Rebecca Hoyle. With a remit covering both interdisciplinary research and research culture, they co-ordinate research culture activity across the University.

John and Rebecca have been in post for four years – and while they are keen to emphasise that there was plenty already happening around research culture before they arrived, their appointment “coincided with the rise of the notion of research culture as an essential,” said Rebecca.

This rise began with the Royal Society’s ‘Changing Expectations’ report in 2018, which identified ‘continuing concerns over many issues, including diversity, research integrity,

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researcher career structures, publishing, and reward structures.’ Two years later a report by the Wellcome Trust found that many researchers described the culture they were operating in as competitive and pressured, with insecure career trajectories and an overfocus on metrics. A high number had sought professional help for depression and anxiety during their careers.

Beyond the Higher Education sector, said Genna, aspects of research culture are increasingly part of wider societal conversation. “For example, the recognition that the design of studies can reflect and entrench society’s biases – such as medical trials historically focused on white males, or the reproducibility crisis prompting calls for more transparent and rigorous research practices.”

In this changing landscape, she said, Research England “recognised research culture was an issue, and universities didn’t necessarily have the resources to prioritise it. That led to ring-fenced funding, and then the intention to incorporate reporting on research culture as part of the People, Culture and Environment (PCE) section in Research Excellence Framework (REF)2029.”

Where the REF 2021 Environment section considered aspects such as research strategy, infrastructure and support for staff and students, Research England has suggested that this element would place a greater emphasis on how people experience the research environment, including culture, inclusion and responsible research practices, as well as opportunities for connection, collaboration and career development. A pilot REF PCE exercise, in which the University participated, was undertaken in 2025 to develop methods for assessing this. Following the pilot, REF announced in December that PCE had been reframed as Strategy, People, and Research Environment (SPRE).

While REF guidance has now set out a clear way forward for Strategy, People, and Research Environment, panels are still determining how this element will be assessed in practice. The University is committed to improving research culture irrespective of the REF exercise. “It’s an acknowledgement that when researchers are working in positive environments – when they’re happy, when they feel supported, and when they feel like

them because both interdisciplinarity and research culture are about bringing different perspectives to bear on a problem and about having empathy with people.

“In research culture we’re asking, how is somebody else experiencing this environment? Can we make this environment better for that person? Are we thinking about everybody or are we only thinking about a few people?”

Research culture is about how we look after our people – not just academics but everyone involved in research, including technical professionals.”

Professor John Holloway

they belong – they actually produce better research,” said Genna.

Competing demands John, Rebecca and Genna support initiatives across the University around the five research culture priorities, a selection of which are explored in this issue of Re:action. Allowing researchers’ voices to shape these activities is crucial, said John, as the unique demands of a research career result in “particular pressures that are difficult to manage, and which vary across career paths and stages.”

“For people on a research-only career pathway, their employment status may be precarious; for people on balanced contract [teaching and research], they’re trying to manage a lot of competing demands on their time,” explained Rebecca. “Though research is considered important for career progression, it’s not always catered for within a workload model. This can put unhealthy pressure on people’s time, disproportionately impacting those who are juggling additional demands, such as parents, carers, and people with health conditions.”

in the University’s research and people strategies, ensuring that these are delivered with research culture considerations at the heart. “So, for example, where the research strategy says that we’re looking to attract the next generation of research leaders, we’re not only looking at what work is being done to support that next generation,” said Rebecca. “We’re also asking, who actually gets the chance to be viewed as a leader, or to develop into what we view as a leader?”

There is a valuable interplay with the interdisciplinary aspect of her and John’s roles, continued Rebecca, as collaborating with the public, with civic partners and across disciplines is also part of research culture. “There is a synergy between

The vision for the future, Rebecca reflected, is to have an increasingly vibrant, diverse and representative research community who feel empowered to carry out their work to very high standards, informing real-world developments that change lives for the better.

“If we get the right people into research and they are supported and thriving in that environment, then they’re going to be able to bring a diversity of perspectives that makes research more relevant to the real world and ultimately gets better outcomes. It might sound idealistic, but I think it’s true.”

In research culture we’re asking, how is somebody else experiencing this environment? Are we thinking about everybody?”

Researchers are also being asked to manage an increasing number of regulatory requirements, including the requirement for publicly funded research to be disseminated in an open way. “There’s a need for structures and support to navigate this complexity.”

“Are we thinking about everybody?”

John and Rebecca’s role entails asking granular questions about what’s outlined

Significant strengths Southampton is increasingly recognised for its commitment to “openness, equity and fairness,” said Genna, with significant strengths in research culture which deserve celebration. “We have research culture embedded in our strategy. Our senior leaders are really invested, and we have fantastic grassroots initiatives as well as central ones.”

Professor Rebecca Hoyle

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Postgraduate research

LISTENING AND LEARNING How the student voice is shaping postgraduate research culture As co-authors of up to a third of all papers submitted for the Research Excellence Framework 2021, the University of Southampton’s almost 3000 postgraduate research (PGR) students make a vital contribution to the research reputation of the University.

At the heart of creating a vibrant, supportive research culture is the University’s Doctoral College. It supports postgraduate research students from their initial interest in pursuing a PhD, through application, study, examination and award.

The College co-ordinates doctoral training delivered through Doctoral Training Centres, supports supervisors, and partners with the Centre for Higher Education Practice (CHEP) and faculties to deliver an extensive professional and personal development programme. Students are equipped with the skills – everything from project management to teaching – for a successful career beyond the PhD. Professional and pastoral support ensures researchers’ wellbeing and provides a hub for the University’s doctoral community, connecting staff and students and fostering interdisciplinary research.

The Doctoral College’s Research Culture team focuses on “the environment in which our students conduct their PhD, the student experience, and how and who we recruit onto PhD programmes,” explained Stephen 8

Wakeling, Head of Doctoral Research Culture.

For the team, comprised of Stephen, Dr Maisha Islam, Lina Al Jabbar and Stephanie Millard, recruitment of students from underrepresented groups is a particular priority, with a target to increase participation among students from Black and Asian backgrounds.

“We know that there is a broken pipeline into postgraduate research for racially minoritised students,” explained Maisha, Doctoral College Research Culture Lead (Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion). “They are well-represented at undergraduate and postgraduate taught level nationally, but numbers decline sharply at PGR stage. And of course, that has consequences for the diversification of our academic staffing body.”

“Our job is to ensure that all our students are supported throughout their journey to have a positive experience and to exist in a research culture that can help them thrive,” said Stephen.

Continued on page 10 →

Image from ‘Bring your perspective’ PGR recruitment campaign, featuring PhD student Rezia.

Credit: Burnt Tree Studios.

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Postgraduate research

Stephen reflected that “the survey has enabled a far quicker feedback loop and a more targeted approach. We can listen to students and respond quickly with practical solutions. It’s been a really positive partnership with SUSU.” Alongside the survey, the team works with a small group of paid ‘PGR Student Partners’ to shape new initiatives with an equity lens.

“Through the surveys and other feedback, we listen to students, identify the issues, and work with Student Partners to co-design solutions. We’re embedding the student voice at every level,” said Stephen.

Stephen Wakeling

Continued from page 8 Listening to the student voice Established after the pandemic, the Research Culture team used the Postgraduate Research Experience Survey (PRES) – the sector’s PGR student satisfaction benchmarking exercise – as its starting point. While PRES runs biennially, the team was “determined to listen to our PGRs far more regularly,” said Stephen.

In partnership with Southampton University Students’ Union (SUSU), they introduced the PGR Student Experience Survey, which has run three times a year since 2022. Based on PRES questions to chart progress against the national survey, it explores different aspects of the student experience, ranging from the induction process to mental health and workload.

“Feedback from our autumn survey shapes how we run induction and improve training to prepare students for their PhDs,” explained Stephen. “In spring, we address issues such as burnout, isolation, and imposter syndrome, working with the University Wellbeing Team to provide support. Our summer survey focuses on workload and mental health.

“When new schemes are introduced, we aim to close the loop by linking them directly to student feedback so PGRs can see how their input shapes their experience.”

Seeing results The team’s efforts are having a demonstrable impact at Southampton and across the sector.

In the PRES 2025, Southampton ranked 10th of 89 universities – up from 61st of 108 in 2019 – placing in the top 25 per cent in eight of 11 categories, and leading participating Russell Group institutions.

Since 2022/23 Southampton has seen a 50 per cent increase in applicants from UK Black and Black mixed heritage backgrounds and a 200 per cent increase in offers being made.

As well as overwhelmingly positive participant feedback, initiatives described in the following pages such as the Supervisor PGR Partnership Agreement, the Progress to PhD peer mentoring scheme (see page 43), and the PGR Student Partners scheme, have earned sector-wide recognition, awards and keynote

Ranked 10th In the PRES 2025, Southampton ranked 10th of 89 universities – up from 61st of 108 in 2019 – placing in the top 25% in eight of 11 categories, and leading participating Russell Group institutions.

invitations. Committed to sharing learning, the team aims to publish their findings to benefit doctoral students more widely.

“We’ve listened and worked hard to improve the research culture and student experience.

Seeing that reflected in the PRES results is incredibly rewarding,” said Stephen.

“This is a whole-university effort,” he added.

“Collaboration with CHEP, SUSU, and the faculties is essential to make this a lasting change and embed it into everyday practice.”

Improving accessibility The team’s next focus is improving PhD accessibility for students with a range of circumstances, including those who are working or have caring responsibilities. “We’re exploring flexible options such as variablelength or different versions of part-time PhDs,” said Stephen. Recognising that many universities face similar challenges, he plans to share insights across the sector to help make doctoral study more inclusive.

“Data from that survey showed that PGR mental health declines when students work more than 35 hours a week on their PhD,” continued Stephen. In response, Lina (Doctoral College Research Culture Lead (Student Experience)), collaborated with SUSU and a group of PGRs on ‘Thrive, Don’t Just Survive: Find Your PhD Balance’ – a campaign promoting healthy work-life balance.

“We created a series of videos sharing personal strategies for achieving balance, with the aim of fostering honest conversations about these challenges within our PGR community,” explained Lina. The videos are available to staff and students on the PGR Handbook and the SUSU PGR Hub SharePoint pages.

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Image from ‘Bring your perspective’ PGR recruitment campaign, featuring PhD student Yaseen.

Credit: Burnt Tree Studios.

BRING YOUR PERSPECTIVE The University’s first PGR recruitment campaign, ‘Bring your perspective’, has been created by the Research and Enterprise Marketing team and the Doctoral College. Showcasing the diversity of Southampton’s PGR community and the impact they’re making, the campaign aims to encourage students from underrepresented backgrounds to consider doctoral study.

Find out more: https://tinyurl.com/4u2789z6

Image from ‘Bring your perspective’ PGR recruitment campaign, featuring PhD student Kirsty.

Credit: Burnt Tree Studios.

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Postgraduate research

THE INITIATIVES SHAPING POSTGRADUATE RESEARCH CULTURE DEMYSTIFYING THE PHD Research by the Doctoral College has shown that the complexity of PhD funding and the application process presents a significant obstacle for many students considering postgraduate research. In response, the Research Culture team partnered with the University’s Careers, Employability and Student Enterprise team to develop the ‘Demystifying the PhD’ programme.

Dr Maisha Islam

Run by the Doctoral College’s Dr Maisha Islam and Emily Wardale (Careers Consultant for Researchers), the programme aims to make PhD study more accessible, particularly for applicants from underrepresented backgrounds. It provides information, advice and guidance, including a four-part workshop series – attended by 154 students in 2023–24 – that enables interested students to find out more about doctoral study. An accompanying online module also offers accessible information in a self-directed format. One attendee described the workshops as “fun, informative and extremely useful!”

Undergraduates can also get a taste of doctoral study through a summer internship programme, equipping them with invaluable research skills to take into a PhD or other research career. This year, a PhD speednetworking event offered undergraduate and postgraduate-taught students the chance to speak with current PhD candidates about funding, the application process, and daily life as a PGR, with more networking events planned.

2025 also saw the first online ‘staff edition’ of Demystifying the PhD, after interest in

Emily Wardale

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the programme from staff. “100 per cent of attendees said they were more confident and more likely to find out more about doctoral study,” said Maisha. One participant called it a “very insightful and useful session, clarifying PGR concepts” and providing “real-life examples of how people have progressed” onto postgraduate research study.

Also under the banner is the ‘Progress to PhD’ peer mentoring scheme (see page 43).

This provides one-to-one support for PGR students from underrepresented groups, including mature students, student carers, and those from racially minoritised or low socioeconomic backgrounds.

“The positive feedback we have received is a reminder of how important it is to build the pipeline into postgraduate research,” said Maisha.

Find out more about the Demystifying the PhD and Progress to PhD mentoring at: www.southampton.ac.uk/careers/ students/further-study/index.page

Black Futures Scholar Michael Lomotey

BLACK FUTURES The Black Futures Scholarship scheme, run by the Doctoral College, is designed to support UK domiciled Black and Black mixed heritage PhD students. The scheme focuses on reducing the barriers to doctoral study while maintaining the highest academic standards.

The Black Futures Scholarship’s selective focus on Black excellence means that each cohort is made up of those with outstanding talent and potential to excel at the highest level.”

Michael Lomotey

Scholarships provide a tax-free stipend of around £20,000 per year, payment of full UK fees, and an annual research and training grant to help fund the scholar’s research activities.

The programme was pioneered by the Faculty of Environmental and Life Sciences (FELS) in 2022–23. Following its success, the Doctoral College expanded the scheme University-wide, offering one scholarship per faculty annually, with some faculties choosing to supplement this further. The initiative currently supports 19 scholars across the University.

Postgraduate researcher and Black Futures scholar Michael Lomotey (Geography and Environmental Science) said: “The Black Futures Scholarship’s selective focus on Black excellence means that each cohort is made up of those with outstanding talent and potential to excel at the highest level. I am proud to be part of the scheme and grateful for the highquality, tailored professional development provided. The community of scholars, dedicated tutors, and support staff has made it a great experience.”

Black Futures scholars benefit from a comprehensive support network, including cohort and one-to-one meetings with dedicated tutors, tailored induction and welcome sessions, and career networking events with Black professionals. Peer and reverse mentoring, and pastoral and professional development support are also available. Supervisors of Black Futures scholars are also supported with training.

Importantly, the scheme is merit-based, with no reduction in entry standards. Scholars are selected for their talent and potential.

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Postgraduate research

SUPERVISOR PGR PARTNERSHIP AGREEMENT The defining factor of the PhD student experience is the relationship between student and PhD supervisor, according to data from the PGR Survey and sector-wide research.

“We know that students can find it difficult to have some conversations with their supervisor,” explained the Doctoral College’s Stephen Wakeling. “The ability to discuss topics such as religious observance, disability, or mental health, is fundamental to a relationship as close as a student and supervisor, but this can be tricky when there is a power imbalance between a student and a more senior supervisor.”

