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(Episode 135) Rethinking Research: Building Collaborative Environments
Episode 135 • 29th October 2025 • Research Culture Uncovered • Research Culturosity, University of Leeds
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In this episode of the 'Research Culture Uncovered' podcast, Emma Spary, Associate Director for Researcher Development and Research Culture at the University of Leeds, is joined by guests Nik Ogryzko, from UKRI's Central Talent Team, and Kelly Vere, Director of Technical Strategy at the University of Nottingham. The discussion explores the need for a shift from a culture that's merely nice to one that's collaborative and structurally supportive. They include the importance of recognising contributions from all team members, including technicians, research administrators, and digital experts, to foster better research outcomes. 

Key highlights:

  • The shortcomings of the current PI-centric model in research, suggesting a more integrated and systemic approach that values diverse roles and reduces bureaucratic burdens. 
  • Examples from institutions like Warwick, Bath, Exeter, and UCL, which have restructured their research operations to enhance efficiency and support. 
  • A team-centred approach from the outset, valuing diverse expertise and collaborative roles, is essential for a thriving research culture.
  • A call to rethink research evaluation measures beyond publications, considering broader impacts like career sustainability, data quality, and team development.
  • Nik introduces us to the concept of the Unicorn Postdoc that can do everything.

In this episode several initiatives and outputs are referenced:

All of our episodes can be accessed via the following playlists: 

Follow us on Bluesky: @researcherdevleeds.bsky.social (new episodes are announced here), @openresleeds.bsky.social, @researchcultureuol.bsky.social

Connect to us on LinkedIn: @ResearchUncoveredPodcast (new episodes are announced here)

Leeds Research Culture links: 

If you would like to contribute to a podcast episode get in touch: researcherdevelopment@leeds.ac.uk

Transcripts

Intro: Welcome to the Research Culture Uncovered podcast, where in every episode we explore what is research culture and what should it be. You'll hear thoughts and opinions from a range of contributors to help you change research culture into what you want it to be.

Emma Spary: Hi, it's Emma and welcome to the Research Culture Uncovered podcast.

For those of you that haven't listened to one of my episodes before, I lead the researcher development and research culture team at the University of Leeds. My podcast episodes focus on all aspects of research culture, and today I'm joined by two guests, Nik and Kelly, and we're asking a very big question.

What if research culture isn't just about being nice to each other, but about building smarter, more collaborative environments that actually help us to do better research? But before we get into that, I'm going to hand over to Nik and Kelly to introduce themselves and their roles in research culture.

Nik Ogryzko: Hi. Thank you Emma. Um, I'm Nik Ogryzko I work for UKRI in the central talent team, and I look after what we're calling the people and teams portfolio. And the best way I can define that is by anyone that's not a, a PhD student, uh, a fellow or a PI. So kind of the postdocs, the technicians, the prisms, and all these other kind of associated roles are really important parts of research teams.

Kelly Vere: Thank you, Kelly. Hi Emma. My name's Kelly Vere I'm the Director of Technical Strategy at the University of Nottingham, but I also lead two initiatives, um, nationally, which are aiming to, I guess, improve research culture for technical professionals. And they are the Technician Commitment and the UK Institute for Technical Skills and Strategy.

Emma Spary: Thank you very much. And Nik, you dropped in an acronym there of Prisms. Can I put you on the spot and ask you what that actually stands for?

Nik Ogryzko: Well, I'm hoping to get it right. Right. It is professional research, investment and strategy managers, and it's a group of kind of grant project managers that look after, not not just our, our larger investments, but but that kind of, um, so if you think of kind of a doctoral training center or an institute's.

Small institute type investment. It's that kind of role. And for them it's really kind of important that there is that mix of both the organizational but also the specialist skills and understanding of, of the subject matter, um, of the subject area.

Emma Spary: Brilliant. Thank you very much. So I've already teased our listeners with the big question.

So let's start right at the beginning and when you say research culture is about more than just being nice to each other, what does that actually mean?

Nik Ogryzko: Well, I think too often we assume that if everyone, if, if we leave all the structures, all the systems exactly as they are, but everyone's about 15% nice to each other, we've, we've cracked the problem.

There are a lot of bigger issues around this. There are how we, how we structure ways of working, how we provide, how we provide services, how we provide kind of the information infrastructure, how we have the people, components of all of those things. And how, you know each bit of that, each bit of those components interacts with each other in a way that makes the whole system function smoother, function better, and, and perform better.

