Project Launch

How do you set up a big culture change research project? Keep it personal and chatty!  

Author: Amy Stabler 

We are delighted to have been awarded £1M from the Wellcome Institutional Fund for Research Culture.  We are one of 24 universities to share in the opportunity to make a system-wide difference to a more inclusive and collaborative research culture.  Many of the themes in our 30-month research project, running April 2024 to September 2026, are echoed in other university projects which means that we are very much looking to be part of a big sea change.    

The project will be working with research communities across the University to co-produce new ways of developing and recognising leaders of research.  We aim to generate meaningful and sustainable change in our research culture with a particular focus on psychological safety as a necessary foundation for inclusion and collaboration. We will also be advocating for system-wide research culture change supported by our research and wider evidence. You can find out more about the project here. 

From the very start, we’re living what we’re researching and seeking to change...we are a new team coming together, seeking to lead the project in a way that is inclusive and collaborative with psychological safety as a foundation.  It can feel overwhelming at times as we unpick the complexity of this together, so we have been focusing on setting up our core research team in a way that keeps us grounded and starts our relationships on a good track.  We have a core team of fourteen colleagues working across different faculties, services, roles and hierarchies and that is a challenge to the way we do research here.  We are already finding some practical knots to untie to make it work such as how to create a physical team hub which isn’t owned by one faculty?!  

The whole team met for the first time at a team building retreat on 18th April at the Common Room, a fitting place for a project that seeks to generate and share knowledge for change.  Facilitated by our OD Co-I, Liz Kemp, we talked through our potential strengths and possible blind spots as a team and have planned to set aside time and space in person at regular intervals for candid conversations about sticking points. We shared the conditions for making the day positive for each person which involved humour and checking on the pace, allowing for not knowing or understanding amongst many other things.  In a short time, we learned a lot about each other, what we value, how we differ and how we’ll build the project together.  And the in-between moments were just as significant, chats over coffee and lunch which grew our understanding of each other as people.  It’s my belief that if we can keep it personal and chatty as we go along, this big, messy exciting project is within our grasp. 

Last modified: Thu, 16 Jan 2025 19:14:11 GMT