The Doctoral College launched the Supervisor PGR Partnership Agreement in 2024 to provide a framework for students and supervisors to agree how they will work together throughout the PhD. Developed by Lina Al Jabbar, Doctoral College Research Culture Lead (Student Experience), the agreement supports conversations on working patterns, mental health, and equality, diversity and inclusion.

It sets clear expectations and timeframes, identifies training and development needs, and helps establish a mutually respectful, supportive relationship.

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“We strongly encourage working through the agreement in the first few weeks of a PhD,” said Lina. “Setting expectations is crucial to creating a good relationship and avoiding a mismatch of goals. And we recommend reviewing it throughout the doctorate, as a lot can change in four or more years.”

The agreement is useful for supervisors too, helping them to raise and discuss what might otherwise be awkward questions around, for example, workload and stress.

The agreement compliments a programme of supervisor training offered by the Centre for Higher Education Practice (CHEP), recognising the importance of supervisors in building a flourishing doctoral research culture.

The agreement has been well-received at sector conferences and the team plans to share it more widely as an example of best practice.

Lina Al Jabbar

The ability to discuss topics such as religious observance, disability, or mental health, is fundamental to a relationship as close as a student and supervisor.”

PGR STUDENT PARTNERS The inspiration for the Doctoral College’s PGR Student Partners scheme came from two gaps identified within the Higher Education sector and at the University, explained Dr Maisha Islam. “Firstly, we know that racially minoritised and underrepresented students face challenges with accessing, succeeding in, and progressing from doctoral study. And secondly, most student engagement activities are focused on undergraduates, with fewer opportunities for PGRs.” “The peer learning and support created a nourishing, safe professional environment where I could develop my skills. It’s been a transformative experience.”

Nandini Das

Both national research and the Doctoral College’s own research show that these groups encounter a range of issues, from difficulties accessing PhD programmes to challenges around mental health and a sense of belonging in academia. “We recognised that an equity-driven, collaborative approach was needed to address these issues and create a more inclusive research culture.”

The scheme offers flexible, paid opportunities for PhD students to work alongside the Research Culture team on EDI projects. Six students have participated so far, working eight hours a week over a minimum of three months on projects they co-design. These have included researching and co-authoring reports with Maisha on understanding the experiences of Black

and Asian PGR students, understanding underrepresented students’ motivations for pursuing doctoral study, and enhancing PGR students’ sense of community.

“For me, it’s essential that this kind of research is conducted in partnership with the community concerned,” commented Maisha, who has a background researching racial and religious equity in higher education and co-chairs the steering group of an £8m Research England/Office for Students programme to improve racially minoritised students’ participation in PGR. The scheme has already made a significant impact. Partners’ research has contributed to University efforts to increase diversity within doctoral study, leading to resources such as

“What felt unique was how the scheme combined paid opportunities with genuine empowerment.

Our contributions weren’t just token gestures but were shaped by our own positionality, enriching the work.”

Fabien Littel

“The opportunity to contribute to this worthwhile project whilst also learning new qualitative research techniques has been extremely beneficial.”

Natasha Palmer

the Demystifying the PhD workshops, the Progress to PhD peer mentoring scheme, and a new PhD application roadmap. Insights from the PGR community project are shaping the Doctoral College and SUSU’s approach to fostering a stronger research community.

Student Partners have described the experience as transformative.

The scheme has been nationally recognised with the FindAUniversity Postgrad Award for Best Postgraduate Campaign or Project 2024, and Maisha has delivered keynotes to the International Research Culture Conference and the UK Research Integrity Office. She also received the Vice Chancellor’s Award for Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion 2024, in part for leading the scheme.

“Connecting with other under-represented PGR students allowed me to see myself in their experiences, making me more conscious of my own biases and aware of where I can grow.”

Lilian Odaro

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Open research

AN OPEN BOOK

Transforming research through sharing and transparency When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, the University of Southampton was a signatory to the Wellcome Trust’s declaration calling for all research around the new virus to be made openly available. Among the many contributions from Southampton researchers, a team led by Professor Hywel Morgan and Professor Paul Elkington developed PeRSo (Personal Respirator Southampton), a fabric hood and visor with an air filter which protects the wearer from infection by the virus.

Publishing under a Creative Commons license enabled the design to be used by anyone, helping to protect frontline workers around the world.

Open access, and transparent and open research practices, comprise part of a healthy research culture – whether or not there’s a global health crisis going on.

“Open access is about applying suitable licenses to your research output so that it can be reused, redistributed and built upon without there being financial or technical barriers, as with the PeRSo example,” explained Dr Steven Vidovic, Head of Open Research and Publication Practice, whose role is based in the University Library.

“Open research is about practises which 16

make research transparent so that it can be replicated and therefore trusted.”

Green and gold “My role in the Library is around publishing our research outputs in a way that makes them accessible to readers and allows them to benefit from the research more readily,” said Steven.

Southampton was represented at the Budapest Open Access Initiative in 2001 and supported the Bethesda Agreement in 2003, movements which helped establish ‘green’ and ‘gold’ models for open access. “Green is

Dr Steven Vidovic

Open access is about applying suitable licenses to your research output so that it can be reused, redistributed and built upon without there being financial or technical barriers.”

Left: UKRN institutional leads at a 2025 meeting in Cardiff

archive-based open access – so to this end, the Library hosts a version of EPrints, a digital repository platform.”

Research outputs submitted to Pure (a research information system) are fed through to EPrints after a suitable embargo period and made freely available online, a process managed by Steven’s team.

“The gold model is publisher-enabled open access, where the publisher applies a suitable license, which may incur a fee – this should be included in the author’s original grant application, or can sometimes be paid for by the University out of block grants from major funders.” In recent years Steven’s team has negotiated more than 20 agreements with publishers which entail paying a fixed sum upfront for no-additional-cost publishing in a particular journal. “These are called transformative agreements, as they’re meant to help transition the publishing environment towards a more open future.”

Any current member of staff or student can make use of these publishing agreements and enjoy the advantages of open distribution, which include “proven benefits to the number of citations work receives,” said Steven.

“Open access improves discoverability and therefore impact.”

Pilot press Steven’s team offers training and support to academics on making the most of open access publishing opportunities. They are also in the early stages of developing a University Press, using Enhancing Research Culture funding from Research England to pilot new software.

“The idea is that this software will support a more sustainable institutional press model, and a broader range of research outputs, including posters and portfolios,” said Steven.

The new press, expected to go live in winter 2025, will feature three platforms: Insights, for

short-form publications like journal articles; Horizons, for longer outputs such as books; and Voices, which will enable students to set up their own journals.

“These new platforms will demonstrate value in publishing outputs which do not usually receive the same attention as journal articles,” said Steven. “They will provide a home for content, such as conference papers, which are supplementary to publishers’ core activities and normally come at a high cost to the organisers. They will also create opportunities for us to reinforce best practices, educating users on open research and research integrity around publishing.”

Trustworthy research Open access is just one element of open research, a wider movement which Steven supports through his role as Institutional Lead for the UK Reproducibility Network (UKRN), a national consortium working to improve research quality.

Led by researchers, its mission is to ensure that research is trustworthy through encouraging practices like data sharing, peer review, pre-registration of study designs, and results-blind reporting mechanisms (which ensure research is published based on the significance of the research question and the rigour of the methods, rather than achieving a particular set of results).

Steven is involved with the UKRN’s Open Research Programme, a Research Englandfunded initiative to embed open research practises across UK institutions; he also led the Sharing & Integrating project, which aims to share open research training, practice and learning resources among participating institutions.

Speaking about training resources Southampton contributed to the

Programme, Steven said “We developed the resources in a programming language that made them computationally reproducible – that means people can reproduce them as websites, PDFs or whatever they need.” His team has also repurposed this material as ‘train the trainer’ sessions to be delivered across the UKRN’s members. “A lot of kudos has come with that, and an appreciation for our sharing-first ethos.”

Connecting excellence As an early leader in open research, Steven said, Southampton has had “elements of first mover syndrome – experiencing challenges that nobody has tackled yet!” But he said that he can now identify a network of significant people across the University who are tackling these problems head-on – from Simon Hettrick’s work on the Software Sustainability Institute and Hidden REF, alongside Digital Humanities lead James Baker, to the work of the Physical Sciences Data Infrastructure PI, Simon Coles.

These individuals, the Library, and others have now collaborated to create CaSDaR, the Careers and Skills for Data-driven Research (CaSDaR) Network (see page 30). The network will lead on data stewardship and enhance data steward practises across the UK to make sure that the data underpinning research is reproducible and trustworthy and preserved for the future.

“As we’ve been preparing for the Research Excellence Framework Strategy, People, and Research Environment (SPRE) section, we’ve spoken about pockets of open research excellence across the University,” reflected Steven. SPRE is the section of the REF which focuses on research culture. “A lot of institutions have those excellent individuals, but what’s unique about Southampton is that the pockets are joining up. Those people believe in bringing everyone else with them on the journey.”

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Early career research

“ FRESH IDEAS AND ENERGY” Supporting and sustaining a vibrant Early Career Researcher workforce

The challenges facing Early Career Researchers (ECRs) are not unique to Southampton – and they’re nothing new, said Sarah Parsons, Researcher Development Concordat Co-Chair (and Professor of Autism and Inclusion in the Southampton Education School). “There are issues inherent in the wider research community which existed 20 years ago when I was a jobbing researcher moving between fixed-term contracts,” she reflected.

Professor Sarah Parsons

We want to support and sustain a vibrant workforce and welcome the fresh ideas and energy that early career researchers bring.”

“Personally I was extremely lucky in the support I received from different institutions, leaders and managers. Part of my motivation in taking on the role of Concordat Co-Chair two years ago was a desire to give something back to this space.”

of the job market, and the accompanying expectation of a well-developed CV even in the fledgling stage of a career. “Not everybody will have had the same kinds of opportunities during their doctorate to build their CV, so it creates barriers.”

Impact on individuals The precarity she experienced at the start of her own career continues to be one of the major struggles for ECRs, Sarah said.

“We know that job precarity has a huge impact on individuals, from their own well-being to their career development to their life choices outside of work – getting a mortgage, having a family and so on. But there’s also an impact on the institution, in terms of the research culture and the quality of research outputs.”

Supporting ECRs isn’t just part of Sarah’s own value system – its importance is backed up by the data. “There’s analysis that shows the value of the contributions that early career researchers make to our workforce, and the need to enable and support those careers.

Another major challenge for new researchers is the intense competitiveness 18

“We want to support and sustain a vibrant workforce and welcome the fresh ideas and energy that early career researchers bring. For that to happen there needs to be commitment from senior management and from leaders throughout the institution, which we are fortunate to have at Southampton.”

Active commitment “A lot of the things we’re working on are strategically driven by our commitment to the Researcher Development Concordat (RDC),” explained Sarah. Professor Rebecca Hoyle (see page 6) is her fellow Co-Chair, as well as the RDC’s institutional sponsor. Sonia Gomez del Castillo, based in Human Resources, is the RDC project manager, and “absolutely central to ensuring the sustained and positive progress we have made and are making with the RDC,” said Sarah.

The RDC is an agreement between universities, research institutes and funders to support the career development of researchers in the UK. The original concordat was drawn up in 2008 (with Southampton signing in 2009) and has evolved since to match the changing expectations of researchers, institutions and funders. The latest version, published in 2019, was written by a group of sector volunteers, chaired by Professor Dianne Berry OBE (Professor of Psychology and Dean of Postgraduate Research Studies at the University of Reading).

same principle, funders commit to making sure their processes promote equality of opportunity – and that funding opportunities and policies are designed to promote positive research culture.

“As a signatory to the RDC, the University is required to submit an annual report on our progress, and to have an action plan that sits across our main groups of stakeholders,” noted Sarah. “This is really significant because it means we’re held to account for our obligations under the RDC: it’s not just a wish-list of things we’d like to do, it’s an active commitment.”

The Concordat’s three core principles are Environment and Culture; Employment; and Professional and Career Development. For each of these, the Concordat outlines the key responsibilities of the four main stakeholder groups: researchers, researcher managers, institutions, and funders.

Support and opportunities A range of “excellent support and opportunities” has resulted from this commitment, said Sarah, including the Reducing Casualisation project (see below), the Prosper Programme (see page 22), and the Career Pathways Refresh, an initiative led by Reward and Recognition Manager David Wayman. “We can now signpost researchers to a clear framework around how they can progress their careers, and what’s required at each level,” said Sarah. This helps enable researcher managers to have “good conversations with early career researchers through appraisal and to be thinking about career development very explicitly in those conversations – whether that’s within or beyond academia.”

Under Environment and Culture, for example, institutions agree to ensure that policies and practices relating to researchers are inclusive, equitable and transparent. They commit to promoting wellbeing through managing workloads and tackling discrimination, as well as agreeing to train researcher managers, and ensure research integrity. Under the

Sarah is also focused on engaging with researchers to hear about their experiences at Southampton, and what they need for their career development. One thing she hears reflected back is that ECRs aren’t always aware of the support that’s available for them. “In a big institution like Southampton it’s challenging to make sure the right

communication gets to the right people at the right time.”

The work of the faculty RDC Champions is especially important in this respect, she said.

“They really get a sense of what’s happening on the ground, and local communication at faculty or school level can be really effective.”

There is also a diverse range of faculty-level initiatives to improve the experience of ECRs, including the Transformational ECR Agenda in Arts and Humanities (see page 20), and a new policy in Social Sciences supporting researchers on fixed-term contracts to be Principal or Co-Investigators on funding bids. Environmental and Life Sciences led the development of allocating five per cent of researcher time annually for career and professional development – a requirement of the RDC, which has now officially been made part of Level 4 research-focused job descriptions at the University. Medicine runs an annual event aimed at demystifying the process of becoming a lecturer, offering a safe space to ask questions, while Engineering and Physical Sciences leads work on coaching and mentoring, as well as creating opportunities for collaborative seed funding through research sandpit events.

Despite the challenges Sarah is confident that positive research culture is worth investing in – and that change is possible.

“There’s so much cultural and historical baggage around the way we employ researchers and what we expect from them.

To shift that you need structural change, which comes from having better policies and processes, and from managers making decisions in the interests of the workforce as a whole.”

REDUCING CASUALISATION The University’s People Plan includes a strategic major project focused on ‘Reducing Casualisation’. The project aims to address challenges associated with fixed-term employment and casual engagement, promoting greater fairness, equity, and transparency across the University.

A key focus is to reduce reliance on fixedterm contracts, ensuring they are only issued where clearly justified and for short durations (less than four years). The project also seeks to improve how the University engages hourly paid lecturers and clarify

the appropriate use of casual workers via UniWorkforce (the University’s service administering casual work assignments).

While casual work arrangements will continue to play a role – particularly in supporting short-term flexibility and student employment – the project is committed to ensuring their use is consistent, equitable, and aligned with best practice.

