In our Research Culture Uncovered conversations we are asking what is Research Culture and why does it matter? This episode is part of Season 9, but we go back to the format we used in Season 1 because 2 new hosts are joining the team. We get to hear more about them before they host seasons on their specialist topics. In this episode of Research Culture Uncovered, host Emma Spary introduces Dr Emily Goodall and Dr Heledd Jarosz-Griffiths, the newest members of the podcast team.
Emily shares her background in research integrity and responsible research and innovation, while Heledd discusses her experience in PGR development and research leadership. Both share their personal interests, including Emily's hobby as an amateur genealogist and Heledd's pride in her Welsh heritage, and what they hope to bring to their podcast episodes.
I ask them what they think the biggest challenges are for researchers, what we do well at Leeds, where they think things can improve. The main messages include:
The complexity in academia with multiple responsibilities and expectations with changes often happening at once
How research culture change can be slow
The importance of reward and recognition for ethics reviewers!
Encouraging change and awareness in both postgraduate researchers and research leaders
Importance of learning from successful models across schools and faculties
What will Emily be covering in her upcoming episodes:
Thought-provoking conversations on ethics, integrity and responsible research
Practical advice and case studies for listeners
Opening up discussions on questionable research practices and misconduct
What will Heledd be covering in her upcoming episodes:
Starting with an interview with Kay Guccione on the REDS conference
Discussions on leadership challenges and journeys
Exploration of the emotional side of research
Importance of wider networks and parent/carer support groups
Be sure to check out the other episodes in Season 1 to find out more about the hosts Emma Spary, Ged Hall, Tony Bromley and Nick Sheppard with a few special guest appearances.
All of our episodes can be accessed via the following playlists:
[00:00:24] Emma: Hi, it's Emma. And as a quick reminder, I lead the Researcher Development and Culture Team at the University of Leeds.
My podcast episodes normally focus on research culture and research leadership, but today I get to introduce you to two new members joining the Research Culture Uncovered podcast team. We have Emily and Heledd joining us. And normally when we introduce a new guest, they get 20 minutes on their own.
Unfortunately, these two are sharing a slot. So they're going to have to talk a little bit quicker if we want to get to know them before they start their episodes. So as a very quick introduction to yourself. Emily, can you tell us about your role at the university?
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I joined the research development and culture team at Leeds about nearly two years ago now. Before that, I was a postdoc at the University of Sheffield and a research fellow working on motor neuron disease. I then moved into professional services managing a large doctoral training partnership. At Leeds, my focus is on the provision of research integrity training, including things like research ethics, open research in collaboration with the library, and responsible research and innovation.
I also collaborate with many members of the team on our PGR provision and our research culture work.
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[00:01:50] Heledd: Hello everyone, I am Heledd Jarosz Griffiths. So I'm the newest member of the team. I started my full time role here as a Researcher Development Advisor in February 2024.
And like Emma, I'm Welsh. And like most Welsh people, I am very passionate about being Welsh and my beautiful country, despite not living here for over half my life. So my primary focus is on PGR development. and research leadership. And I also have a keen interest in research supervision. Uh, prior to my role here in OD and PL, I was part of the research community for a number of years as a PhD student here in Leeds.
And I continued my research as a postdoctoral researcher spanning two different areas of research, both Alzheimer's disease and cystic fibrosis, working both in Leeds and in Manchester.
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So Emily, over to you. So I'm
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I really enjoy it. It's like a mix of detective work and research skills. And I think stories about your family are always really fascinating. I really encourage everybody. This is kind of a personal plea to collect those family myths and oral histories while you've got the chance. Cause sometimes they uncover really interesting facts about your family.
And I am going to drop this in here. I am 12 percent Welsh. I had my DNA test done a few years ago, so I am 12 percent Welsh. I'm sorry. That doesn't count.
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[00:03:50] Heledd: No, I can think of a few which might not be quite appropriate for this podcast, but I am going to stick with my Welsh heritage. Um, so I am one of half a million remaining people on earth who speak Welsh. Um, and the Welsh government are actually hoping to get that up to 1 million Welsh speakers by 2050.
Um, but I do want to talk a little about my Welsh culture and my heritage. Um, okay. Welsh people are always passionate, you know, we always have this strong sense of belonging, and I get that from the local community, particularly being in a Welsh speaking school. I also have two daughters of my own at the minute, and I went to their school the other day to meet the new teachers, and they were introducing Uh, more singing into the curriculum because of the positive benefits.
Once every two weeks. When I heard this, I actually laughed to myself, because when I was in school, we literally sang all the time, and we even made it onto songs of praise. Although we were a little bit miffed. Because they made us translate our school song into English for it. Like, what? Absolutely ridiculous.
But one other thing from my Welsh background. So in primary schools, we had a huge focus on preparing for the National Irthaeaestedd, which is one of the largest youth festivals in Europe. And all Welsh schools come together in a variety of competitions like singing, dancing, recitation, to art, photography, gymnastics.
