In this episode, I discuss with Natacha Wilson, who is like myself a research developer.
We are both French.
We have both lived and worked in the UK for a very long time.
We both love our work supporting researchers.
We are both fascinated by organisational work cultures.
In French, there is an expression that says "refaire le monde" which would literally mean remaking the world. In this discussion, we exchange our thoughts about the research world and research culture. "Nous refaissons le monde de la recherche".
In this episode, I discuss with Natacha Wilson, who is like myself a research developer.
We are both French.
We have both lived and worked in the UK for a very long time.
We both love our work supporting researchers.
We are both fascinated by organisational work cultures.
In French, there is an expression that says "refaire le monde" which would literally mean remaking the world. In this discussion, we exchange our thoughts about the research world and research culture. "Nous refaissons le monde de la recherche".
Warning- getting a perfect transcript is really hard. This transcript may have mistakes. Be kind to us by accepting these potential errors. We hope that the transcript can be helpful to some of you! Apologies in advances for any mistakes in the transcript.
Sandrine Soubes: Let's go.
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Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, dear listeners, you're on the podcast, Research lives and cultures. I'm your host Sandrine Soubes and today I have the pleasure to have with me Natasha Wilson. Natasha is like me, an external consultant who works with many different organizations, and it's really a pleasure, Natasha, to have you on the podcast.
Natasha Wilson: Thank you, Sandrine. I'm happy to be here.
Sandrine: We're going to have a podcast recording today that's slightly different maybe from what I often have with my other guests. I tend to interview academics, research fellows, people who are directly working in the research environments. Today, I was really interested with Natasha to have a discussion about research culture. There's been a lot of reports over the last few years on the situation in the research environment, and research culture is one of the buzzwords of the moment.
Obviously, the podcast is very focused on research culture and we wanted today to just have an informal conversation and a discussion, dumping in a way of thoughts about the topic and trying to engage with each other on this idea of research culture. Maybe to get started, Natasha, could you tell us how you got involved in working on this topic, and how you got involved in working with people in higher education, give us a bit of an idea of your background?
Natasha: Sure, thank you so much, Sandrine. Interestingly enough, I worked a lot on a culture outside academia before. My first love was economics and international marketing. Then I moved to the University of Cambridge, a good 18 years ago and stayed there for about 10 years, and got to understand more about the amazing environment of academia, and worked on leadership programs and development programs, such as international MBAs and [unintelligible 00:02:23] management and then further development programs to support research staff, and research students.
The natural progression working towards research culture, in research environments that are taking place in academic settings is just a very natural transition because the culture is definitely influencing how we are doing research, how we are working together, and also influencing our well being, as we've noticed, most recently, with some of the challenges we've been faced with in the world. Yes, it's a natural progression, I would say. What about you, Sandrine?
Sandrine: For me, research culture is, in a way, something that I've been interested in for years. I started working in research, as a PhD student, and my PhD was in the US in a research center. At the time when I was there, there were not really any other PhD students, I was a little bit the odd one out. My experience of the PhD is very, very different from what many other people have because, for me, I was completely surrounded by postdocs, by established researchers, and we were in a research institute, so it wasn't even a university.
There was a level of intensity, in the experience that in a way I was not even aware of. I was really excited about this intensity but for me, at the time, research culture was about lots of exciting ideas, lots of equipment, lots of opportunities to do amazing experiments. In a way, I was very naive when I started, I didn't really consider how the environment influenced my experience.
Then when I moved to the UK, as well, as a postdoc, again, it was a completely different experience, coming again from abroad, and really not understanding so much the research landscape in a different country. Really my interest in the research environment and culture came when I started working as a researcher developer, where I witnessed the experience of PhD students and postdocs and the challenges that people were facing in their transition.
I spent a lot of time developing programs to support researchers and seeing some of the resistance that sometimes people were experiencing in terms of opportunities to access support, and always a push back into some of the time that is offered to researchers to develop professionally. That's how I came to be really interested in research culture. Also, it's interesting because Natasha and myself, we've both done interviews with academics and researchers. I did it as part of a doctorate in education and, Natasha, you were involved in a study, when you were in Cambridge. Can you give us a few words on this experience?