This initiative supports the University’s ambitions under various Equality Charters, including Athena Swan and the Researcher Development Concordat, and contributes to

a more coordinated approach across related programmes. It aims to enrich the student experience, strengthen research continuity, and foster a more engaged academic workforce.

Led by Human Resources and delivered by a dedicated project team, the initiative will run until 2027.

Find out more (internal only): https://sotonac.sharepoint.com/teams/ ReducingCasualisation2 19

Early career research

CHAMPIONING EARLY CAREER COLLEAGUES IN ARTS AND HUMANITIES

“I’ve always been very interested in the personal side of producing research,” said Dr Sonia Moran Panero, Early Career Researcher and Research Development Concordat champion in Arts and Humanities (FAH). She took on the role three years ago, at the end of her own ‘early career’ stretch. “Through my own journey, I came to appreciate how valuable it is to create more inclusive and empowering experiences for Early Career Researchers (ECRs).”

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their teams. In the future I’m hoping to run Theory of Change workshops with researcher managers, so we can develop real actionable items even in some of the stickier topic areas, like belonging.”

‘Early career’ is defined in FAH as having up to five years’ experience from the time you start in an academic role, after completing a PhD. “In Arts and Humanities we often use the term Early Career Colleagues (ECCs) to include those who aren’t on a researchfocused pathway,” noted Sonia.

Priority areas Her role entails sitting on the Researcher Development Concordat (RDC) advisory group, led by Rebecca Hoyle and John Holloway (see page 5) and co-chaired by Sarah Parsons (see page 18), which brings together RDC champions from across the University. The group is a place to share best practice, consult on policymaking, and to look at data that emerges on the experiences of ECCs. Sonia leads a series of programmes and projects within her faculty, personally welcoming ECCs and co-ordinating their inductions. “For new arrivals I also run a series of development seminars around topics that frequently come up for ECCs, which are identified through sources like CEDARS (Culture, Employment and Development of Academic Researchers Survey) data,” explained Sonia.

ECCs in FAH help to define their own priority areas for the faculty’s research culture. These currently include workload and protecting research time; transparency around access to opportunities and how financial resources are allocated in the faculty; and reducing casualisation. Then there’s support around funding: “We have designed a new policy to support colleagues who are on fixed term contracts in applying for funding, where in the past they may not have been equally supported.”

There’s also the need to “incorporate Equality, Diversity and Inclusion in all aspects of our academic activity, including acknowledging less visible forms of discrimination,” said Sonia. “Not all early career researchers are young, but some may experience elements of ageism, the assumption that they might not know enough to contribute or that they should just deal with whatever tasks are thrown at them.”

For Sonia, inclusion is closely linked with visibility and belonging. “I think this is especially the case for ECCs on fixed-term contracts, where they might feel that universities don’t have the same level of interest in investing in them. We’re working on changing that.”

Dr Sonia Moran Panero

Through my own journey, I came to appreciate how valuable it is to create more inclusive and empowering experiences for Early Career Researchers.”

Innovative action “The needs of ECCs are diverse and complex, but at the same time these individuals are often a source of innovation,” Sonia pointed out. “They haven’t yet become used to the ‘normal’ ways of doing things.” She worked with ECC representatives in each department to create the Transformational ECR Agenda, which focuses on harnessing the potential of new researchers in FAH to build a stronger and more empowering research environment.

Listening is a key part of Sonia’s role, and she is always keen to know “what ECCs need more of, what skills they want to develop, and how we can fill the gaps.” However, she is aware of the perils of talk without action.

“You can have a lot of voices being heard, a lot of information passed upward from junior to senior levels of the faculty and vice versa – but there has to be a sense of direction.”

While change can come from ECCs themselves, she said, there’s also a need to ensure their managers are properly equipped and supported to help them thrive.

“I’ve created a new induction good practise document to guide Heads of Department as they welcome new researchers into

Sonia and the faculty’s Associate Dean for Research and Enterprise, Helen Spurling, were recently awarded funding from the British Academy to help deliver a new ECR network across the southeast. “We’ll be able to take some of the work that we’re doing for ECRs in Southampton and roll it out across the region, in collaboration with other universities,” said Sonia. In addition to offering a tailored development programme, this network will bring new sources of funding and collaboration to researchers in SHAPE disciplines (Social Sciences, Humanities, and the Arts for People and the Economy).

Diverse perspectives Sonia has learned from experience that a sense of belonging can make a real difference, not just to someone’s wellbeing but to their outputs. “The more supported and integrated you are, the better your research activity becomes. Questioning whether you really belong in academia can be hugely distracting – of course, historically academia was accessible for people with a very particular profile, and these echoes of the past can still lead to entrenched forms of inequality.”

Institutions like the Royal Society claim that this has a direct impact on the kind of knowledge generated by academia (see page 6). “If someone struggles with a sense of belonging, they might disengage, and then we lose researchers who could bring a totally new perspective.” said Sonia “When we ensure a diverse research community, our understanding of the phenomena that we study will be so much more complex as it will draw on multiple perspectives and highlight previously existing blind spots.”

Sonia hopes to ultimately bring more ECCs into decision-making spaces where they can make an impact on research culture.

“I would like to see a community of ECCs experiencing a culture that promotes curiosity, that reduces competition between colleagues and job instability, and that recognises diverse kinds of contributions and research outputs.”

Find out more about the Early Career Researcher Network here: www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/ early-career-researcher-network

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Early career research

PATHS BEYOND THE PHD For Postgraduate and Early Career Researchers (PGRs/ECRs) looking to take the next step in their career, help is at hand. Two tailored programmes at the University of Southampton – Beyond the Doctorate and Prosper – have been introduced to guide researchers towards finding the path that’s right for them, whether that’s in academia or beyond.

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Emily and Curie with Prosper participants

Beyond the Doctorate is a series of careers activities run by Careers, Employability and Student Enterprise (CESE) in collaboration with the Doctoral College.

The programme, which ran for the first time in 2023, is designed and led by CESE’s career consultant for researchers, Emily Wardale. It was created in response to Doctoral College research which suggested that “although we’ve got a really wonderful careers service here at Southampton, PGRs/ ECRs felt the information wasn’t specific to them,” said Emily.

Thinking beyond the PhD can feel daunting for many, she said. “Researchers don’t always recognise the brilliant transferable skills that they have. I designed the Beyond the Doctorate programme to empower researchers to recognise their unique skillsets and develop confident approaches to articulate their value to employers.’’

Informed career choices Beyond the Doctorate features a series of nine workshops designed to support researchers in navigating career pathways across academia, industry, and the public sector. Topics include effective CV writing, mastering interview techniques, using LinkedIn, and tailored guidance for job applications.

Participants can select which workshops they’re interested in attending, and dip in and out of the programme’s other elements as they choose. There is an annual careers day, including alumni and employers panel discussions and a networking lunch.

Emily collaborates with Senior Teaching Fellow Ross English to interview alumni and employers about their career journeys post-PhD. These insightful video interviews are available on the PGR Development Hub,

offering researchers access to real-world experiences.

One-to-one career advice appointments are available to PGRs and ECRs (defined as having done their PhD within the last six years) one morning per term in each faculty.

Early outcomes and feedback for Beyond the Doctorate have so far been very positive, said Emily. “At the end of the 2023 pilot programme, all participants rated it as ‘Excellent’. After two years of the programme the number of PGRs saying they’re ready to apply for, or already have, their next job has increased by 12.6 per cent.

“We’ve seen more researchers using the career service and an increase in people knowing where to go to get the information that they need.”

Continued on page 24 →

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Early career research

Dr Curie Scott

Continued from page 23 Prosper portal The Prosper portal, a Research Englandfunded online tool developed at the Universities of Liverpool, Manchester and Lancaster, is another avenue for exploring career possibilities. Researchers can work through the resource independently, or they can join one of two Prosper cohort programmes: Career Catalyst, a three-day programme over three weeks, or FutureProof Your Career, which asks for two hours a week over eight weeks.

Dr Curie Scott, based in the Centre for Higher Education Practice (CHEP), joined the University in 2023 with a remit to roll out Prosper. “Southampton were early adopters of the tool and now we’re second in terms of registrations.”

Having spent 20 years as an educator and coach, she said, “I get very excited about Prosper because it encourages researchers to appraise what they want from their future – not just in terms of job satisfaction, but the bigger picture such as their values, passions and the difference they can make.”

Trust, connection and community Some come to Prosper “because they already feel academia isn’t a good fit, while others are thinking more generally about next steps as they come to the end of their contract,” said Curie. “Their managers may be better equipped to talk about an academic career, whereas both Beyond the Doctorate and

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Emily Wardale

Prosper give a wider view.” She pointed out that though about 50–70 per cent of new researchers want to stay in academia, only 10–15 per cent will end up with a permanent academic role.

Prosper is open to any staff employed to carry out research, including technicians.

Career Catalyst will next run in March 2026, and Future-Proof Your Career in January 2026; each offering 22 places.

Prosper is a coached, in-person programme, with Curie’s expertise helping to create a holistic experience. “I have a background as an executive coach and embodiment facilitator, and I’m bringing those things into the room.

It’s an environment with a high level of trust and vulnerability.

“It’s also very practical. This isn’t a training event: together we work through career and skills audits, create vision statements and CVs, and much more.”

Feedback from the programme so far highlights the confidence and clarity participants gain, especially around online visibility and growing their networks. There’s also an emphasis on community, with crossdisciplinary relationships being established, and researchers who work in the same department connecting in-person for the first time. “Research shows that workplace retention is increased by friendships,” said Curie. “People find it so useful to talk with others experiencing similar issues. A phrase we hear a lot is, ‘I’ve realised I’m not alone.’”

Emily and Curie on a Prosper programme call

Researchers don’t always recognise the brilliant transferable skills that they have. I designed the Beyond the Doctorate programme to empower researchers to recognise their unique skillsets and develop confident approaches to articulate their value to employers.”

Emily Wardale

AJAY PIRIYA VIJAYA KUMAR SAROJA SKILL SETS FOR ACADEMIA

NATE YANG TRANSFERRING STRENGTHS TO INDUSTRY

Ajay Piriya Vijaya Kumar Saroja, a Research Fellow in Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, attended Beyond the Doctorate in 2024. “I had just moved to the University of Southampton and was actively looking for opportunities to build up my career.”

Nate Yang, a Research Fellow in Mechanical Engineering, joined Southampton after his PhD in March 2025. He quickly engaged with Beyond the Doctorate, going to workshops before taking part in the careers day. “I joined the programme because I wanted to have more options for my future, and I found the idea of venturing into industry from a research background challenging. The careers day really opened my mind to the different trajectories your career path can take after a PhD.”

Ajay, whose research focuses on battery materials for energy storage, has her sights set on a career in academia. “I’m aware that there are many other skill sets needed in addition to research, and I have been looking for opportunities to develop those.”

She first attended career development consulting with Emily, who told her about Beyond the Doctorate. Attending the career day, Ajay was interested to hear from individuals with different backgrounds. “It was useful learning what’s involved in switching between sectors.”

Ajay also took part in the Prosper pilot programme in 2025. “I’d never really done that kind of self-reflection and analysis before.”

She was aware of the portal prior to joining the programme but found it hard to navigate alone. “The programme showed me how to get the most out of it.”

The combination of Beyond the Doctorate and Prosper has shaped Ajay’s decision to do the PGCAP (Postgraduate certificate in academic practice) and move towards switching to a balanced pathway, combining research with teaching. She has also become more involved in leadership activities in her department.

Already clear that he wanted to transfer to industry once his Southampton role came to an end, Nate was able to explore this goal in more depth through Prosper. “The programme helped me identify the transferrable skills and strengths I already had – such as project management, which I did on a daily basis during my postdoctoral project.”

He appreciated Curie’s holistic way of leading Prosper, kicking off each session with a check-in and teaching stress management techniques. “I found that aspect incredibly useful, not just when it came to job-hunting but in all of my life and work.”

His advice to PhD students and academics, he said, is to build awareness of their options beyond academia, and find out what else is possible.

“I would say to anyone considering either of these programmes – go for it.”

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Academic writing

CREATING SPACE FOR ACADEMIC WRITING Writing – whether papers, articles, books or funding applications – lies at the heart of an academic career, yet finding time for it is often a struggle. The University’s Time to Write (T2W) programme uses social learning principles to help staff carve out that time. led a feminist evaluation of the programme.

“There’s this assumption that writing is part of academic life,” said Rosie, “so why is it women who can’t find the time?

Developed by Rosie Wadman and Jess Macpherson in the Centre for Higher Education Practice (CHEP), T2W began with ‘Power Hours of Writing’. Research Culture Enhancement funding from UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) has since enabled the team to offer regular writing retreats and build a thriving community of practice – nurturing healthier, more productive writing habits.

Peer support Held online three times a week, Power Hours offer a simple but effective structure. Run by a facilitator, they begin with goal setting, followed by a focused writing period with cameras off before participants come back together to share progress and reflections.

“People find the peer support and friendly accountability really useful,” said Rosie.

Feedback shows that Power Hours help participants increase their productivity in short bursts of time.

T2W one- and two-day writing retreats are held in person both on and off campus, during the working week. These free, facilitated sessions combine focused writing time with breaks for movement and connection.

“People work on all sorts of tasks – from planning a chapter to drafting a blog post or article. Whole books have been written during T2W,” explained Rosie.

Holding space “Social learning theory for us means that participants are contracting with each other to hold this space for writing,” said Rosie.

“It’s about respect, mutual accountability and support. It encourages people to feel they can push back on other demands.”

Programme evaluation shows wide-ranging benefits. Participants report building more positive relationships with their writing,

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Rosie Wadman

developing sustainable habits, and producing higher-quality (and quantity) outputs.

Institutionally, T2W contributes to well-being, inclusion, and equity of opportunity. Funded time to write helps staff feel “seen and valued” by the University.

As participant Bernice Kuang reflected, “The retreat was absolutely fantastic. It gave me the protected time and inspiration that I was desperately needing.”

Since its launch, 270 people have engaged with T2W. Many regular participants now organise protected writing time for their colleagues or students. Recognising this growing network, Rosie arranged a retreat for facilitators, leading to the formation of a Community of Practice (CoP). “We wanted to understand what people are doing, why it’s so powerful, and why it’s needed,” she explained.

Overcoming obstacles Although T2W is open to anyone, 70% of participants are women, most of them in mid-career. Keen to understand why, Jess

“Research clearly shows that organised, protected time particularly benefits women but we wanted to explore the context at Southampton to help plan future support.”

Their findings highlighted the obstacles to uninterrupted writing time that women can face. “Mid-career women are often balancing research with teaching and leadership responsibilities, at the same time as caring for children or parents,” commented Rosie. Recent studies show that women in academia also take on a disproportionate share of ‘institutional invisible labour’ such as administration, pastoral care, and other tasks that don’t directly support promotion.

T2W’s evaluation found that male colleagues were perceived as better at prioritising time for personal research, while women prioritised collaborative tasks, often feeling guilty about focusing on their own projects.