And this is like an annual event that really fosters that sense of community, encouraging young people to take pride in their heritage. And it offers a platform for the Welsh language and culture to thrive. Now there's also, uh, in a little village where, near where I'm from called Llangollen, and they hold an international establishment which celebrates global music, dance and culture, and it brings people together from all across the world to share their diverse traditions.
And with what I think is lovely, I just got this, uh, from the description of it, uh, it's the focus on promoting peace and global unity through the arts, which I just think is so beautiful. I've got so many wonderful memories of the festivals I went to, and we even had Luciano Pavarotti there, wasn't you?
Wow.
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[00:06:29] Emily: So I really like bringing the different themes together. I think when I first got, or saw the job description, I thought they might be quite disparate themes, but when you dig into it, responsible research, research integrity, and open research actually all fit together really nicely, and I like supporting researchers to see those connections and really, Try and bring those themes to life in quite a practical way for them and see what I think the other important thing is recognizing what they do that already fits into that bigger picture.
I think sometimes researchers think, Oh, no, it's another great big thing that I have to do. But actually, when you look at it. The practice that they do fits into these themes quite nicely. Things like responsible research and innovation. I get asked a lot what that is and just tell what the terminology is.
I think the ethos behind it is really important. It's basically about research in the public interest. It's about thinking about those long term impacts of your research and how it's going to, uh, be used. Bring researchers and the public closer together. I think at its heart, it's about building public trust in research.
And when you frame it like that, I think it can help researchers really engage with the topic a little bit more. The other thing I really like doing is bringing people together to basically have good conversations. Heledd can attest to this. My workshops, I don't talk a lot. I ask questions and let the interaction between the different people in the room kind of inform, and that's where the value is in those workshops.
It's about sharing your experiences, sharing your knowledge, and it's about how much you can learn from other people. I really do enjoy it when people come back to me afterwards and say, I really loved your workshop. I have done this as a result. And that's what really, um, I think that's the best part of my job is when people tell me what impact they've had.
Really nice, simple example of this. Couple of years ago, I ran a we a research culture workshop at the Northeast Postgraduate Conference in Newcastle, and a student came back to me a couple years later. She happened to be from Leeds and said she set up a really successful coffee morning in her department, which is attended by almost everybody.
Everybody just down tools, and goes to this coffee morning and it's been really good. At making those connections between the different people in the department who were quite disparate, especially after COVID. So just little things like that, and I know that I'm having an impact somewhere is really nice.
Nice. Thank you very much. Heledd, what about you? What
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So I've been doing PGR development and I'm also. looking at doing, um, something to support, um, postdocs and technicians. So drawing from my experience as a researcher, I have a broad understanding of the developmental needs of postgraduate researchers, and I've supervised and mentored several PhD and master students over the years.
So my experience as a postdoctoral researcher did However, leave me a little bit jaded. I often felt a little bit undervalued, not getting much recognition for my hard work in driving the research forwards and supporting the learning and development of new researchers. So for me, um, gaining an award, recognizing my contributions to the community is a great way to kind of lift spirits and improve research culture for postdocs and technicians.
So this is something I'm hugely So I'm going to talk a little bit about what I'm passionate about, um, in terms of reward and recognition, particularly for postdoctoral research and technicians. So I'm here, uh, putting together a support awards for people going for the UKCGE Associate Award. So for those who don't know, it's for the UK Council for Graduate Education.
So similar to kind of Emma, I'm always looking at creative ways to talk about things. So rather than comparing bees to research culture, I'm going to bring in my Welsh thing again and compare Welsh culture. Culture and research culture. I think they share. similarities and the emphasis on collaboration, identity formation and community.
So for postdocs, they often lack this sense of identity, but I think encouragement and reward, particularly with these kinds of schemes will certainly help the community to feel empowered to celebrate their strengths and contribution to research. Another thing that really interests me, again it's a similar kind of theme really, is mentoring for PGRs.
So, this isn't part of our scheme at the minute in terms of our programme of work. And it really comes back to the importance of community and collaboration. Another thing I'm really keen to develop is a mentoring scheme for PGRs in the university. We already have, um, A PGR, oh, uh, sorry, a university-wide mentoring scheme.
And, um, I'm hoping to develop this for PGRs. We've already done a little bit of a pilot, so we have a group mentoring program, um, that's send away in one of the faculties. Um, and I just think it's just. Such a great, um, opportunity to, to develop people. Um, you know, it's sort of stepping stone approach sometimes to leadership, to give people that support, to build the skills that they could potentially have to transition into leadership roles or whatever they see to have that kind of, uh, approach.
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[00:12:25] Emily: I've done a lot of thinking on this question. I think it's, it's quite tricky to think about it, but I think mainly there's just a lot going on in academia at the moment.
There's, there's the research culture strategies and a lot of institutions have those in place now. There's the different funder requirements. Open research is a really hot topic at the moment, going way beyond open access, thinking about open research in its broadest sense, and it does have knock on effects in other areas.