Um. And I think it's, it's really key that we, we take a look at research origin. We have a look at, at the environment, at a, you know, a kind of structural higher level and make sure that we are looking at those pain points. Make sure we are thinking much more carefully about how different parts of the team fit together and how we can make them effectively, how can make the research experience for the, the, the academics for researchers, technicians.

As easy as possible and, and enjoyable through getting rid of some of those kind of structural barriers.

Emma Spary: Uh, Kelly, is there anything you want to add to that

Kelly Vere: for me? Research culture. Isn't just about collegiality though obviously kindness and respect really, really matter, but it's also about how we design structures and systems that underpin research.

Do we recognize everyone's contribution? Do career pathways and promotional systems and funding structures enable. Everybody in the ecosystem to thrive. I think for me, research culture is about creating an environment where people can do, you know, their very best work and where support and infrastructure and the skills that they need are properly valued and accessible.

Emma Spary: So if I were to follow up on that one with you, Kelly, what would you define your personal healthy research culture to look like?

Kelly Vere: It's a big question, Emma, isn't it? Um, I would say that a healthy research culture is one where. People feel their contributions matter where their careers are sustainable and where the system is designed so that teams can work together as more than the sum of their parts.

So it's about inclusivity ultimately, but recognizing that excellent research relies on a really wide diversity of roles, not just the academic PI who's undeniably crucial. But the whole team around them, um, technical professionals, research software engineers, prisms as Nik just mentioned, you know, research administrators, academics.

Um, I think when everybody is seen as part of that ecosystem, you get more resilience, more creativity, and ultimately better science.

Emma Spary: Thank you. And Nik, what about you? What does your healthy research culture look like?

Nik Ogryzko: I mean, Kelly pretty much nailed it, to be honest. Um, I think to me it's partly about, it's, it's partly about what outcomes are you, are you producing?

And I don't want to just kind of focus on the publications, which is our traditional outcomes, but we are a, we are a public funder. We're investing, we're investing taxpayer funds, we're everything our funds into, um, into, into things that will make a difference. So it's, if we think about, about outputs of research innovation, as you know, how much of a difference is this going to make to people?

Hopefully, positively? How is this gonna change the world? And a healthy research culture is one that kind of lets the people in the system work together to reach their potential, you know, across the range of roles we need and, and enables them to go and, and make that difference with whatever they're doing.

Emma Spary: So you've mentioned, um, just in those, uh, initial thoughts. Principal investigators contributions, recognition, outputs. And we're gonna dig into some of that as we go through this episode. Um, but we're talking about how research is currently structured. So do you feel that the way research teams are put together at the moment introduces barriers that prevents the teams from functioning as more than a sum of their parts, I think is the words that, that Kelly used.

So Nik. Can I ask you your thoughts on that?

Nik Ogryzko: Yeah, I think there are definitely some, some issues with how, how we approach teams and, and how we think about this. And we still think about a research team or a research group as you know, very much associated with the individual pi. We have labs that are named after, after the, the principal investigator.

Um, and it means we, you know, we, we tend to have culture wear. The principal investigators will network very effectively. We'll, we'll talk to each other, but it gets a little bit harder if you're within that group to talk to people outside. And obviously you can, but there aren't as it's not, it's not as easy.

There aren't the enabling functions, there aren't the enabling ways to do that. At the same time, we. 'cause of this, we tend to, to structure researchers almost a set of micro enterprises within a university. Because of that, we tend to underinvest in the core enabling supporting services, whether that's the people where, or, or the, the, the technical infrastructure to make things like archiving your data, you know, the, the basic stuff that you need for open research, research integrity, um, for reproducible coding to make that as easy as possible.

Because of we kind of under invest in those people, in those systems, in those skills, it means that as, for example, a postdoc in the lab when I was doing that, I would have to kind of learn all of these things myself from scratch rather than necessarily tapping into someone who could do it more effectively and faster than I could.

And that would mean that. Whatever resource I was taking up was not being employed as effectively as it could have been. 'cause we are in this position of constantly reinventing the wheel rather than having this robust institutional memory and institutional systems that make this these things easy.

Kelly Vere: Kelly, anything from you on that one? I really like Nik's use of the term. Micro enterprises, I think absolutely. We have a system that's very PI centric at the moment and that has almost created this sort of culture of micro enterprises within single institutions. And that in turn can create inefficiency, inefficiencies, as Nik has just mentioned, silos, um, duplication, um, and actually sometimes friction as well.