“It’s important that we recognise the existence and value of invisible labour, and how it impinges on time for deep thinking and writing,” said Rosie, noting that gendered distribution of invisible labour has implications for equal access to career progression.

The evaluation also suggested that men were less likely than women to view writing time as a luxury or see the need for structured retreats – an attitude she fears could limit their wider adoption across the University.

“Our evaluation showed that inclusive solutions are essential to ensure that all staff, regardless of role, gender, or personal

T2W writing retreat

circumstances, can benefit from protected time for writing.”

New formats Rosie is determined to embed protected time to write, reflect and connect as a valued part of Southampton’s research culture.

“We know that T2W is materially benefitting the University by boosting productivity,” said Rosie. “And we know that these activities are needed because they’re always full!”

Rosie and Jess, with input from the Community of Practice, are now exploring ways to make retreats more accessible to those with caring responsibilities and limited family support. They’ve also collaborated with the University’s Communications team on a Writing for Public Audiences workshop and trialled new formats such as an Unplugged Retreat – designed to give colleagues, including those who are neurodivergent or practice-based, time to think, problem-solve and create.

“By embedding protected time to write into our culture, we can create a more inclusive, equitable research environment,” concluded Rosie.

More information about Time to Write (internal only): https://sotonac.sharepoint.com/teams/ chep/SitePages/Time-to-Write.aspx

T2W IMPROVED MY MOTIVATION AND MY OUTPUT Psychology lecturer Dr Emma PalmerCooper attended Time to Write (T2W) and now runs protected writing activities for her students, while her School offers writing retreats to staff.

“As an academic on a balanced pathway, it can be difficult to carve out dedicated time for writing, especially when writing tasks don’t come with hard deadlines,” she explained.

“Time to Write gave me structured space for writing, which significantly improved both my motivation and research output during busy teaching periods.

“Power Hours have helped me maintain momentum and develop consistent habits,” while the retreats offered “uninterrupted time to make substantial progress on larger projects like papers or grant applications, work that’s hard to fit in between meetings and lectures.”

Thanks to T2W, Emma said, “I’ve gained a much clearer understanding of my writing

habits and what I need to stay productive.

I’m better at identifying which tasks are quick wins and which require more focused, scheduled time.”

As Programme Director for the MSc Foundations of Clinical Psychology, she noticed students struggling with dissertation writing over the summer due to a lack of structure and competing commitments. To support them, she introduced a Summer Writing Café in 2024, offering weekly protected writing slots in person and online.

“This gave students a regular opportunity to come to campus or simply block out time for writing.”

Inspired by T2W, the Cafés included scheduled writing and break times, goal setting, and reflection. “I noticed less worry from students, and fewer requests for extensions. Even if students didn’t attend, they seemed more aware of the time required to write, and the need for scheduling.”

Emma Palmer-Cooper

Following “overwhelmingly positive” feedback, the initiative was expanded to all Psychology PGT and PGR students in 2025.

The department also runs staff writing retreats throughout the year, now a valued part of its collective writing culture.

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Research technical professionals

HIDDEN FIGURES Why the time has come to recognise the technical professionals enabling research In recent decades research has changed profoundly, becoming ever more reliant on technology. The era of the “hero researcher” – a lead academic who understands every facet of the research process – is over, said Simon Hettrick, Professor of Research Policy in Electronics and Computer Science.

Professor Simon Hettrick

Today, research is a team effort, founded on the expertise of a dedicated team of Research Technical Professionals (RTPs) who work alongside the academic. Yet, it is often only the academic who is celebrated for their contributions to knowledge and innovation.

Across the research sector nationally and internationally, the size of this workforce and the value of its contributions remain poorly understood. But things are changing, thanks, in part, to Simon’s monumental efforts and several Southampton-based initiatives.

“RTPs contribute the skills that researchers don’t have,” explained Simon. “They are vital but unrecognised.”

Recognising research software engineers Frustration at the lack of understanding of software’s importance in research led Simon to co-found the Software Sustainability Institute (SSI) in 2010, a partnership between the universities of Southampton, Edinburgh and Manchester. In 2014 an SSI survey of 15 Russell Group universities found that 92 per cent of researchers used software and 67 per cent said it was fundamental to their research – yet it was treated as a disposable tool which would “sit

Research Technical Professional (RTP) roles exist in all disciplines. They include clinical trials managers, data stewards, librarians, technicians, knowledge exchange professionals, professional research investment and strategy managers, researcher developers, and hardware and software engineers.

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Research Software Engineers Conference 2025

on a laptop somewhere and be lost,” said Simon.

The SSI works to improve the quality and sustainability of research software and raise awareness of its vital role in research.

With SSI support, the Society of Research Software Engineering (formerly the UK Research Software Engineers Association) formed in 2013 to address the lack of career opportunities for software developers in academia.

Despite some resistance, Simon and his fellow volunteers were determined to transform the way the research community thought about software and advocate for the rise of expert software developers in academia.

The Society has achieved real culture change. It helped establish the role of Research Software Engineer (RSE) and helped support the development of Research Software Groups in universities, to provide researchers with flexible, costeffective access to expertise, and RSEs with sustainable long-term careers. Southampton created its group in 2015; there are now groups at 41 UK institutions and national associations in 14 countries.

“Today, Research Software Engineer is an accepted name for software experts working in academia,” said Simon. UK Research and Innovation has backed this work, establishing the Digital Research Infrastructure Programme to support digital infrastructure and all of the digital RTPs who work in research.

“I sit on funding panels and hear people talk about RSEs as a standard part of their proposal. I still get excited every time I hear it,” said Simon.

Hidden roles and NTOs Part of the SSI’s strategy for achieving recognition for RSEs was to get them included in the Research Excellence Framework (REF), which assesses UK research quality, influencing the allocation of £2bn in public funding annually.

Although the REF encourages the submission of ‘non-traditional outputs’ (NTOs) for assessment – such as software, audio and visual, and practice-led outputs – universities remain conservative with their submissions.

“97.6 per cent of outputs submitted for REF 2021 were books and publications,” explained Simon. “Of 186,000 outputs, just 11 were software.

“For universities, publications are the de facto proxy for research success.”

NTOs are vital to research and often embody essential methods or technologies.

By relying on publications, universities overlook NTOs and the hidden roles behind them, discouraging investment and harming recruitment and retention, explained Simon.

“And focusing research just on the end result, not the journey, is bad for reliability and reproducibility.”

Intent on changing this, Simon founded the Hidden REF in 2019 with SSI support. It began as a one-off volunteer-run competition celebrating all research outputs and the people behind them – but has since become a widely recognised campaign changing research culture by increasing awareness of NTOs and hidden roles. An engaged grassroots community has developed, including many people not typically included in research policy development. The biennial Festival of Hidden REF brings them together with policymakers and research assessment professionals, while the Hidden REF podcast, ‘What the REF?!’, demystifies research assessment.

Continued on page 30 → 29

Research technical professionals

Continued from page 29 In 2023 Research England announced a transformative change based, in part, on the Hidden REF’s work: outputs from any research-adjacent staff member, including non-academic staff, would be eligible for submission to REF 2029. “For the first time, technicians, RSEs and others could submit outputs,” said Simon.

Earlier this year, Research England awarded the Hidden REF £3.5m for ‘Embedding Trust in Evaluation (E-TIE)’, a five-year project to develop recommendations for formally recognising technical and support work in the next REF. The project is allowing Hidden REF to expand its activities and engagement and will, said Simon, “make research both better and fairer.”

Hidden REF now trains universities’ REF selection panels to assess non-traditional outputs. “Supporting school-level panels is vital so that NTOs can go forward to faculty and university panels to be considered for submission,” he explained.

An inclusive vision Southampton is home to the Software Sustainability Institute, Hidden REF, and the new CaSDaR network (below), and was an early signatory to the Technician Commitment (page 32). Reflecting on why the University has been open to a more inclusive vision of research, Simon pointed to its long-standing success in knowledge exchange and enterprise.

“The University recognises that there are activities that aren’t part of the traditional education and research pathways yet are still important to University business. We’re already open to that more inclusive, modern view of academia.”

Strong support from the University’s senior leadership has been crucial. “They’ve been open to better support for RTP roles and to funding this work.” Input from joint Associate Vice-Presidents for Interdisciplinary Research, Professors Rebecca Hoyle and John Holloway, has also been invaluable. “During our E-TIE funding application, we were asked last minute for a University presence on our panel,” said Simon. “Rebecca stepped in and helped show that Southampton was the right home for the project.”

Other groups of research technical professionals – such as research infrastructure engineers and research hardware engineers – are now campaigning for recognition. Simon hopes the RSE’s experience offers a model.

“Southampton has a wonderful opportunity to be the first university that properly understands its RTP workforce.

“Truly valuing these roles and embedding them into the way universities work is the next big step,” he said. “We’re asking for a significant cultural shift – for a traditional researcher to be valued no more and no less than RSEs, data stewards, or anyone else fundamental to research.

“If we get this right, it will make research more equitable and effective, and it will benefit all universities.

“Nothing is as powerful as an idea whose time has come, right?”

Find out more: hidden-ref.org society-rse.org

BUILDING CAREERS AND SKILLS FOR DATA-DRIVEN RESEARCH Data stewardship – the management of a project or organisation’s data to ensure its quality, accessibility and usability – is a critical yet undervalued skill. The Careers and Skills for Data-driven Research Network+ (CaSDaR) was created to address this by promoting the recognition, professionalisation and support of data stewards.

CaSDaR emerged in response to a UKRI Digital Research Technical Professional Fund call to build communities for Research Technical Professionals. Led by Dr Samantha Pearman Kanza, Principal Enterprise Fellow (Chemistry and Chemical Engineering) at the University of Southampton, the network advocates for data stewardship throughout the research lifecycle, from planning, data collection and storage, to sharing and ensuring data meets FAIR Principles (findable, accessible, interoperable, reusable).

Many staff – from librarians and repository managers, to analysts, data scientists, researchers, and PhD students – have data stewardship responsibilities yet are not 30

formally recognised as data stewards. CaSDaR aims to change this by building an inclusive, sustainable community and developing clear career paths for data stewards.

Established in April 2025 and launched in September, the network is led by a multidisciplinary team from the University of Southampton, made up of Samantha and her Chemistry and Chemical Engineering colleague Professor Simon Coles, Professor Simon Hettrick (Electronics and Computer Science), Professor James Baker (Humanities), and Ms Isobel Stark (Library). It is supported by four partners: The Physical Science Data Infrastructure, the UK Reproducibility Network, ELIXIR UK, and the Digital Curation Centre, with guidance from an expert advisory board and management board of project partner representatives.

CaSDaR recently launched its first funding call for projects showcasing the value of data stewardship. Future plans include a national Data Stewards Conference (2026); a high-level career framework; a repository of job descriptions and

The CaSDaR team (minus Simon Hettrick) at the CaSDaR launch, September 2025

career resources; training and networking; and establishing a Data Stewardship Association, to drive meaningful culture change.

“Our vision is that every institution has data stewards,” Samantha said, “and that they are costed into every project. This is about recognising the human effort and expertise needed to improve data and ensure research is reusable, replicable and reproducible.”

Find out more: casdar.ac.uk

TECHNICAL EXPERTISE SHAPING A NEW VISION FOR HERITAGE PRESERVATION Shipwrecks, historic ports and ancient dwellings all tell an important story about our maritime past, but many are at risk from the effects of climate change, such as flooding, rising sea levels, and storms. From early 2026 a cutting-edge facility at the University of Southampton will investigate and help preserve some of these vulnerable sites along the UK’s coasts, rivers and lakes.

Established with £2m of UKRI Arts and Humanities Research Council funding over 10 years and delivered through the RICHeS programme (Research Infrastructure for Conservation, Heritage and Science), the new Coastal and Inland Waters Heritage (CIW) Science Facility will build on the University’s strengths in marine and maritime research.

Imaging specialist Luke Aspland is playing a central role in developing the facility.

Trained as an archaeologist, Luke has long been interested in using technology to advance archaeological practice. “When iPads first became available, I started developing digital field-collection methods to improve standardisation and the pipeline from excavation to publication,” he said. “Then, when drones arrived, I started experimenting with them.”

This experimentation led Luke to specialise in imaging technologies. After running his own imaging business for five years, he joined the University in 2021 to help establish the Digital Humanities Hub. As the Hub’s technician, Luke oversaw the acquisition of a wide range of equipment, including audio-visual systems, VR

and AR tools, 3D scanners and printers, and historic and modern gaming stations. He now splits his time between managing the Hub and helping to set up the new CIW facility, located in Archaeology.

Working with project lead Professor Fraser Sturt (Archaeology) and Facility Manager Stephanie Blankshein, Luke is responsible for equipping the CIW labs with advanced 3D scanning, sensing and data-capture tools, as well as uncrewed aerial, surface and underwater vehicles.

Once fully operational, he will manage the lab, oversee the field equipment and provide expert imaging support to facility users.

“We have 2D and 3D imaging technologies, state-of-the-art photogrammetry tools for creating digital versions of objects, and high-performance computing for rapid data processing,” Luke explained.

“Our field capabilities include drones with multispectral sensors that capture features invisible to the naked eye, such as variations in vegetation or water absorption underground, which can reveal what lies beneath the

Luke Aspland

surface. We also have multispectral tools for underwater use, and autonomous vehicles to reach areas that are otherwise inaccessible.”

Beyond supporting Southampton’s researchers and students, the facility will offer universities, museums, local authorities, charities and private organisations affordable access to high-end tools and specialist expertise, strengthening heritage-preservation capabilities across the region. This includes a dedicated Access Fund that enables individuals, groups and organisations to apply for support on projects that make use of the facility’s equipment and expertise.

“We’re trying to fill a gap,” said Luke. “Many people want to do important heritage work but lack the time, money or technical skills.”

Equipment in the Coastal and Inland Waters Heritage Science Facility

Luke will also contribute directly to CIW’s research. “There will be space for me to do field work and peer-reviewed research in this role, as well as develop opensource documentation and tools so other researchers can use them,” he said.

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Research technical professionals

CHANGE IN ACTION – THE TECHNICIAN COMMITMENT Expert technical staff play a vital role in research, knowledge transfer, and education. Yet technical careers have historically lacked visibility and opportunity across the higher education sector.

Right: Professor Michael Butler (third from right) with TCIG Faculty Leads at the Technician Conference 2025

Through the Technician Commitment – a global university and research institution initiative with 140 signatories – Southampton is part of a movement to change that. “The Commitment aims to ensure visibility, professional recognition, career development, and sustainability for technicians,” explained Sonia Gomez del Castillo, Equality Charters Project Manager overseeing the Technician Commitment initiative.

At Southampton, the Technician Commitment Implementation Group (TCIG), led by Professor Michael Butler (Dean of Engineering and Physical Science) and facilitated by Sonia, is embedding the Commitment across the University. Four facultybased Technical Leads sit on the TCIG and help shape and deliver its objectives.