Natasha: Sure. I was really interested in understanding the transition between being an early career researcher and working for somebody else and your group and then getting research independence. You actually get a grant, get funding under your name, and you're the one establishing the group, you're the one leading the project. It was a collaboration with a professor in Oxford, and we worked across three different universities in two different countries and it was really trying to understand that transition.
That transition was navigating the cultures, the multiple cultures, navigating the changes in roles, and having to become resilient to be able to get this funding and to become independent, which is a very competitive landscape for people who maybe were not completely aware of this sector. Altogether, I think, we interviewed about 60 research leaders across fields and it was very interesting because we learned a lot about their experiences, we learned what made them potentially stronger applicants, and how they were also managing others.
That came down to their values and their beliefs around how do we work with others, which is a big part of what culture is about. Like you, it's like working with research leaders and early career researchers, we're here to develop skills, mindsets, and share some best practices as well but actually, there's also understanding the context in which you operate and how this can have positive inference, but also at times negative inference on what you're trying to achieve.
Sandrine: In my case, one of the discoveries was, when I was doing a doctorate in education, I also interviewed principal investigators who are employing postdocs and postdocs and one of the questions that I was asking was, what is research or development for you because obviously, there had been a lot of funding put into university to support the professional development of researchers but in the early days of this work taking place in universities, they were still lots of questioning about, what is really researcher development, what are we meant to be doing, what is the focus?
Again, some of the resistance of, maybe some PIs or perceived resistance of PIs in letting the PhD students and postdoc getting involved. I was questioning how people conceptualize really what research or development is about. My way of understanding research culture in the context of this work was really about the power dynamic that exists between PIs and postdoc, and maybe, in this case, understanding research culture, in terms of this power dynamic and going away from this idea of training.
Natasha, one of the things that I always like, when I'm thinking about a professional environment is the type of metaphor that we use to think about that environment. If you're thinking about the research environment, the research culture, what sort of images do you have or metaphors do you have that illustrates your way of looking at this?
Natasha: It's a little mixed but I'm what you call a cautious optimist. I see their research environment and culture as a world of creativity, ideas, and innovation that can help us solve global challenges that we are faced with whether it's to do with climate, global health, whether it's to do with gender equality, and of course, linked to some of it is specifically Sustainable Development Goals. In a way, what I believe researchers are doing is helping us create a more inclusive, fairer, and sustainable world.
Maybe this looks a little bit looks like a beautiful image of what research environments look like and I do believe it's what the end goal and the aim is, people who work in that environment do it out of passion because they care about what they do and this is absolutely beautiful to see. Nevertheless, there's also another image that comes to me, which can include burnout or certain behaviors that are probably unhelpful or potentially quite competitive in view of the system in place, the funding landscape, and other factors that are at play. Running out of time or running out of money, there's a bit of both.
I've got these conflicting images and yet, I don't know if you feel that something, the amount of resilience you see, the amount of creativity, not only in how to solve or answer some really deep research questions, whether it's in cancer research or ending world poverty, for instance, is that also creativity in how people can connect together, how they are working in partnerships with a wide range of stakeholders, not only in academia but relying on patients, on healthcare workers, on policymakers, on people who are connected to their research and providing some of the fundamental data and information that is critical to what they're trying to achieve or solve.
That diversity of backgrounds, that diversity of networks and connection is also what comes to my mind. What about you, Sandrine? What do you see? Because I know that you're an artist at heart as well, so what do you see?
Sandrine: In a way, I do have conflicted metaphors when I think about the research environment. One metaphor that I really love, which actually comes from a program that I run many years ago, it's the metaphor of the crucible. The Crucible was actually a program originally developed by NESTA and the idea was to bring together people from different disciplinary backgrounds and get them to spend time together to explore interdisciplinary project and to give them the time.
For me, the Crucible-- For those of you who don't know, a crucible is a recipient where metal is melted and Sheffield is a city where steel was the very big industry for a very, very long time, probably not so much now, I don't really know much about it, but this idea of having a container where metals are melted and mixed together and recombined. The image of the crucible is really one of creating a space where things can happen. For me, this is really the most exciting metaphor about the research environment, is really to creative space of possibilities.