It can undervalue the contributions of sort of technical and specialist staff who are often. Moving across different projects, you know, and sustaining infrastructure and also carrying, you know, really deep expertise and specialist knowledge. And I think when their roles aren't embedded strategically, teams can't ea easily sort of share that knowledge and adapt in those ways that Nik mentioned.

Um, and I guess, yeah, in some ways the structure itself is holding itself back, if that makes sense.

Emma Spary: Yeah, it does. And I think when we, when we think about this, um, PI centered model of research that we have in many of the disciplines, there are lots of limitations that come with that aren't there, not only for the research themselves, but also for the institution.

Um, do you want to expand on, on what that might look like? I guess

Kelly Vere: with the PI centric model that we have at the moment? As, as Nik just mentioned, it kind of puts an unsustainable amount of responsibility on the PI. Individually. They're expected to, you know, work on strategy, be a project manager, fundraise, mentor their teams, maybe get involved in the hands-on, you know, activities of the project as well.

And no one person can have their best skills in all of those different areas or by themselves, can they? And I guess it also means that institutions don't utilize the full expertise for what they already have within their own institution. When we work in that way, um, I think that there's huge opportunities for us to think differently and utilize and value the specialist skills we have in our organizations.

Emma Spary: Hold onto that 'cause we're gonna come back to what it might look like. In a couple of minutes. Nik, anything from you on that one?

Nik Ogryzko: Um, I think there was something that really struck me from this, this is more interesting than it sounds, but from the review of research bureaucracy, and it said one of the key drivers of institutional bureaucracy is, um, I'm gonna, I'm gonna try and paraphrase, I don't remember the exact quote, but it was, it was the nature and the frequency of academics, interactions with professional services.

And it didn't say, well, that was a good or a bad thing. But I think that's a really, really interesting insight because if you can imagine if, if you don't have a culture of, if you don't have a positive culture, if you don't have positive relationships with your professional services, things will be more difficult and it will feel much more bureaucratic.

But if those structures are there, if they're set up, if you know, if, if we make an effort to engage with. All of the people that are involved in supporting, um, enabling and, and actually doing some of the, some of the research across the range of, of, of skills that we need, including those professional services, you can see how that might just make some of that, that admin burden, that perception melt away and just make the process much more, much more enjoyable.

And it's that kind of transactional friction that, um, that having this setup kind of generates.

Emma Spary: Certainly not gonna get any arguments from me there about that need to have the partnership between our researchers and our professional services. I couldn't agree more on that one. Um, I know that both of you are very passionate about the role that our technical and specialist support colleagues have in research.

Do you have any examples of where rethinking technical and specialist support has made a real difference to the research project and actually improved the research outcomes?

Kelly Vere: Shall I make a start, Nik? Um, I have, um, a couple of examples that I could share. Um, we recently hosted an event where we showcased different ways of working, which we felt were effective ways in creating a healthy research culture.

Two of the examples that we showcased at the event were from the University of Warwick and the University of Bath, where they have restructured their research. Infrastructure sort of technologies, their platform facilities at an institutional level. So, you know, harmonized, booking systems, visibility of, you know, the expertise and specialist skills in that space.

Better quality data and analysis, easier access to training. Um, often we have found in the past that some universities or some parts of universities aren't even aware. Of what technology, what expertise they have in house. And I think restructuring into this institutional model of research technology platforms has been groundbreaking for institutions like Warwick and Bath.

And it also ensures that they're visible not only internally, but externally too, to, you know, facilitate great working with industry, for example, or collaborations with other universities. So I think that remodeling of research facilities has, has been groundbreaking at those institutions.

Emma Spary: And I think there's probably quite a few of our listeners, um, already thinking that they don't know the full breadth of the expertise that sit, uh, in their immediate research group, but also wider across their institutions.

So, Nik, what about you? What's your example?

Nik Ogryzko: Well, I mean, on, on your last point, what's holding us back from this event is how quickly I'm writing this report up. So that's, that's my apologies there. But the, the other two examples we had were specifically around the kind of digital, digital research infrastructure kind of professions.

Uh, it was the software engine team at Exeter and the UCL Advanced Research Computing Center. And they're the different scales, different points in the life cycle, but it's the same kind of model where. There are professions within the institution that are full-time staffed, open-ended contracts that are resourced kind of on a cost recovery model from, from, from our grants as as a research funder for a proportion of their time and acts as a flexible call that a principal has get, can call on to meet perhaps the changing research needs across the lifespan of a project.