So some of the queries that we deal with, for example, about, I want to make my research data set open. Great. Look back at the consent form that you did three years ago. You're not allowed to make your data set open because you didn't ask for consent for that at the time. So it's, I think for research, it's trying to get ahead around all those different changes, requirements, and expectations on our researchers.
I think research culture can be quite. Slow to change. There are areas of really good and excellent practice. And I think this podcast is a really good way of highlighting those, but there are other areas that need a lot of work, things like reward and recognition. And I actually want to give a bit of a shout out to, um, research ethics committees and the work that ethics reviewers do, because it is a bit of a thankless task.
A lot of people see research ethics as a barrier to doing the research that they want to do, when actually it's a really good time to reflect and think about research integrity, research ethics in its, in its broadest sense, and really reflect on your practice. Ethics reviewers are really passionate.
They want to help, they want to support, and they want to help you get it right. So it's a little bit of a plea to say thank you to your ethics reviewers because they do work really hard and it is scary the amount of ethics applications they have to review. One school in one faculty, over 500 applications a year they get through.
So they are working incredibly hard. So if you're thinking about reward and recognition, perhaps say thank you to your ethics reviewers.
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Heledd, what about you? What are the challenges you've identified?
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I may be looking at early career researchers as the gatekeepers of change, to really drive that change in research culture, to be aware of research impact, open research, research integrity, and also to be aware of themselves and their interactions with supervisors and other leaders, and also to have that courage to call out behaviours and elicit change.
And on top of that, we want them to think about their personal and career development. So there's a lot for them to consider. But I think as we as Research Adjacent are here to kind of ensure that PGRs are supported through this transition in research culture. And we do have a lot in our PGR program to help support them with the workshops that we're offering.
Um, in terms of research leaders, I think the challenge is actually quite similar. Um, it's to be more open minded about change that may be necessary. And I think the pressure when And that expectation to respond appropriately will be quite tricky. But in time, I think with the right support and guidance, I hope that change in research culture will be positive.
Uh, I think we have a long way to go. Uh, but I do think we have these pockets within different schools where things are working really well. And I think it's learning from what works and modeling these kinds of approaches across different schools and faculties.
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Emily, what are you going to bring to us? Well, I'm
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I'd also like to offer some practical advice, case studies and examples to inspire listeners to think about how they could do things differently, perhaps, um, give them ideas. And that's kind of what we do in the workshops is all about sharing ideas and sharing experiences. I'd also like to open up the conversation around questionable research practices and research misconduct.
It's kind of the shadowy underbelly of research culture that people don't talk about. But if we don't talk about it, then it remains the shadowy underbelly that no one really wants to touch on. But I think there are things that we can, can do to kind of shine a light on that. And actually, if you're informed about it, and you're more aware of it, then perhaps it will reduce the amount of.
These practices that go on, because let's be honest, it does happen. But if we are more open about it, then perhaps we can help to reduce the cases that do occur.
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We learn from what doesn't work or from what isn't perhaps working as well as it should. Heledd, what are you bringing
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I am very excited to talk with her about the Reds conference. Now we are celebrating 10 years of reds on the 10th of the 10th at 10:00 AM So come along. And I will be following up with her after the conference to record her reflections. Following on from that, I hope to explore some of the things I've been doing with research leaders.
So I've already mentioned that I've spent some time connecting with research leaders across all different faculties. in the university and I'm hoping to get a few guests in to talk about their ideas and challenges of going into leadership roles and the impact it's had on their career and journeys and research.
Another thing which Taryn actually touched on in her intro to the podcast is on the emotional side of research. Now there's two areas, other areas I'm interested in. So exploring the emotional side of research with Taryn, uh, we have workshops coming up around managing failure. Taryn is also going to be speaking at the VTI conference next week, uh, on the 23rd of September on forums of failures and fiascos, which I'm really looking forward to.
So I'm really hoping to maybe co host with her at some point on, on this. Another thing that I am also really keen on is networks. Now, as well as being a research advancement advisor, I'm also a co chair of the parent and carer network. We provide monthly sessions for parents and carers, which include coffee and chat sessions, as well as organized sessions with guests, um, uh, including topics on neurodiversity, caring for elderly relatives and returning to work after maternity.
Now, this was originally started as an Athena SWAN initiative. from the School of Medicine, but we've rolled it out university wide. So I'm really keen to get my co chair involved and talk to some of the other networks as well. So I think it's a huge important part of the university community and wellbeing and really interested in supporting mental health and wellbeing of staff here at the university.
It's something that I am really keen to be an advocate for.
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Their episodes will be coming in the next couple of weeks or months, so make sure you're following us so that you can find out when their episodes go live. And on that note, I'm going to say our time is up. I'm going to hand over to Emily and Heledd to give the final goodbye. Thank you.
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And I look forward to, uh, you listening to my future episodes, I hope.
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