Saying that, another metaphor is one of the clock because people have very short timeframe in terms of being successful in academia. If you thinking about the time of a PhD, three, four years time of grant. The clock is always there and in a way, it doesn't necessarily reflect the reality of doing research and the timeframe that it takes to be successful in research. I think that, I guess in discussion about research culture, that's really the challenge because people in a way are pressed for time, their contracts are short, the time for them to be successful, to be promoted or to be successful in their probation.
There is a lot of desire to do good, to do good work, to create an interesting, supportive environment and I think that often things do not happen because of that notion of time and competition. In a way, people are really pulled in so many directions that in a way the good intention of the Crucible is not necessarily reflected in what is possible for people because the clock is always ticking, always there and preventing the best out of people. When I reflect on the feedback that I got from that Crucible program, that's something that people often said, is that what they had really, really valued was that bubble of space and time to think.
I think that if we are to really challenge research culture, to improve it, how can we reconsider that space for deep reflection and thinking time and also time for togetherness? Especially in the last 18 months where people have been working from home, where people have limited access to research space, there has not been a lot of togetherness. How can we reclaim that in the research environment? I can't remember, I was talking with somebody else recently about the fact that coffee spaces sometimes don't even exist in the apartment anymore.
Obviously, we've not had coffee rooms in the last 18 months in terms of having to work from home, but where do we create these spaces, whether it's online or face to face for some togetherness? These are the metaphors that I have.
Natasha: I think it makes complete sense, that connection, and how those moments that maybe also, not always scheduled, not always prepared for, is when you suddenly have those amazing conversations. Conference is also, of course, another important place for people to connect and do this. As you say, everything is online now. It is a space and I think technology can help regain that, I love the way you explain it, that togetherness in those moments, but yes.
That is working towards collaboration versus competition and that's the stretches in that environment, is like you need to collaborate to be able to be a successful research leader and yet you have to compete for funding to be able to be independent.
Sandrine: Yes. Really challenging. What would be your own definition then of research culture or a positive research culture? What would be the key ingredients?
Natasha: That's a really, really good question, Sandrine. If I had the perfect answer, maybe, I would be rich by now, I'll have written a book about it. Maybe that's what we need to do, write a book about it. I think it's a mix of very different things and culture has been described in many disciplines. It's a mix of actually having elements around it, that includes our behaviors, the values we hold, the expectations that are upon us from the people we work with, the attitudes of our peers, of our supporters, of people working in that environment, and the norms of our research communities.
It is an interesting environment in which there is very little leadership structure per se, but there is a high level of hierarchy, nevertheless, and navigating this can be quite complicated. I think research in academia or the research culture in academia is much more complex than in other places. What I think also is quite different is you have multiple research cultures because you could think about the one that is dependent on funding and the funding landscape and is the one that maybe sometimes people refer to as quite toxic because I was just mentioning about that competitive element.
There's only X amount of funds available for each type of research projects in different fields, eligibility can be very tough and there's only X amount of people that are going to get it. That scarcity encourages huge amount of competitive behaviors. That is, I think, what is often referred to as toxic. You also have other layers of culture where a PI and a research leader may have an amazing way to work together.
Systems in place, communication, a sense of feeling supported and inclusive and trusted and included can drive a research team to achieve incredible goals in view of the clock that is ticking as you mentioned. The clock now is definitely in my mind. That's another lever of research culture, which is very much led by the research leader. On top of that, you also have potentially a culture that is linked to the institution. Certain institutions, whether it's maybe also a Russell Group university or a newer university or whether it's a regional focus, even the type of research, strategic themes that are covered, all this adds to how things are done and what the priorities may be.
Finally, another level of culture is the country-specific or cultural culture. In the environment, in which we both work, Sandrine, we have the pleasure to work with people from around the world. Research teams are often multicultural, international teams, and everybody brings their own culture on how things done and to take an example research in Japan is very different to research in Spain or France.
The way people are interacting is going to be different. I'm trying to find this odd example. Your question is amazingly beautiful about what good research culture looks like, but I think it's so much more complex than just saying it would include A, B, and C. You could spend a lot of time thinking about what the culture is, but some of the elements are beyond our control. Some are systemic the funding. I keep coming back to it. Sometimes structures, that time clock, the fact that you haven't got much space to add extra funding as you probably would do that in the commercial sector.
