Festival of Early Stage Researchers (FESR)
The Festival of Early Stage Researchers (FESR) is our way to say thank you to the largest community of researchers in the UK. It is an annual week-long festival, recognising and celebrating the invaluable contribution from UCL’s early-stage research community.
Between Monday 31 January – Friday 4 February 2022, we held the festival to celebrate the invaluable contribution UCL’s early-stage research community has made to research and innovation. The week was structured around three key themes: connecting researchers, wellbeing and communicating your research.
We engaged with nearly 1,400 researchers across the week making it our most successful celebration yet. So, thank you, for making this festival one to remember!

Watch now!
Did you miss the festival? Would you like to rewatch our events back to gain maximum value? We are excited to share with you the FESR 2022 playlist, where you can watch video recordings of almost all FESR events. These recordings will be available for 12 months, until the end of January 2023. Please note:
- To gain access to the recordings, you will be required to sign in via UCL single sign on (SSO)
- ‘Managing your career during uncertain times’ was not recorded and therefore won’t appear on the playlist
- Only a transcript is available (not a video recording) of:
- Monday 31 January
Date: Time: Event title: 31 January 2022 11:00 - 12:00 Learning from failure: the missing ingredient to success 31 January 2022 13:00 - 14:00 Managing your career during uncertain times 31 January 2022 15:00 - 16:00 What can you learn from Nature Research editors in 20 minutes? - Tuesday 1 February
Date: Time: Event title: 1 February 2022 10:00 - 11:00 Why you should care about entrepreneurship 1 February 2022 11:30 - 12:30 Applying for grants and fellowship 1 February 2022 15:00 - 16:30 Early-Career Network Researcher Spotlights (part 1) 1 February 2022 17:00 - 18:30 Creative wellbeing: an interactive workshop - Wednesday 2 February
Date: Time: Event title: 2 February 2022 10:00 - 11:00 Beyond the bubble: research impact & engagement 2 February 2022 13:00 - 14:00 Sustainability in Science 2 February 2022 14:00 - 15:45 Early-Career Network Researcher Spotlights (part 2) - Thursday 3 February
Date: Time: Event title: 3 February 2022 12:00 - 13:00 Researcher Town Hall 3 February 2022 13:30 - 14:30 Find the calm - Introduction to UCL Workplace Health + Yoga session 3 February 2022 15:00 - 16:00 Global Exchange & Training for Brain Cancer Research - Friday 4 February
Date: Time: Event title: 4 February 2022 10:00 - 11:30 The art of asking the right question: peer-coaching for researchers 4 February 2022 12:00 - 13:00 Research leadership in action: open science and transparency 4 February 2022 13:00 - 14:30 Voice of Global South ECRs in UCL 4 February 2022 13:30 - 15:00 Turning Your Research into a Book 4 February 2022 14:30 - 16:00 Early Career Innovators: Highlighting translational research support and internal funding success stories