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Since becoming an early signatory in 2018, the University has submitted three action plans and made significant progress.

The Commitment includes a focus on addressing the sector shortage of skilled technical staff and improving career opportunities for technicians.

At Southampton, a new Level 6 grade within the Technical and Experimental (TAE) job family recognises senior technical expertise and offers progression without the need to move to the Management, Specialist and Administrative (MSA), or the Education, Research and Enterprise (ERE) job families. “This removes structural barriers and ensures progression values specialist skills as much as management or academic portfolios,” said Sonia.

CELEBRATING TECHNICIAN TALENT The annual Technician Conference brings together the University’s 400-strong community of technical and experimental staff for a day of networking, learning, and celebrating the vital role technicians play across the University. Since its launch in 2022, it has become a vital platform for recognising technical excellence and shaping how the Technician Commitment is implemented.

The event opens with the Technician of the Year Awards, presented this year by Vice-Chancellor Professor Mark

Smith, celebrating outstanding contributions to teaching, research, and infrastructure. Nominations highlighted the breadth of impact technicians make across all faculties.

The conference is planned in collaboration with the technical community, allowing it to evolve and remain relevant. The event includes workshops, professional development sessions and facility tours. Themes have included collaboration, research culture, and career progression. Informal networking opportunities help strengthen connections across the University’s technical community.

I’m excited about the changing nature of technical roles across research. The Technician’s Commitment is creating real support for technical staff by recognising a range of skills and motivations and driving future opportunities.”

Dr Sargent Bray, Faculty Technician Commitment Lead for Environmental and Life Sciences

Initiatives such as the Technician’s Hub on SharePoint, the Technician Induction programme, and the annual Technician Conference and Technician of the Year Awards are boosting visibility and celebrating the community’s contributions. Technical staff now help shape University policy through representation on the TCIG and more than 20 governance groups, including Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Charters, Faculty Boards and Senate. The Commitment is also integrated into the University’s wider Equality Charters programme.

To ensure fair recognition of technicians’ contribution to research, the University has introduced Fair Attribution Guidance

to accompany its Authorship, Contribution and Publishing Policy. Technicians are also supported to access internal and external professional development opportunities, including Centre for Higher Education Practice (CHEP) training and the Herschel Programme for Women in Technical Leadership.

The impact of these changes is being felt, said Sonia. “In the 2023 Pulse Survey, 75 per cent of technical and experimental staff intended to remain at the University for at least two years – a 10 per cent increase on 2022.”

Looking ahead, the 2025–28 action plan aims to align faculty technical lead roles

with current needs; embed technical contributions into national research, knowledge exchange, and teaching frameworks; promote professional development through CHEP; foster crossfaculty collaboration; and define and embed the Research Technical Professional (RTP) role classification.

Dr Jorge Mendoza, Faculty Technician Commitment Lead for Engineering and Physical Sciences, welcomed these developments: “The RTP role is an example of the importance of recognising the expertise and contributions of those staffing our core facilities.”

Southampton’s progress was recognised with an Award of Impact at the Technician Commitment Signatory Event in May 2025, with the Peer Review Panel praising the University’s ‘ambitious action plan.’

“The Technician Commitment has raised the profile of technicians across the University and highlighted their critical contributions,” commented Professor Michael Bulter. “It’s a pleasure to support the TCIG in driving forward these initiatives, and I’m grateful for the excellent support from Sonia and colleagues. Our Technician Conference is always a highlight, with strong engagement and great networking opportunities. I encourage more technical staff to get involved in that and other Technician Commitment activities.”

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Public engagement

RESHAPING RESEARCH CULTURE The power of public participation Today, we recognise that medical research’s historical focus on male subjects produced gaps, biases and risks that still negatively affect healthcare. Researchers across the academic community now understand that meaningful engagement with diverse communities is essential for trustworthy research that answers societal needs. Re:action spoke to Professor Lucy Green, Head of Engagement for Medicine at the University, about how this shift is becoming embedded in Medicine’s research culture.

Expanding the research team “For some researchers, research culture traditionally meant your lab, your students, and your colleagues, but that is changing,” said Lucy. “Involving the public is now recognised as a core part of research, which allows you to expand your team’s skills and perspectives.”

Successful engagement enables researchers to incorporate the views and experiences of people with varied educational, financial, cultural, and personal backgrounds, including those with health conditions. “It should get you as a researcher thinking differently about what you do, your results, the language you use, and maybe even your next steps,” said Lucy.

The nature of public engagement is changing too. “When I started, I chatted to people at festivals about the science, but I felt I couldn’t get more involved because my work was very lab-based. But the context and direction and even the subject that a researcher is choosing to work on are all things the public can have opinions about.”

Public and patient participants already contribute widely to the faculty’s research, particularly in clinical research, through everything from reviewing grant applications to shaping research questions and sharing 34

findings. “When you start to think in those terms, there’s no reason why you can’t have a more diverse voice in all research,” said Lucy.

“And funders increasingly expect engagement to be built in from the start of a project.”

Making public engagement work Effective engagement requires trust, built in an equitable, respectful environment.

Researchers must avoid assumptions and think carefully about what people need to make participation possible. Physical access must be considered and, Lucy believes, “It’s about creating a safe, welcoming space, so that people feel empowered to contribute their ideas. Real public engagement requires bravery on both sides.”

Above all, “good public engagement and involvement need resourcing,” stressed Lucy. Both researcher time and participant reimbursement must be built into grant applications.

Recognition matters too: Medicine’s Public Contributor Recognition Scheme has honoured more than 100 contributors with certificates, and invites them back as lay judges for presentations at the faculty’s research conference. “It’s a way to say, ‘thank you.’ It demonstrates our esteem and helps build relationships,” said Lucy.

Professor Lucy Green

Skills and creativity Hosting skills are crucial to creating open conversations. Lucy is part of a team behind new Hosting Skills training for Medicine students, staff, and community partners.

This is enabled by Research Culture funding and inspired by the ‘Making Coproduction Meaningful’ report produced in collaboration with Southampton Voluntary Services. The team is working with the Centre for Higher Education Practice (CHEP) to develop more widely available resources.

Involving the public is now recognised as a core part of research, which allows you to expand your team’s skills and perspectives.”

Professor Lucy Green

Illustration from the Creative Conceptions project

How researchers choose to connect with people is also key, explained Lucy. Creative approaches can be powerful tools for starting conversations. Her recent project with Biological Sciences’ Professor Jessica Teeling and Dr Jenny Baverstock, and Professor Jane Lavery (Languages, Cultures and Linguistics), explored trust in healthcare with a Southampton African and African Caribbean community. Through film, artsbased activities, and shared meals, the project led to the creation of the ‘Comfort Cookbook: African and Caribbean recipes for those in care towards the end of life’.

The illustrated book interweaves recipes with testimonies about trust and end-of-life care. At an upcoming stakeholder workshop, it will be used to prompt discussions with healthcare providers and policymakers.

Lucy is now working on Creative Conceptions, an arts-based engagement to explore pregnancy journey stories from local women of Black and South Asian background.

Arts-based engagement is also used in Medicine’s teaching, including the Medical Humanities module, which explores health and the human experience through arts, humanities, and social sciences.

Building capacity To ensure that diverse voices are heard throughout research, Lucy emphasised that public engagement must become ‘business as usual.’ As well as the high-quality training available from the Public Engagement with Research Unit (PERu) and CHEP, researchers need access to supportive frameworks and systems.

Lucy stressed the need to build capacity, highlighting the work of the Patient and Public Involvement Team in Primary Care, Population Sciences and Medical Education (PPM). The team has brought public voices into research governance by establishing community fora which review research proposals. In addition, its Listening Café invites PPM researchers into community spaces for guided conversations about what matters to local people. As Lucy explained, “This provides a tested framework that researchers can slot into for public input on their research. In time, it could work for researchers in other areas of the faculty.”

Towards coproduction “Researchers who do this well talk about doing research with, not to, people,” said Lucy. “In other words, coproduction – working as equal partners throughout the research cycle.” Lucy is optimistic that, as

researchers get more confident and more funding becomes available, engagement and co-production will happen earlier in project development for a wider range of research disciplines.

This, she said, is vital for both the quality of discoveries and their societal impact.

The University’s Social Values Framework provides important guidance for researchers. Increasingly, policymakers and strategies, including the University’s Civic University Partnership Agreement, recognise that meaningful change requires collaboration between policymakers, practitioners, researchers, and communities.

“People need to be part of shaping new technologies, medicines, and interventions, so that they are relevant to them and their needs and are usable.”

Find out more: Creative Conceptions jhg.art/events/open-call-creativeconceptions Making Coproduction Meaningful southamptonvs.org.uk/wp-content/ uploads/2025/01/Making-CoproductionMeaningful-for-web-Nov2024.pdf 35

Mentoring and leadership

SMOOTHING THE PATH TO PROMOTION Who feels confident going for promotion, and why? Professor Manda Banerji, Associate Dean for Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) in Engineering and Physical Sciences (FEPS), noted that, despite a desire to recruit women to Head of School roles within the faculty, there was a dearth of applicants: in fact, less than 15 per cent of staff at an eligible level to apply were women. “So you’ve got a very limited pool of people to draw from.

“The reasons why women and other underrepresented groups sometimes don’t put themselves forward are very complex, and the problem is by no means unique to our faculty or to Southampton,” commented Manda.

In Arts and Humanities (FAH), Associate Dean Education Professor Bonnie Latimer said, “We could see from qualitative data but, more importantly, from the lived experience of colleagues, that many people found the promotions process mysterious and off-putting. This was particularly the case for colleagues with some protected characteristics.”

Working together, Bonnie, Manda and Professor Yasmin Sekhon Dhillon, Associate Dean EDI in FAH, alongside other senior leaders from both faculties, set out to help colleagues feel more supported in the promotions process.

“We wanted to connect on a human level,” said Bonnie. “Working directly with colleagues and building a space where people could be open, vulnerable, and learn from each other felt like the right approach.”

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Professor Manda Banerji

Space to write “Across our two faculties we ran a halfday writing retreat where people could get advice on promotions applications,” explained Manda. “We also offered a working session with promotions panel members available to give advice.”

Spaces on the retreat were limited and open to people nominated by heads of school, with a focus on increasing the diversity of promotions applicant pools. Part of the goal was to help people carve out space – “women especially may be juggling caring responsibilities and

Professor Bonnie Latimer

don’t feel they have time to dedicate to a promotion application” – while also helping bust some myths about promotion.

“There’s a common idea, for example, that you can’t get promoted the first time you apply, which just isn’t true. Often people’s only source of information around promotion will be their line manager, whose idea of what constitutes a good case might not actually be what the panel is looking for.

“We wanted to give people access to perspectives from a diverse range of voices.”

Professor Yasmin Sekhon Dillon

Shared learning Feedback has shown that “the promotion workshops provided valuable opportunities to ask questions, gain insight into the promotions process, and dedicate focused time to their applications,” reflected Yasmin.

“Participants appreciated the sense of community and shared learning fostered in the sessions, helping to move the experience away from what can be an isolated and individual process.”

The initiative ran for the second time this year; there are plans to run it again in 2026 and expand into other faculties. A mentoring network has also been set up which matches people seeking promotion with mentors outside their school or department, ensuring they get a range of input.

There is early evidence that the initiative has had a positive impact on the promotion prospects of attendees, but Manda was keen to emphasise that this was not the only valid outcome. “Our aim was to give people tools and information to evaluate their own readiness for promotion. We considered it a success when some attendees decided to wait until the following year to apply.”

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Mentoring and leadership

NURTURING RESEARCH CULTURE IN THE ARTS “The Faculty of Arts and Humanities (FAH) is large and it’s varied,” said Professor Ryan Bishop from Winchester School of Art (WSA). “There’s a staggering variety of research being conducted within the faculty as a whole, and certainly within our school: from people who paint on canvas to those making moving image work to traditional textiles and intelligent wearables for health purposes, to games, curation, and text-based publishing.” and Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) mentoring. Other priorities are specific to the needs of arts researchers, such as a focus on how practice-based research relates to more traditional forms, and how non-traditional research outputs can be documented and celebrated. In terms of the latter, a customised tracking tool is now available in Sharepoint, designed to capture a full picture of these outputs for the Research Excellence Framework (REF) – including the ability to add portfolio attachments.

His role as a research leader, he explained, entails understanding the context in which this research is taking place, bringing an overview of what’s happening at a school, faculty and University level – as well as connecting researchers with the wider sector, in his case “the artistic, design and fashion communities.”

Ryan has been at the WSA for 14 years, starting as a researcher and then serving as director of the FAH Graduate School before becoming Head of Research for the Department of Art and Media Technology. His long experience with the school has enabled him to support its recent transition towards becoming more research-focused, tackling the unique challenges of nurturing research culture in the arts.

Difficult playing field “We’re operating in a wider cultural context where the arts and humanities are devalued, so part of research leadership is being ambassadors for what we contribute to society,” said Ryan. He is deeply involved with the Southampton Institute of Arts and Humanities Public Life series, which enables arts and humanities scholars to show how their research contributes to the world and improves lives.

The devaluation of the arts “makes for a difficult playing field,” he said. “We try to generate the capacity for our people to

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Professor Ryan Bishop

prioritise research, whether that’s carving out sabbaticals, offering research leave, or finding small pots of funding for researching an archive or creating an exhibition or something similar.”

Action plan Like all Heads of Research, Ryan works from a strategy which outlines department priorities around research culture. Some items on his action plan reflect how research culture is supported across the University – including demystifying key tools such as Pure and Worktribe (research information systems); a focus on grant development and planning;

The struggle for funding makes prioritising research time especially challenging in arts research, said Ryan. He emphasised that this prioritisation is only made possible in his department through the interdependence of the research community, as staff support one another by taking on administration and teaching to enable others’ research outputs.

This kind of collegial work is increasingly recognised by the REF, which now asks specifically about staff’s ability to prioritise research time. “I’m keen to help people understand that the REF has changed,” said Ryan. “It’s no longer so much about individual researcher output, but rather a snapshot of us as a research community.”

Sparking connections Nurturing collaboration is key in an arts and humanities context, where it’s more common

for researchers to work solo. “You don’t go into research to have your biases confirmed; you go to have them challenged,” said Ryan.

“So it’s crucial to know what others are doing.

You never know when that’s going to spark a new idea, how someone else’s work might cross over with your own research agenda.”

To facilitate this, Ryan’s department holds regular in-person staff events, including “a seminar where people give whirlwind presentations about their current research.

Everyone can familiarise themselves with who’s who and what everyone else is doing.

“We also do work-in-progress events where people can share their research agendas, book proposals or grant applications. It’s good to share at different stages of the research

journey, and with researchers at all career stages coming together.”

Unique position Research leadership, Ryan emphasised, is not the sole preserve of any one person or job title. “It’s embodied by everybody. It can come from any level, and it’s something that we all have to do as part of our daily life.”