You may have a project and you might think actually we misunderstood the cost involved, so we will increase the amount of funding to try to complete it, for instance. I think maybe that's turning around and think about what other elements we can influence as research leader, early career researchers that can help people in research to thrive and be at their best.
Sandrine: I think that's really the key and because research culture can feel so massive, and so intangible that in a way what is the thread that you pull and if you are postdocs or a new research leader, it may feel that you are just very small cogs into, and in a way, the way we both are thinking about it is like, okay, well, taking action at an individual level. The work that we do self in working with research leader is to get people to really think, and to really change their mindset about, okay, what am I actioned and what is my role in the research environment? What is it that I can do even though, of course it may feel well, it's the role of the institution? It's the role of the funders? It's really interesting.
There is actually a European project called the RAINBOW projects where they're looking at the mental health of researchers and that's very much their take, so they have a manifesto on this topic, and they are very much talk about work that is needed at all of these levels, at the institutional level, at the individual level, but also at the level of the funders and the policies. Obviously as external consultants, the work that we can really do is to work directly with PIs.
Natasha: Absolutely, Sandrine. I also feel like we both felt that we feel a bit powerless at times and so our focus is to try to ensure that research leaders and early career researchers do not feel powerless, that there is still an area and elements you can influence positively to thrive in research. I have a question for you, Sandrine. In your view, connected to what we've just been describing, what are the research culture blockers or enablers that you have identified?
Sandrine: The blockers, I guess when people have a sense that they're just on their own, that they've got to figure things on their own and if you're thinking about new research fellows who are starting in their departments, they are recruited and they've got all of these ideas about the research that they want to do, and they've most still been looking after themselves as research leaders and then suddenly they're trying to build a research group and it's a completely different and new job.
It's very hard to be vulnerable in academia, in the research environment, because you're trying to portray a persona to others that you know what you're doing, you've got it together, and for me, the blockers is that we are not creating spaces for people to be vulnerable in this transition. We are not creating spaces for new PIs to really discuss some of the challenges of this transition.
That's certainly something that I'm trying to do with my own work working with PIs is to have spaces where people can address some of the challenges in going from just working on their own, or with collaborators, of course, to actually be working with PhD students and post-doc and technicians and so on. The blockers are really the lack of space for conversation.
Again, the metaphor of time of giving yourself time to reflect on how you are interacting with others, how your own behavior is really contributing to the dynamic in your research team, how the words that you use with your PhD student and post-docs are completely influencing the way they are perceiving their own position within your research group.
For me, enablers is having the courage to say that new PIs need to be supported more just being given a bench and a laboratory or a desk and an office. It's about saying, okay, these people come in an incredibly competitive environment that the experience of established academics, people who have put senior lectureship or professorship, their experience is different than the new PIs.
I've interviewed many academics and often they say, "Well if I had to apply now, I would never get a position." I've heard that so many times. In a way, I seen that for heads of department, it's acknowledging that the level of competition that's new academics are facing is just unprecedented. For this reason, the way people experienced this transition 15 years ago, it cannot be the same.
When we are thinking about how we reshape research culture, that the context that we create it for new academics to come into their role, we have to something different. For me, the enablers is space for conversation, space for reflection, space for vulnerability because I think that, again, if we are thinking from a diversity perspective, again, so many institutions are still White institutions and if we are really serious about diversifying who works in the research world, we have to start doing things differently.
We cannot carry on just expecting people to figure things out or to have the same behaviors that others had before. Both Natasha and myself did a presentation at a conference for researcher developer a few weeks ago and one of the term that I used while we were talking to [unintelligible 00:27:30], I say, okay, how can we be more pirate in a way of thinking about the research environment and the way we're supporting researchers, and I truly believe this, that we have to adapt our practices and adapt what is made available to research leaders so that they are empowered to empower others.
Natasha: Absolutely. As we are touching on that, I love this idea being bold and thinking outside the box and not waiting for institutions or funders to change everything, like to try to drive it and see how we can influence it. It looks to me like if we wanted to define this idea of what a good research culture looks like, you just mentioned diversity, which I think is really strong element.