If, if you're doing, if you're doing a research project. You know, over the three years you might need something very different from, from, from a staff member at the start. A different set of skills to, to start the project up, to develop whatever app you might use for, for, uh, for the data collection towards then, then towards the end where you might need the kind of the archiving, the, the, the analysis, the, the kind of what data specialization.

And in between the coding skills again, might be different. It's unlikely you'll be able to find that in a single person. Trying to recruit that as the kind of unicorn postdoc is gonna be quite difficult. But if you have a function like a software engineering team, you can resource, you can be pretty confident.

You'll find the the skills you need within that function, and you won't need to bring them up to speed. You'll be much more productive. And it'll probably cheaper in the long run as well for you because you just resource kind of on demand as needed for it and kind of as a funder, something that we'd look, we are looking at quite a bit more because it means that our money is being, is being better spent, we're getting more value for money for those kind of functions.

But I think Exit had really good example as well, where they actually. Student cost recover fully from grants because they wanted some of that time to, to upskill the rest of the university, to provide training courses, to stay on the cutting edge of, of what they needed and actually provides us an excellent capability to be horizon scanning and to look for, I mean, things like AI is, is the big thing right now to, to, to be able to seize on those opportunities as they arrive.

Um, and those are kind of the two things that really stuck out for me.

Kelly Vere: Can I add something, Emma? Is that okay? Sorry. Yeah, absolutely. Um, I think it would just be good to add that where we are seeing institutions take a more strategic approach to technical expertise, we're also seeing additional benefits in terms of, for example, the putting of new career pathways for these colleagues.

The reduction of precarity in contracts, for example, all ingredients which contribute to a really healthy research culture in my eyes.

Emma Spary: And that's really important, isn't it? Because they are often, those information bridges between, um, the postdocs, the, um, postgraduate students, they're able to, uh, impart that knowledge and they are often the constant.

So we really want to try and find ways to retain. Develop and, um, and to recognize that, um, the thing that's gonna stick with me, Nik, was the unicorn postdoc. Um, I think I might have to talk to, uh, Ruth Wind and our careers person about that, um, unicorn postdoc as a career. Um, so if, if we're thinking about things differently, I'm gonna put you on the spot.

So, if I were to task you. Nik and Kelly to redesign a research team to work together from the ground up, what would you do differently?

Kelly Vere: Shall I take that one, Nik? Or do you want to chip in first?

Nik Ogryzko: No, no, you, you go.

Kelly Vere: I think the key thing for me is that you start around the idea of a team, not an individual.

And if from the outset, every research project thought about the technical expertise, it needed, the digital expertise, it needed the project management expertise, it needed the academic input and so forth, and that those roles were equally, equally recognized.

Emma Spary: Nik,

Nik Ogryzko: I think kind of very much the same. So don't think about it as what the individual is is producing, but actually, you know what?

The team, what. What the organization, what the organizational unit is, is producing. This is, you know, this is a product of, of whole teams, of people working on something. There's no in, in a lot, this is obviously different by discipline, but there's no, there's no one model that works for, for everything. And there's very, very few things that an individual can do from start to finish without the support of, you know, a huge, huge teams of people going all the way.

Back to kind of the HR teams that help recruits recruit that team in the first place. Um, there isn't a, I don't think there's a, I'd say there's never gonna be one model that works for everything, but there's just a couple of those principles of think about where, where individuals can add the most value.

Think about where we can, where you can reduce as kind of transactional. Pain points where you can provide the kind of underpinning functions. And I think there was another thing you'd said earlier around the technical, digital kinda specialists being able to work across disciplinary silos. I think that's really, really important.

And I think seeing people as not just as people, not, not just as the, the kind of an. Enablers or doers of the research, but also as the connectors to, to bring ideas across silos, to to, to enable more creativity in the system, to generate better ideas and to actually help with connecting those ideas, those outputs with where they will make an impact elsewhere in the system.

And I think to do all of that, we kind of need to stop, think we kind of need to stop assuming that our unicorn postdoc will be able to do everything and actually thinking about, you know, maybe. What elements of those roles are, you know, are needed? What elements can be, can we see in, in a service function elsewhere, and how can we resource those to be, you know, as effective and as efficient as possible?

And to also not put all of the pressure on the principal investigator to make sure that that postdoc has, has their next job. And actually see a lot of these things as the responsibility of the department, school, the organization. On how to, how to think much more structurally, much more systemically about how, how we're doing research, our ways of working and how we're putting teams together.

Emma Spary: So this is sounding more like not only do we need to move away from that PI centered model of research, but also from that PI centered model of project design in the first place and opening it up before a project is even, uh, put on paper. Is that, is that an accurate assessment?