The skills this entails, he said, are “an awareness of context and connectivity, the way in which there are individual and collective contributions to a research environment; a sense of being collegial with, and supportive of, your colleagues.”

He is proud that visitors and newcomers to the school often comment on its collegiality.

“That’s something that you have to nourish and cultivate, and to me it’s a mark of a healthy research culture.

“Unfortunately, there are other contexts where the culture is the opposite of that – as I’m sure people will be shocked to learn, academics and artists can have egos! But at the WSA I think we understand our unique position in being situated within a Russell Group University, where research is valued and valourised.”

The best part of his role, he said, is encouraging others to be ambitious with their research.

“Most people are in this job because research brings them joy – they know that it’s a privilege, being paid to pursue the things you love. I want others to feel emboldened to do the work that nourishes their academic soul.”

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Mentoring and leadership

MENTORING MATTERS “ INCLUSION, BELONGING AND COMMUNITY” AS MUMS CONNECT OVER COFFEE Few times in life are as challenging as the arrival of a child, and navigating this alongside the unique demands of an academic career can be an isolating experience. This is why Dr Sarah Lewthwaite, Principal Research Fellow in the Southampton Education School, set up the peer-mentoring ‘Coffee Connect’ scheme for research-active mums in the Faculty of Social Sciences (FSS).

Sarah, who is also a UKRI Future Leaders Fellow, as well as the Researcher Development Concordat Champion for her faculty (with Professor Olga Maslovskaya), saw a need “for people to share knowledge and experiences as they make their way through the world of parenthood.” The start-up phase was funded

by Research England Enhancing Research Culture (ERC) funding – beginning in May

2025. It had been intended specifically for mums, as part of the Education School’s aim to address gendered dimensions of research culture, but there are ambitions to expand it to dads and carers more broadly.

The Coffee Connect model is simple, informal and flexible, with participants invited to connect monthly with a randomly allocated peer. During the start-up phase, 12 women opted into the scheme from across Social Sciences and, by request, Environmental and Life Sciences (FELS). They ranged from those immediately returning from maternity leave to those with school-aged children.

Feedback suggests that the scheme effectively combines emotional support with tangible professional benefits, creating a supportive ecosystem for mothers seeking

Dr Sarah Lewthwaite

to maintain research momentum while navigating the challenges of parenthood as an academic. Its benefits include reducing isolation, facilitating the sharing of practical knowledge, and contributing to professional resilience.

“This is just a very small part of the inclusion, belonging and community we need at the University – not to mention all the vital work that’s being done around structural issues, such as reducing precarity and renewing family policies,” said Sarah. “But what’s great about this little scheme is that it gives a very personal touch at a moment when your life is changing.

“A lot of mentoring and coaching is about the long haul, asking career development questions about where you see yourself in ten years’ time. But sometimes being a new parent is about getting to the end of the week! It helps to have reassurance from someone who’s maybe a little bit further on, who can encourage you to keep going.”

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“ EVIDENCE OF AN EXCELLENT ENVIRONMENT” IN ELECTRONICS AND COMPUTER SCIENCE initiative was founded by Dorota in September 2017, and she now runs it alongside ECS Senior Mentor Professor Neil M. White.

Unlike many other schemes, staff are not paired with a mentor but are encouraged to proactively select one or more from a list of 55 available, depending on which category of expertise they wish to explore. These specialty areas include EDI, professional recognition, commercialisation, student engagement, and many more.

Dorota Sikorska

The School of Electronics and Computer Science (ECS) mentoring scheme was introduced “to support ECS staff throughout their careers at Southampton, helping new staff settle in, providing information on University and School processes and ways of working, and offering comprehensive support for colleagues seeking career progression,” said Dorota A. Sikorska, Operations Manager and one of the ECS Directors for Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI).

“It has played an important role in bringing the community together and improving EDI, staff retention, wellbeing, performance, morale, and satisfaction.

“Additionally, it provides support for staff undergoing significant changes in their personal lives.”

The Scheme is flexible and accessible, and can be used at any time, for as long as needed; it is available to all staff, irrespective of job family, career pathway, or level of seniority. The

Training is provided for mentors, along with regular Mentoring Café events where mentors can share ideas, discuss challenges, and collectively identify appropriate approaches.

The scheme has played an important role in bringing the community together and improving EDI, staff retention, wellbeing, performance, morale, and satisfaction.”

Dorota Sikorska

In combination with the ECS Career and Promotion Workshops introduced at the same time, the mentoring scheme has played a key role in significantly improving promotion success rates for Education, Research and Enterprise staff endorsed by the School, rising from 49 per cent in 2013–2017 to 100 per cent in 2018–2024. “We’ve also seen an increase in successful grant applications since the scheme’s inception,” said Dorota.

“It has contributed to a more inclusive workplace culture and a stronger sense of community, resulting in improved staff satisfaction and engagement.”

Scheme participants agree: one survey respondent called school mentoring “one of the best things about ECS”, while others commented on its “possibilities for professional growth” and “support during a difficult time in my life.”

One former mentee concluded, “It’s evidence of an excellent environment.”

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Mentoring and leadership

A THRIVING CULTURE OF MENTORING IN MEDICINE and a maternity, paternity, adoption, and family scheme.

This thriving culture of mentoring has been a labour of love for Nicola Englyst, Professor of Medical Education, who leads on mentoring in the faculty. She co-ordinates the schemes, chairs the mentoring committee of staff from all pathways and levels, and runs workshops for mentors around commonly discussed topics such as work-life balance, appraisals, and becoming a lecturer.

Professor Nicola Englyst

Over the last 20 years, mentoring in the Faculty of Medicine has grown from a list of eight mentors on a piece of paper to an online database of over 100. The faculty’s staff and postgraduate researcher mentoring scheme enables prospective mentees to choose their own mentor or be paired through a matching service; there are also more specialist schemes, including one focused on mentoring for promotion,

“Mentoring is deeply personal, and people come to it with a wide range of needs and goals,” said Nicola. “Some are at an early career stage and thinking about progression.

Increasingly we’re seeing people later in their career looking for greater job satisfaction in the last ten years of their working life, and a mentor can help broaden their horizons.

Other people are struggling with something specific, such as a situation at home or a work relationship, and need help to navigate that.”

With this personal dimension in mind, “when we’re matching pairs we really think about things like rapport, about whether this

mentee needs a ‘big brother or sister’ who’s one step ahead in their career, or someone more senior who has a broad overview of the University.” The format of each mentoring relationship is equally variable: “Some people might have weekly meetings with a mentor over three months, while others will meet once a year for 20 years!”

Countless mentees have contacted Nicola over the years to share how mentoring has helped them, including PGR students who are clear that without a mentor they might not have continued with their studies. And there are wider benefits, too: mentors “get real enjoyment from what they do, and it helps their development as researchers by giving them a broader outlook.”

There are tangible benefits to the faculty, Nicola observed, both in terms of funding – “lots of fellowship funders, for example, like to know there’s an active mentoring scheme” – and in terms of culture due to “an improvement to research culture which grows out of people’s altruism. So, mentoring serves a wider purpose as well as bringing benefits to people on an individual level.”

A NEW CHAPTER FOR LIBRARY STAFF DEVELOPMENT or how they work), was second nature in our culture, yet mentoring requests were rare. And mentoring matters – one of our learning priorities is to be a connected learning network,” she said.

Informal mentoring existed within the Library but lacked structure and recognition. So, to design a better model, the team “did what librarians do best – we researched!”

Lucy Marr

“‘Why weren’t Library staff asking for mentoring?’ That was the question that sparked our journey,” explained Lucy Marr, Library Learning & Development Lead. “‘Speedy shadowing’ (joining another team for up to 2 hours, to meet a specific aim of learning about what that team does,

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Benchmarking across Higher Education Libraries, exploring other University of Southampton schemes, and diving into the academic literature led to a complete rethink.

“The research surprised us, and the scheme we’ve designed as a result is different from any mentoring we’ve run before,” said Lucy.

They found that there was value in having a cohort approach, where new mentors and mentees sign up once a year, rather than at the time of need. The annual cohort can help create a sense of excitement and immediacy, which encourages more people to sign up.

“This meant we could also have a ‘menu’ of mentors, so that potential mentees could consider who they wanted to be mentored by, something which has been effective elsewhere.

“Lastly, we realised we’d been promoting only one benefit of mentoring, career progression, while the research showed a far wider range of benefits. In the new scheme we’ve embraced these, which include improving diversity, and staff receiving support with returning from long term leave and adjusting to changes at work.”

The scheme is reciprocal, inclusive, and aimed at all Library staff. The pilot – running this academic year – is designed to help the Library team learn, adapt, and refine their approach for the future.

“We hope it will empower those who take part, help to improve our staff engagement, and give people confidence, skills and opportunities they would not otherwise have had,” concluded Lucy.

I had a very supportive supervisor and a great group of friends doing PhDs already, who helped me navigate everything. I joined the scheme because I want to help people like me see that this path is open to them too.”

Alex Robinson

“ THIS PATH IS OPEN TO THEM TOO” – ACCESSIBLE ROUTES INTO POSTGRADUATE RESEARCH Emily Wardale, Heather Pasero and Henry Bushell (Careers, Employability and Student Enterprise) – successfully matched 15 mentor-mentee pairs across all five faculties.

Both mentors and mentees received tailored training and bespoke resources to help foster meaningful mentoring relationships over a six-month period.

Alex Robinson

The ‘Progress to PhD’ Peer Mentoring Scheme supports undergraduate and postgraduate taught students from underrepresented backgrounds who are interested in pursuing doctoral research.

The scheme pairs these students with current PhD mentors, primarily matched by shared or aligned research interests.

In 2024/25, the scheme – led by Dr Maisha Islam, Doctoral College Research Culture Lead (Equality, Diversity and Inclusion),

This pilot year showed encouraging early outcomes: 100% of mentees reported feeling knowledgeable or very knowledgeable about doctoral study following mentoring; 75% of mentees said they were very likely or somewhat likely to seek further information about doctoral pathways; 100% of mentors found the experience professionally enriching; and 75% of mentees felt the scheme had empowered them to apply for a PhD or doctoral programme.

“Coming from a low socioeconomic background and being the first in my family to go to university, I didn’t have access to the same networks or knowledge that others did,” said Alex Robinson, a PhD student from Clinical and Experimental Sciences who was a mentor on the pilot scheme. “Fortunately, I had a very supportive supervisor and a great group of friends doing PhDs already, who

helped me navigate everything. I joined the scheme because I want to help people like me see that this path is open to them too.”

Alex said that the experience of becoming a mentor has also been instrumental in his own development. “I really had to listen and get a feel for what my mentee needed, then support them in finding the right next steps, even if they weren’t ones I had taken myself.

It has also made me much more aware of how people’s backgrounds and experiences shape the kind of support they need.”

The second cohort will launch this academic year, continuing to support institutional efforts in a building positive research cultures with more accessible routes into postgraduate research.

Find out more about the ‘Progress to PhD’ Peer Mentoring scheme (internal link): https://sotonac.sharepoint.com/:u:/r/ teams/PGRDevelopmentHub/ SitePages/%27Progress-toPhD%27-Peer-Mentoring-Scheme. aspx?csf=1&web=1&e=0ijb6G

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Mentoring and leadership

ON THE RISE Developing women in leadership

“Asking women to look at their strengths can be quite an uncomfortable thing to do,” said Steph Semmence, Employee Development Specialist in Human Resources, who runs RISE, the University’s leadership programme for women. RISE begins with exactly this kind of selfexamination, with participants invited to spend a half day assessing personal success factors, values and goals.

It’s the beginning of a journey which guides a cohort of women at Levels 5 and 6 through career and personal development.

The topics explored include creating a positive personal impact; confidence and empowerment; networking and visibility; leadership styles; and career resilience.

RISE and Sprint RISE was introduced in 2023, after Steph reviewed past women’s development programmes and concluded that “what really made a difference was cohorts of women coming together to support each other. We also wanted something that could integrate well with other leadership development work across the University.” The RISE programme, created and facilitated by Gillian Jones-Williams of Emerge Development Consultancy, fit the bill. After a successful pilot, the programme ran again in 2024 and

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2025, when a shorter online version called Sprint was also introduced.

The programme has proved popular, with applicants outnumbering spaces. Steph passes on recommendations based on Equality, Diversity and Inclusion data to faculty Deans, who make final nominations. “Predominantly we’re looking to recruit women on an academic pathway, because the data tells us that’s where progression is harder.”

Mutual support “The programme takes a holistic approach to helping women realise their careers,” explained Steph. “It explores what’s important to them in their lives, not just the work context.”

Steph identified the ‘Confidence and Empowerment’ module as an example of how

Steph Semmence

the programme helps women challenge their automatic responses. “Women can tend to be people-pleasers; we underestimate our skills. We’re far more likely to say ‘sorry’, and to say ‘yes’ indiscriminately.” As well as asking participants to reflect on colleagues’ feedback around their strengths, the module helps them identify the values and goals which underpin their decisions about what to take on – and offers practical techniques for giving an assertive ‘no’ where necessary.

On top of the programme delivered by Gillian, Steph offers opportunities for the women to come together between sessions and review their learning with an eye to putting it into practice. Participants are also paired with a mentor, assigned not with an eye to a specific academic path, but “somebody who has the relevant life experience to support them. That might be

The 2025 RISE cohort

somebody with experience of returning to work after having children, for example, or experience of being in a minority group.”

(Management, Specialist and Administrative) participants, two have been promoted and three have acted in roles above their grade.

The mutual support provided by the cohort has been identified by participants as transformative. “The best thing was getting to know all the other excellent women from across the University,” said one: others cited the “network of like-minded people” and “opportunity to share the journey.”

Many participants have gone on to become mentors on the programme, or trained as Time to Think facilitators (a leadership development approach conceived by author Nancy Kline), continuing to support their own and others’ leadership journeys.

Better outcomes 36 women on academic pathways have now completed the RISE programme, 14 of whom have since been promoted. Of 19 MSA

“I think the women gain more confidence in all sorts of areas, whether it’s applying for funding, presenting their findings, or speaking out and standing up for who they are,” reflected Steph. “They develop a

network of cross-collaboration which opens opportunities to work together.

“And a number of women have been able to think beyond their research area about how they can scale up and reach a wider audience. That’s helping create better outcomes across the University.”

RISE and Sprint will run again in 2026 from March–July.

Find out more: Contact S.A.Semmence@soton.ac.uk

PROFESSOR ZOË WALTERS – GUIDED BY CORE VALUES “Like many people, I approach programmes like this with a degree of scepticism!” admitted Professor Zoë Walters from the School of Cancer Sciences, who took part in the RISE pilot in 2023. “But I don’t think I appreciated just how helpful it was going to be.”