Diversity is also something that most organizations are still trying to embed and it's getting better but we are still far away from having a very diverse workforce, especially in the field of research and leadership. Do you want to expand a bit more on that of, we talked by diversity with international culture and interdisciplinary of course, very important for funders as well, and trying to get grants, but that diversity and the type of people we want to be doing research, I know that's one of your passion as well?
Sandrine: Yes. For me, it's again going back to this metaphor clock where if you're thinking as a new research leader, as a new principal investigator, if you are successful in getting funding, you've worked months and months to actually get the grant. What you want is quickly to recruit somebody to get on with the research. The timeframe that you have to recruit feels is really narrow, so often you end up just recruiting whoever comes to you first, and okay, you have a short list and you do your interviews but in a way embedding diversity at that stage in term of not just expecting people to apply but actually reaching out to people who are very different.
Also, the way we look at CVs, the way we interview, all of these things, I was actually discussing this afternoon with a colleague called Emily [unintelligible 00:29:53] who works for one of the MRCDTP, so it's doctoral training program. They are actually starting to really change their practices in the way they're recruiting PhD students. They've really been very experimental, and she was telling me how challenging it is to really try to change the practices and try to find ways of creating a recruitment that is really trying to change something. For me, often I get very frustrated of seeing one more policy document, piles and piles of policy document and seeing very little action.
In a way, one message that I have for PI is that diversity, it's not a policy document. Diversity is you, it's about the bold actions that you take in who you're going to reach out to recruit in your lab or your research group, and the type of opportunities that you create for others. Some of the work that we are doing together and Natasha, striving in research is very much that it's okay, it's saying the action is in your camp. We all have a role to play. Even if it seems very, very small, it's one conversation at a time and one reflection at a time.
I think for me because I work as a coach, really what I find fascinating is to really help people to reflect on their practices and to just realize, “Oh yes, hang on a minute. I could do things differently.” I think that that's why coaching is really incredibly powerful and it's not a practice that is so well embedded in universities. It is still seen as something very elitist and that only maybe the vice-chancellor or head of department is getting.
In a way, I'm really on a mission to get more academics to have access to coaching, because I think it's a really incredibly powerful way of supporting people and of enabling people to really change their perspective. This was a very long answer. [laughs]
Natasha: I know, and their behaviors as well. There's a lot of research on the power of a coaching culture in academia and outside academia, so, absolutely. Also, it made me think about diversity and inclusivity. I think what a good research culture looks like is of course more inclusive. It starts with recruitment and having researchers that are coming into this environment that are cross-gender. We have more women in STEM now. We're trying to encourage more women to stay as well in academia after they do a first research project, two research projects, a lot of them leave.
Also of course, in terms of more diversity of ethnicity, people from different socioeconomic backgrounds, all this will help us get in different perspectives, and those perspectives will shape the culture. We will then move into a more inclusive culture, because it's very nice to recruit, but if you don't change the norms and if you don't adapt, as we discussed the way we are working together to accommodate for this diverse voices and these people who have different perspectives and different ways, potentially hard to work, then I think that's where it becomes difficult for people to stay. I love the connection that you made here.
Sandrine: Yes. Because, in a way, what you want is for PIs to enable others to be successful because like you said, it's not very nice to recruit a diverse research team, but if the behaviors and if the practices in that space are not enabling others to be the way they are and to be their full self, then you are not creating an environment where people will want to be in and/or where they will want to be in in the way that they are and be able to open to just express themself.
That's why I go back to this idea of creating space for reflection because doing this work is really hard. I think that often for PIs, they're pulled in so many, so many different direction that wanting to do well, it's not that they don't want to, it's hard and creating opportunities for people to reflect on what they do. Also, in a way to also welcome the feedback from others. I've done some 360 feedback with some PIs.
Again, the PR practice of the 360 feedback will make a lot of academic really cringe. Again, it's a practice that in the corporate sector is quite common. It's not such a big deal, but in academia, we don't do 360 feedback. We don't really provide feedback to research leaders. Again, for me becoming open to receiving feedback, to accepting feedback, and to be acting on the feedback to receive is also part of contributing to the change of practices. It takes courage. Only a very courageous PI research group leader will be prepared to do the work.