Nik Ogryzko: I think there's definitely something to be, definitely something to be gained from.

Gonna sound, sorry, from listening to people, from listening to a huge range of people that you have working at the organization and you never know. You know, the most creative ideas come from the boundaries between disciplines. Not just the academic kind of disciplines, but the technical disciplines There.

D different domains within the university, within a research organization of any sort, and actually going and making the effort and learning about what happens will make whoever is coming up with the idea will make those ideas more creative and we'll, we'll, we'll seed new knowledge and we'll, we'll generate the most kind of innovation.

Emma Spary: So Kelly, just to come back to you on that one, um, why do you think. It's not currently happening. So why do you think that we don't have this sort of collaborative approach to the project design in the first place?

Kelly Vere: I think traditionally in academia, I. Supporting roles, you know, those roles that have traditionally been seen as supporting roles have really lacked visibility and recognition.

Um, and of course our academic colleagues should have visibility and recognition, but research is and always has been a team sport, and it's time to recognize everybody in the team and ensure their contributions are visible and valued.

Emma Spary: Brilliant. Thank you. Um, so we've talked there about contributions. So I think, uh, as we're coming towards the end of this episode, I want to move on to how we currently evaluate research.

So we often talk about performance in terms of those publications, the contributions and the outputs, but what else should we be measuring or evaluating if we really want to understand the impact of research?

Nik Ogryzko: I think that differs. It differs a tremendous amount by discipline. Um, and actually the hidden ref are a really, really good example of the, the, the, the range of things that that happen in research innovation that are very useful outputs, that we don't measure that well.

A part of what, part of why we got here is because publications are easy to measure. Everyone can see. It's a paper. You can see who's an author on it. We can now link all of these things digitally with all kids, with DOIs, all sorts of persistent identifiers. And it's not to say that papers aren't important.

They absolutely are, but a paper is a vehicle to get knowledge out there. It is a, you know, in, in the efforts a contribution to knowledge and understanding. And it, the important thing is the knowledge, the understanding, the impact, the difference that research makes. I think we have too many, it's a bit of a cop out, but I think we have too many.

Too much difference across our, all of our disciplines to answer that question succinctly. Um, so it could, it could really be anything, anything that you do in research innovation that is gonna make a difference, that is gonna, that is gonna make, it's gonna make the world a better place.

Emma Spary: Thank you. And, um, you mentioned there the hidden ref.

We actually do have a podcast episode, um, that we recorded with the team behind that. So I'll put a link to that into the show notes as well as some of the other, um, links that we've already talked about. Kelly, what about you? Is there anything that you would like to see us measuring or evaluating?

Kelly Vere: I think Nik has has covered it really, but I guess to understand impact, you've got to understand the difference.

That research makes to the world, you know, societal, economic, environmental, cultural, um, so maybe we should be looking at things like, you know, sustainability of careers, team development, knowledge transfer, the quality of data, the quality of infrastructure that future research can build on. I think great research culture is definitely not just about papers as valuable as they are.

As Nik said, there's a range of outputs, um, which are brilliantly articulated by the Hidden Rift team. Um. That we could also be measuring. Brilliant.

Emma Spary: Thank you very much. Um, so we are just about up to time, but I want to just give you both an opportunity to mention anything that we haven't covered in this episode that suddenly sprung to mind.

Um, if there's anything that you want to highlight, um, or any other additional information, now is your chance.

Nik Ogryzko: I mean, I'm gonna steal, steal from Kelly here and just actually say that, um, just your technical skills and strategy, the technician commitment have been incredible for helping our work. Um, and they're really, really essential partners for us and for, for the technical community as a whole.

Um, and actually knowing what we do would be possible without you.

Kelly Vere: Thanks, Nik, that's, we have a fantastic team at the UK Institute for Technical Skills and Strategy who are really committed to driving change forward for this community, for the betterment of the sector and UKRI have been a fantastic partner, um, since signing the technician commitment early on.

So huge. Thanks.

Emma Spary: And I would like to say thank you to you both, not only for the technician commitment, which we, um, absolutely, um, are passionate about at the University of Leeds, with a great team supporting that, um, but also for raising the visibility of some of this through the work that you do as well, Nik, particularly around our postdocs and the precarity on that note.

We are done, and I will just give you the last opportunity to say goodbye to our listeners and thank you again for being on this episode.

Nik Ogryzko: Yeah, thank you very much for listening.

Kelly Vere: Thank you, Emma.

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