An Associate Professor when she joined the programme, Zoë was at a transitional stage in her career – returning to work after having her second child; wanting to reestablish a focus on research alongside her teaching; and considering applying for promotion.

“One of the key questions for me was, how can I manage being a mum alongside maintaining an international reputation, which involves frequent travel? The programme supported me to identify my core values, and that’s now made these decisions surprisingly easy. It also helped me consolidate what was actually necessary to

say ‘yes’ to along the path to professorship.”

The programme’s success, she said, is rooted in its whole-person approach. “It’s not just about work, it’s fundamentally about you as a person. It asks what’s important to you and what this looks like in the context of work.”

As well as shaping her choices around what to take on, this process helped Zoë identify collaborators who share her core beliefs, and to clarify a vision for how she leads her team.

Making an honest assessment of her own strengths and inner barriers was empowering, she said. “The programme gets you to examine the things that are holding you back – maybe an old belief or perception about yourself. There were things I’d been living with for years that I was finally able to deal with.”

like that’s arrogance, but it’s not. When you’re going for promotion, you need to sing your own praises, so preparing the groundwork is a key step.”

Despite feeling awkward reading colleagues’ positive feedback, Zoë ultimately found herself able to take it on board. “When enough people say it, you start to think it might be true! As women, we tend to feel

Since completing RISE, Zoë has been promoted to full professor. “More so than with any other programme I’ve done, my learning from RISE has been embedded into what I do,” she said.

Professor Zoe Walters

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Mentoring and leadership

LEADING QUESTIONS Challenging conventional leadership dynamics through two innovative programmes Traditionally, workplace mentoring entails a more senior person sharing their experience with a junior colleague. Reverse mentoring – in which the dynamic is flipped – is helping to equip senior managers to better understand and respond to the challenges faced by minoritised groups.

Southampton’s first University-wide Reverse Mentoring (RM) Programme ran in 2021, after “Sally Curtis and Jackie Kelly came to the Institutional EDI committee and spoke about the work they’d done with reverse mentoring in Medicine,” recalled Camilla Gibson, Head of Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) in Human Resources. “The COVID-19 pandemic had lifted the lid on so many entrenched inequalities, and we felt the need to do more.”

Building on the model used in Medicine, Camilla set up the University RM Programme alongside Director of Widening Participation and Social Mobility, Gino Graziano. The programme ran for a second time in 2023– 2024, with Professor Shelley Parr, Director of the Centre for Higher Education Practice (CHEP), and Dr Neelam Wright, Senior Teaching Fellow in the Doctoral College professional development team within CHEP, being key to this new iteration. The programme was made possible by Research England Enhancing Research Culture funding,

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and supported by external company The Reverse Mentoring Practice. Medicine still runs faculty-wide reverse mentoring programmes.

Personal perspectives The University Executive Board (UEB), from which mentees for the RM Programme were drawn, were “conscious of their own limitations in terms of diversity and breadth of experience,” said Camilla. “Although we do everything that we can around diverse recruitment at the University, we can’t change who holds those positions overnight.

“This programme was a conscious effort to say, how can we bring in different perspectives?”

Mentors, who identified as having a protected characteristic (as defined by the Equality Act 2010, or additional characteristics recognised by the University of Southampton, such as gender identity and social mobility) were drawn from among the staff and student

FABIEN LITTEL AND YVONNE HAWKINS – THE POWER OF LISTENING Fabien Littel, a PhD student in the Business School, was paired with Yvonne Hawkins, Executive Director for Governance, Legal Services, Risk and Resilience.

“As a mature student in my 40s and as a gay student, this was the first time I’d really had an outlet at the University to share my experiences,” said Fabien. For Yvonne, the programme was “a chance to live mine and our values as an organisation which cares about inclusive leadership.”

From their first meeting, Fabien was upfront about his experiences. Yvonne recalled, “I had an idealised idea of the University as a liberal, enriching place, and I remember being shocked to hear that Fabien’s experiences here had been more complex than that.” Similarly, her assumptions about the relative ease of coming out as gay in today’s society were challenged.

“Yvonne was a wonderful listener and very honest in her reactions,” said Fabien. “I think this gave us a strong foundation from early on.”

Unlearning the instinct to “offer solutions and fixes” was a challenge, said Yvonne, but

communities through the University’s equality networks. Both they and the mentees received training before embarking on the programme: “The senior leaders need to get used to not being in the driving seat; the mentors need tools and confidence to steer the conversation and challenge assumptions.”

Mentors and mentees were matched to maximise the difference in their life experiences, and then met for six one-to-one conversations over a six-month period. During this time mentors also met for peer support and troubleshooting sessions, with the whole cohort brought together at the end to share lessons learned.

For Neelam, wellbeing was central to the design of the new scheme: “Some RM schemes end up exploiting minoritised staff and underestimate the impact of the emotional labour involved.

Mindful of this, we embedded wellbeing activities, resources, and check-ins throughout.

I’m proud to say that 100 per cent of our

Yvonne Hawkins

a key part of the mentee experience. “You’re there to listen.” And this listening had a powerful impact for Fabien. “The fact that I had somebody at the top of the University who was willing to have these discussions with me at a human level, that made me feel heard and gave me the confidence to speak up in a wider context.”

Fabien has gone on to become involved in other University EDI projects, including the working group convened after the 2025 UK

Fabien Littel

Supreme Court Judgment on the definition of “sex”.

Yvonne said that her mentoring sessions with Fabien “helped take the issues off the page and brought them to life.

“It’s not very often once you get to a senior position that you are asked to listen. I’ve been challenged to reflect on how I can help shape the culture so that people do feel empowered to contribute and have their voice heard.”

evaluation respondents felt psychologically safe in their mentoring relationship.”

Feedback showed that mentors gained from peer networking and support, as well as from the insights and opportunities that came through growing a relationship with a senior colleague. Past mentees said that the experience had changed their perspectives of processes, systems and experiences of being in the University; they were also able to describe significant changes in the way they engaged with their staff.

“There’s a lot of appetite to run the Universitywide RM programme again, as participants tend to have a really positive experience,” said Camilla. “But I’m keen to keep evaluating the impact that past programmes have had, so that we can be confident the programme is leading to real culture change.”

Dr Neelam Wright

Continued on page 48 →

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Mentoring and leadership

Although we do everything that we can around diverse recruitment at the University, we can’t change who holds those positions overnight.

This programme was a conscious effort to say, how can we bring in different perspectives?”

Camilla Gibson

Continued from page 47 Deeper work Camilla and her colleagues are also challenging the traditional dynamics of leadership through the new Compassionate and Inclusive Leadership (CIL) programme, developed with Byron Lee of Added Value Learning. Delivered over six days across several months, the programme is now in its third cohort of fourteen participants.

CIL aims to help participants develop ways of working that foster inclusive and compassionate cultures. Through facilitated conversations, cohorts explore their own leadership practices and development – including enhancing resilience, growing interpersonal skills, and influencing systemic change.

“In the EDI space we have countless actions, committees, and champions,” said Camilla.

“Yet time and time again, we see the same behaviours that aren’t conducive to an inclusive environment. We wanted to offer

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tools not for changing policy, but for doing the deeper work on our own behaviours and interactions.”

The first cohort happened to be entirely female – reflecting, said Camilla, the group typically most engaged with EDI work. “If we want to move this agenda forward and have different perspectives involved in shaping it, we need men to be involved.”

Above: Participants explore their programme experiences at an evaluation event designed by Jess Macpherson and Naomi Clements in CHEP. Photo: Vim Raichura Right: Fabien participates in an evaluation event designed by Jess Macpherson and Naomi Clements in CHEP.

In response, the second and third cohorts were all-male by design, with Principal Investigators invited to take part. “For the first all-male cohort we had 175 expressions of interest for 14 spaces – a recognition from a lot of male colleagues that this was needed and wanted.”

approach is to really understand the perspective of the people affected.”

Culture of listening As well as prompting self-reflection, the programme builds skills for conducting compassionate conversations. This is crucial for leaders, said Camilla, who “often act on instinct and jump in to try to fix things. But in the complex EDI space, the compassionate

CIL is yet to be formally evaluated, but it has highlighted the need for leaders to better understand how their leadership style and tone affect the culture, said Camilla. “If you’re a senior leader taking instant decisions without drawing in different perspectives, a pause to reflect could change everything.”

Photo: Vim Raichura

PASCAL MATTHIAS AND NICK MAGUIRE – TRANSFORMED BY VULNERABILITY Nick Maguire, Professor of Clinical Psychology, and Pascal Matthias, Associate Vice President for EDI and social justice, joined the first all-male Compassionate and Inclusive Leadership programme cohort as ‘participant experts’. As leaders in staff well-being at the University, they were both interested in “engaging men in reflection on the way we lead, how we behave, and the expectations we have of ourselves,” said Nick.

The all-male context created a genuinely safe space where “men could experience and express the emotional weight involved in leadership, which is less often spoken about,” said Pascal.

One of the main themes that emerged was around leadership styles, and the so-called ‘soft skills’ which are regularly undervalued in the workplace. “These compassionate skills have the power to change people, and to transform the thinking and culture of a group,” Pascal reflected.

Nick’s lasting impression from the course will be “witnessing the strength it takes, particularly for somebody in a senior position, to question themselves and the way they’ve always done things.” To see this type of vulnerability taken out into other spaces would be a transformative

outcome of the course, Pascal said: “We inherit a system that says we, as men, or as senior leaders, can’t be vulnerable, because it’s seen as a weakness. But when you’re allowed to be vulnerable at any level of seniority, you can make the change that is needed.”

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Research award highlights

RESEARCH AWARD HIGHLIGHTS This list encompasses a selection of awards logged with University of Southampton Finance from April to August 2025 that are not considered commercially sensitive.

FACULTY OF ARTS AND HUMANITIES

FACULTY OF ENGINEERING AND PHYSICAL SCIENCES

Prof Joanna Sofaer; School of Humanities TVBC Collaboration Test Valley Borough Council; £10,200 over 3 months

Prof AbuBakr Bahaj; School of Engineering AI Solutions to Urban Health Using a Place-Based Approach (AI4URBAN-HEALTH) EPSRC; £24,003 over 24 months

Dr Joseph Owen; Faculty of Arts and Humanities A New Model for Visual Arts Participation AHRC; £106,444 over 12 months Prof Daniel Ashton; Winchester School of Art Creating Data Publics For Governance Arts and Humanities Research Council (UK) and Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (Canada); £5,712 over 12 months Dr Anna Collar; School of Humanities Iron Age-Roman Avebury: Excavations at Springfield, Avebury, Wiltshire Society Of Antiquaries Of London; £4,836 over 12 months Dr Anna Collar; School of Humanities Iron Age-Roman Avebury: Excavations at Springfield, Avebury, Wiltshire The Roman Society; £4,836 over 12 months Dr Duygu Candarli; School of Humanities HORIZON EUROPE (secondment) – CLARUS – Building clarity and preventing bias in digital forensic examination, interorganisational communication and interaction Innovate UK – EU Horizon Guarantee Scheme; £25,000 over 36 months

Prof Mark Zwolinski; School of Electronics and Computer Science AI Guided Functional Verification of Systems on Chip EPSRC; £39,400 over 6 months Prof Paul White; School of Engineering The acoustic detection of Asian Hornets CB Dennis Fund; £58,897 over 42 months Prof Stephen Beeby; School of Electronics and Computer Science Sustainable heterogenoUs e-textileS for impercepTible humAn INterfaces (SUSTAIN) EPSRC; £8,093,421 over 60 months Prof Martin Browne; School of Engineering APRICOT implant for finger joint osteoarthritis Versus Arthritis; £183,494 over 12 months Prof Simon Coles; School of Chemistry Provision of ‘AI ready’ data: prototyping data pipelines and repositories EPSRC; £306,031 over 6 months Dr Jacob Mackenzie; Optoelectronics Research Centre Horizon Europe – TRADES – Training & Research in Advanced Dispersion Engineered grating-waveguide Structures European Commission; £536,520 over 60 months Dr Stephen Crouch; School of Electronics and Computer Science Connecting Hub for Advancing the RTP Talent Enabling DRI (CHARTED) UK Research and Innovation; £124,919 over 48 months Prof Geoff Merrett; School of Electronics and Computer Science TinyML UK Network EPSRC; £39,550 over 30 months Prof John Preston; School of Engineering Developing a Cost Appraisal Tool for Transport Decarbonisation, Adaptation and Resilience EPSRC; £124,043 over 12 months

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Dr Eugen Stulz; School of Chemistry Horizon Europe: INT2ACT: Innovative Nucleic Acids Technologies for Analysis, Detection and Treatment European Commission; £345,799 over 48 months

Dr Xu Fang; School of Electronics and Computer Science Unwrapping topologically protected light on topologically structured surfaces Leverhulme Trust; £191,328 over 36 months

Dr Eugen Stulz; School of Chemistry Horizon Europe – ON-TRACT – OligoNucleotide Technologies for Rapid Advancement of Cancer Therapies European Commission; £3,409,842 over 48 months

Dr Milos Nedeljkovic; Optoelectronics Research Centre Bio-inspired micromachines for condition assessment of buried water supply pipes EPSRC; £317,103 over 36 months

Prof Helen Cullington and Prof Nicci Campbell; FEPS: Enterprise Listening with Unilateral versus bilateral Cochlear Implants in Adults (LUCIA): A randomised controlled trial comparing simultaneous bilateral versus unilateral cochlear implantation in adults with postlingual severe-profound hearing loss National Institute for Health and Care Research; £146,532 over 54 months

Prof Dimitra Georgiadou; School of Electronics and Computer Science Polyoxometalate Neuromorphic Memories Workshop Royal Society of Chemistry; £5,000 over 12 months

Dr Ibrahim Sari; School of Electronics and Computer Science The Innovation Knowledge Centre (IKC) for Heterogeneous Integrated MicroElectronic and Semiconductor Systems (CHIMES) EPSRC; £1,858,242 over 60 months Dr Kevin Briggs; School of Engineering How do cold-climate periglacial conditions from the last Ice Age affect infrastructure construction in the 21st century?

Royal Society; £86,837 over 21 months Dr Andrew Vowles; School of Engineering Anti-predator behaviour of shoaling fish in an illuminated world Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour; £8,918 over 12 months Prof Jordan Cheer and Dr Lawrence Singleton; School of Engineering A synergetic multi-band elastic metamaterial EPSRC; £44,438 over 12 months Prof Natalie Wheeler; Optoelectronics Research Centre Low profile thermal cell optical clock based on acetylene-filled hollow core fibre for future ground & space PNT European Space Agency; £194,425 over 24 months

Prof Manda Banerji-Wright; School of Physics and Astronomy LSST:UK Phase C Working Allowance Science And Technology Facilities Council; £139,003 over 12 months Dr Syed Zaheer Abbas; School of Chemistry CO2 Conversion to energy fuels via chemical looping reverse water gas shift technique for sustainable steelworks British Academy; £10,000 over 1 month Dr Chengchen Zhang; School of Electronics and Computer Science Artificial Swarm Intelligence of Microbeads for Revolutionising Biomarker Detection Wessex Medical Research; £17,000 over 24 months Dr Lucy Oswald; School of Physics and Astronomy Horizon Europe – PulsarMAP – Pulsar Mode-changing And Polarization: mapping out a connected picture of neutron star evolution.