In the area of quality diversity inclusion, what we would call inverted com as doing the work, when we are talking about research culture, I think it's about all of us. Both of us, Natasha, in the work that we've done in co-creation when we developed workshops for researchers, it's also part of doing the work it's. It's about saying we are not taking any things for granted. We are trying to make less assumptions maybe, and we are reflecting on what we are doing.
Then seeing the research environment it's about being in this reflective mode all the time, in some ways, not letting go of that. How should we finish our conversation? One of the last question I could ask you, Natasha, is if you're thinking about what you observed in your interaction with researchers, is there something that give you hope about challenging the status quo of current practices in the research environment?
Natasha: That's a big question, but as I mentioned, yes, I'm an optimist, so, yes. I think that there is hope, and you look at how the extraordinary challenges that research were faced in the field of immunology and the vaccine for protecting us against COVID, and how quickly researchers collaborated together across sector with biotech, pharmaceutical companies, universities. Working as well on making sure that the vaccine is safe and protects us. This was done in such short amount of time. I am so grateful for this.
It also gives me hope that if this could happen under extraordinary circumstances where we were talking about people's life at play here. That processes were adapted, people collaborated against all odds using technology, using a lot of willpower and many, many hours of work. I'm very conscious of that. That I think it gives us hope that we can adapt parts of the research culture to help people achieve extraordinary goals. There was the clock ticking even more so in this specific occasion, but there was this common purpose that helped people collaborate and get to multiple positive results as we have different version of the vaccine. To me, that's hopeful.
I also think that as we’re having new generations coming into research who have potentially different priorities, who will be living probably up to 100 years old, so they will have a much longer career than we, both of us may have. They will see work differently. They will have different demands and different expectations of what their working culture should look like.
That also gives me a little bit of hope because with having those conversations and you were talking about that togetherness and this openness, then we can create something that works for more people and allow them to thrive in research, contribute to society and the world challenges we are faced with, but still maintain a high level of wellbeing. What we don't want is to go into the mode of burnout and poor mental health. It doesn't serve anyone in the short run, nor in the long run.
This is where there is hope, and there are pockets of changes as well that happens at institutional level as well as at funding level, where there is this willingness to try to adapt the system. This brings me a lot of joy and hope. I'm hoping that our work is one factor, one element, if we can inspire some of our participants to feel like they have a voice, they have the power to change their own thoughts and behaviors and drive a positive change in research culture. Then I think that's already a fantastic achievement, and this is what we share, that passion, don't we, Sandrine? What else do you think?
Sandrine: You used the word joy, which is something that I often use in workshop. For me, I often think back of my days in the lab, and I think that, yes, the funding is limited, yes, not everybody who starts a PhD, or who does a postdoc will carry on in research. In a way, research culture is about having people who are in that space within that moment, actually really have joy in the process of knowledge production, so that they feel they're contributing in a way that's really where they feel really empowered in contributing.
Whether people stay in research or not really doesn't really matter, but within that moment, where they are in research, having the joy of the contribution that you're making, even projects move in very small ways. If I think about my own PhD, it's like the contribution to science is really very small, but within that moment, it felt very joyous to be contributing. In a way, for me that's really driving that home to PIs, to research group leader. It's creating a space where people can-- the term that we always use is thrive. Thrive in that space, whether people stay or not, it doesn't really matter, but, within that moment, can people really thrive in and produce amazing work?
Natasha: Whether they [unintelligible 00:42:08] or not, they will have amazing influence in wherever they work. I always feel like we are contributing to working with leaders in the making. They are there to contribute to society in different roles, and it's a privilege and a joy to work with researchers, whether they stay or not in academia. We share that idea of thriving, and that idea of thriving in the long term. I always talk about, life is more of a marathon than a sprint, although it feels like some of the research projects are more like strings.
Nevertheless, it's that continuity, and having the power to contribute for the longer term as well. It's just been fantastic talking to you.
Sandrine: Thank you, Natasha. It feels a little bit strange, obviously, to do a dual conversation like that for the podcast, but really, really, I love our discussion. Thank you very much. I hope that, you listeners, will enjoy your conversation and just get in touch with us because I'm sure you'll have lots of your own ideas and on the topic. Thank you.
Natasha: Yes, a really good discussion. Thank you again, Sandrine.
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