European Commission; £1,113,772 over 60 months Dr Sergio Vernuccio; School of Chemistry Great British Chemicals EPSRC; £404,634 over 84 months

Prof Russell Minns; School of Chemistry Site-Selective Probes of Chemical Dynamics Leverhulme Trust; £404,132 over 36 months Dr Ruomeng Huang; School of Electronics and Computer Science Horizon Europe – MGICIAN – Magnesium based efficient thermoelectric cooling European Commission; £268,260 over 48 months

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Research award highlights

FACULTY OF ENVIRONMENTAL AND LIFE SCIENCES Prof Paul Skipp; School of Biological Sciences ABC Discover 2 – Deep Molecular Phenotyping of Metastatic Breast Cancer Against Breast Cancer; £1,285,777 over 60 months Prof Tim Minshull; School of Ocean and Earth Science 3D and 4D imaging of mid-ocean ridge magma-hydrothermal interactions: PtF2025 Natural Environment Research Council (NERC); £758,302 over 36 months Dr Danyang Li; School of Psychology Danyang Li – Understanding Romantic Relational Quality in Emerging Adults Using Attachment-related Experiments and Attribution-related Interventions ESRC; £122,164 over 12 months Dr Charlie Birts; School of Biological Sciences The impact of obesity on immune modulation in breast cancer metastasis and immunotherapy outcomes.

Against Breast Cancer; £242,453 over 36 months Prof Jadu Dash; School of Geography and Environmental Science FRUITSENSE-K- Earth Observation for Resilient Kiwifruit Orchards Science And Technology Facilities Council; £29,749 over 6 months Prof Claire Foster; School of Health Sciences Improving support for decision making after breast cancer diagnosis: co-design of an inclusive decision aid for patients offered genetic testing and tool-kit for national roll-out Breast Cancer Now; £399,061 over 48 months Prof Jo Nield; School of Geography and Environmental Science Hyper-Arid Rain Ecogeomorphology: desert grass impacts on aeolian sand transport and protodune dynamics Natural Environment Research Council (NERC); £81,820 over 6 months Prof Denis Drieghe; School of Psychology Navigating Homographs in Arabic: Insights into Reading and Comprehension Challenges ESRC; £22,778 over 36 months Dr Kate Parks; School of Geography and Environmental Science NERCOUTE Plugging the Leaks Natural Environment Research Council (NERC); £51,240 over 9 months Prof Andrew Tatem; School of Geography and Environmental Science WorldPop Core Support 2025–27 Gates Foundation; £1,826,559 over 24 months Dr Samantha Sodergren; School of Health Sciences Phase 3a and 3b of the Update of the Gastric Cancer Module, EORTC QLQ-STO22 European Org for Research & Treatment of Cancer; £204,793 over 42 months

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Prof Maeve Lohan; School of Ocean and Earth Science Fjords as Natural Incubators to understand Polar Ocean Diazotrophy (FIN-POD) Natural Environment Research Council (NERC); £100,432 over 30 months Dr Rosalind Coggon; School of Ocean and Earth Science UK IODP Moratorium Award for Jennifer Lington – Expedition 502 Natural Environment Research Council (NERC); £20,554 over 24 months Prof Mark Chapman; School of Biological Sciences NUCNet: the Novel and Underutilised Crop Network BBSRC; £541,864 over 36 months Dr Sarchil Qader; School of Geography and Environmental Science Technical Assistance for Automated EA Census Mapping – Malawi Foreign & Commonwealth Office; £123,000 over 6 months Dr Hannah Barker; School of Health Sciences Nurse shift scheduling harmony and improved flexibility across healthcare organisations National Institute for Health and Care Research; £62,696 over 12 months Prof Cathy Murphy; School of Health Sciences Co-development and optimisation of an Intermittent Catheter Needs Assessment Tool (IC-NAT) National Institute for Health and Care Research; £206,674 over 21 months Dr Paul Hurley; School of Geography and Environmental Science Expansion of the Food Safety Research Network to create and mobilise new capabilities that act on microbial risk BBSRC; £7,216 over 36 months Prof Max Crispin; School of Biological Sciences Combining structural biology with AI-guided protein design to develop new antibody-degrading enzymes BBSRC; £858,831 over 36 months Prof Max Crispin; School of Biological Sciences Structure and computationally-guided design of enzymes targeting antibody glycosylation BBSRC; £894,517 over 36 months Ms Lucy Hartland-Grant; School of Psychology Evaluating nurses’ trauma-informed approach to women’s health to develop and share a best practice model, empowering nurses through training and leadership in specialist homeless healthcare The Burdett Trust for Nursing; £35,404 over 12 months Dr Nic Bury; School of Ocean and Earth Science Drug accumulation in fish of the Solent Solent Forum; £2,000 over 12 months Dr Emily Gwyer Findlay; School of Biological Sciences Neutrophil exacerbation of T cell dysfunction in autoimmunity MRC – Senior Fellowship; £2,282,117 over 60 months

Dr Richard Meek; School of Biological Sciences Defining the hierarchical role of MYORG in the development of Primary Familial Brain Calcification MRC; £713,650 over 36 months Dr Marj Woodhouse; School of Health Sciences Optimising decision-making for assistive product selection to meet the fundamental care needs for people living at home with dementia: preparing for a fellowship application National Institute for Health and Care Research; £32,939 over 19 months Dr Ralph Gordon; School of Health Sciences Innovating novel devices to deliver localised cooling to spinal cord injury patients European Pressure Ulcer Advisory Panel Charity; £6,075 over 12 months Dr Duo Chan; School of Ocean and Earth Science Accurate projections of climate recovery from a combination of historical data, simple models and AI UK Research and Innovation; £1,375,749 over 48 months Dr Kathryn Gunn; School of Ocean and Earth Science Uncovering the Hidden Two-Way Connection between East Antarctica’s Shelf Seas and Deep Ocean (2WayXChange) Natural Environment Research Council (NERC); £757,741 over 36 months Dr Valeria Parlatini; School of Psychology The First Test Dose To Predict Longer-Term Treatment Response In Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) National Institute for Health and Care Research; £1,393,827 over 60 months Dr Kif Liakath-Ali; School of Biological Sciences RNA in-situ hybridization station and accessories Alzheimers Research UK; £5,500 over 12 months Dr Linley Hastewell; School of Geography and Environmental Science Quantifying boulder transport using RFID technology: a long-term monitoring perspective Royal Geographical Society (with IBG); £500 over 6 months

FACULTY OF MEDICINE Prof Issy Reading; Primary Care, Population Sciences and Medical Education Zeus Sleep technology: A UK-based multi-centre randomised controlled trial using transcutaneous electrical stimulation (TESLA) in patients with obstructive sleep apnoea (TESLA MICRON UK) National Institute for Health and Care Research; £25,039 over 36 months Prof Diederik Bulters; Human Development and Health Risk of Aneurysm Rupture Study – Genetic predictors of intracranial aneurysm rupture (ROAR-DNA) MRC; £1,413,389 over 48 months Prof Nicholas Harvey and Dr Elizabeth Curtis; Human Development and Health Horizon Europe – PROBE – Patient Relevant Osteoarthritis endpoints using Big data Evaluation.

European Commission; £535,185 over 60 months Prof Edd James; Cancer Sciences Exploring ERAP1 trimming in tapasin deficient cells and its impact on the predicted peptide repertoire BBSRC; £854,149 over 36 months Prof Mark Jones; Clinical and Experimental Sciences VENDYS-II® JK-001V Automated Portable System AAIR Charity; £10,000 over 12 months Prof Mark Jones; Clinical and Experimental Sciences BEET-IPF Study Southampton Hospital Charity; £6,612 over 12 months Prof Ying Cheong; Human Development and Health REPAIR: Regeneration and Endometrial Phenotyping to Advance Individualised Responses to Heavy Menstrual Bleeding Wellcome LEAP; £577,325 over 12 months Dr Salah Mansour; Clinical and Experimental Sciences Harnessing Cytotoxic iNKT Cell Subpopulations for Precision Targeting of Human AML Blood Cancer UK; £299,704 over 36 months Prof Emma King; Cancer Sciences Aim to develop and deliver better treatment choices for cancer patients from Cheshire and Merseyside treated in Clatterbridge Cancer Centre and beyond Clatterbridge Cancer Charity; £226,016 over 27 months Prof Nigel Hall; Human Development and Health Single-test accuracy study to assess the diagnostic value of faecal calprotectin to diagnose necrotising enterocolitis in infants with heart defects National Institute for Health and Care Research; £16,180 over 24 months Prof Francesco Forconi; Cancer Sciences Investigating the tumor-unique oligomannose-lectin interaction for a novel diagnostic, prognostic and antibody therapy approach in follicular lymphoma Leukemia & Lymphoma Society; £1,252,684 over 60 months

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Research award highlights

Dr Anna Freeman; Clinical and Experimental Sciences Characterising Asthma as a Complex Adaptive System using Nitrite and Sulfur-based Redox Phenotyping AAIR Charity; £10,000 over 12 months

Dr Alex Look; Cancer Sciences Enhancing Neuroblastoma Immunogenicity: Investigating Epigenetic Modulators in iNKT Cell Therapy Neuroblastoma UK; £4,970 over 12 months

Dr Stephanie Hughes and Dr Skaiste Linceviciute; Clinical and Experimental Sciences ‘Alcohol research? No thanks!’

British Academy; £9,640 over 12 months

Dr Katie Dexter and Dr David Johnston; Clinical and Experimental Sciences Cryo-fluorescence Tomography – a new paradigm for ex vivo imaging BBSRC; £568,260 over 12 months

Dr Liku Tezera; Clinical and Experimental Sciences Equipment Grant for purchasing MP Biomedicals™ FastPrep-24™ 5G Bead Beating Grinder and Lysis System AAIR Charity; £4,360 over 12 months

Prof Tim Fenton; Cancer Sciences Damian Amendra – Using an integrated multi-omic approach to link features of the tumour immune microenvironment to clinical outcome in cervical cancer – clinical PhD fellowship from the Jean Shanks Foundation / Pathological Society.

Pathological Society of Great Britain & Ireland; £294,825 over 36 months

Dr Anna Rattu; Human Development and Health Can the quality of life of adolescents with asthma be improved by focusing on improving their asthma self-management?

Asthma and Lung UK; £92,944 over 24 months Dr Anna Rattu; Clinical and Experimental Sciences Validation of the Paediatric Severe Asthma Questionnaire – Equipment Grant AAIR Charity; £2,396 over 18 months Dr Lisa Ballard; Primary Care, Population Sciences and Medical Education Supporting the sharing of inherited disease risk within families: development of an online tool.

National Institute for Health and Care Research; £424,276 over 36 months Dr Helena Lee; Clinical and Experimental Sciences Feasibility of Oral Levodopa Treatment in Improving Visual Development in Infants and Young Children with Albinism MRC; £201,082 over 36 months Dr Nida Ziauddeen; Primary Care, Population Sciences and Medical Education Utilising routinely collected maternal and early life data to quantify childhood health risk Southampton University Hospitals NHS Trust; £19,995 over 18 months Dr Carolina Jaramillo Oquendo; Clinical and Experimental Sciences Mapping RNA isoform diversity in nasal epithelial cells to improve diagnostics in Primary Ciliary Dyskinesia patients AAIR Charity; £10,000 over 30 months Dr V V G Krishna Inavalli; Cancer Sciences An open access Advanced Stimulated Emission Depletion (STED) Super resolution microscope for sub-cellular imaging BBSRC; £877,870 over 12 months Dr Samantha Meredith; Human Development and Health Building bridges with older people in the community: A public involvement project to provide insight into a home exercise programme Vivensa Foundation; £4,984 over 12 months

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Prof Tracey Sach; Primary Care, Population Sciences and Medical Education Public Involvement in Health Economics Research National Institute for Health and Care Research; £98,951 over 18 months Professor Kay Wang and Nour Odeh; Primary Care, Population Sciences and Medical Education Reducing Antibiotic Use for Acute Respiratory Symptoms in People with Asthma: Intervention Development, Optimisation, and Feasibility Study AAIR Charity; £7,200 over 21 months Professor Kay Wang and Kate Gillett; Primary Care, Population Sciences and Medical Education Understanding the Role of Respiratory Nurse Specialists (RNSs) in Chronic Respiratory Condition (CRC) Management in Primary Care Wellcome Trust; £303,917 over 48 months

FACULTY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES Prof Pauline Leonard; Faculty of Social Sciences – Central Sayaka Mikoshiba Always a migrant? The intersections of race and class in processes of migratisation ESRC; £117,804 over 12 months

Prof Tamar Pincus; Faculty of Environmental and Life Sciences – Central Engaging with Black Communities in Southampton: a co-creation understanding of living well with pain.

Versus Arthritis; £525,879 over 36 months

Prof Ian Jones; School of Mathematical Sciences Gravitational Waves STFC Consolidated Grant 2024 Science And Technology Facilities Council; £21,815 over 36 months Prof Matt Ryan; School of Economic, Social and Political Sciences Citizens’ Assembly on AI (scoping stage) University of London; £16,521.12 over 12 months Prof Brienna Perelli-Harris; School of Economic, Social and Political Sciences Generations and Gender Survey Wave 2 ESRC; £822,096 over 30 months Dr Pingli Li; University of Southampton Business School (USBS) The Rise of JiXiao – (Re)Framing Healthcare Performance in China’s Reform Eras British Academy; £9,870 over 24 months Dr Ming-chin Monique Chu; School of Economic, Social and Political Sciences Economic Statecraft and Semiconductor Supply Chain Vulnerability in Taiwan, China, and the United States The Chiang Ching Kuo Foundation for International Scholarly Exchange; £60,000 over 36 months Dr Tae-Hee Choi; Southampton Education School Developing a model for digital governance for early childhood education in Korea: Case of merging nursery and kindergarten education South Korean Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy; £8,180 over 9 months Prof Elizabeth Evans; School of Economic, Social and Political Sciences Disability and Political Parties (DISPOP) ESRC; £846,021 over 48 months Dr Ida Zadeh; School of Mathematical Sciences Ida Zadeh – Quantum Gravity: A Unified View from Holography, Lattices, and Strings UK Research and Innovation; £1,125,669 over 48 months Dr Andrea Pelliconi; Southampton Law School Demographic Engineering and Apartheid in Western Sahara British Academy; £3,685 over 24 months, as part of £10,000 shared with the University of Nottingham Dr Donatella Bonansinga; School of Economic, Social and Political Sciences The mainstreaming of populism and the role of TikTok British Academy; £8,948 over 9 months

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