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Building Positive Futures for ECRs
A series of workshops has helped BEAMS faculties at UCL identify ways to support ‘Positive Futures’ for ECRs.
6 December 2023
The Bartlett Faculty of the Built Environment’s Research, Impact, Policy and Engagement (RIPE) team initiated the Positive Futures project in 2020, with a comprehensive survey of early career researchers (ECRs) within their faculty. (The Bartlett is one of the three faculties that make up BEAMS, alongside the Engineering Sciences and Maths and Physical Sciences faculties.)
By analysing the survey data, the RIPE team were able to create a detailed picture of the challenges faced by the ECR community. To communicate their findings, they organised the data around these four central themes:
- The ECR identity: Who identifies as an early career researcher? What characteristics do they share, and do they view their ECR status as a positive or negative?
- The support environment: What opportunities or challenges face ECRs navigating the systems and processes of UCL? What mentorship is available?
- Funding: What were the experiences of ECRs applying for funding? What barriers did they encounter?
- Vulnerabilities: What kind of circumstances make it harder for ECRs to respond to the demands of the sector?
These themes, laid out according to UCL’s responsibilities to the Concordat, were lent even greater importance by the effects of the pandemic on remote work, networking opportunities and access to funding.
The initial findings provided a useful snapshot, but a deeper study was needed to identify courses of action. With funding from the Research Culture programme, RIPE designed a more comprehensive review of the research environment for ECRs, built around six workshops, entitled ‘Positive Futures’.
Creating a neutral space to talk honestly
Each of the three BEAMS faculties participated in their own workshop, to help identify specific issues within their group. These were followed by a further three cross-faculty workshops, allowing ECRs to share experiences and hear one another’s ideas for the future.
The workshops were run in partnership with SUMS Consulting, an external higher education specialist consultancy. This helped to create a neutral space where ECRs could talk freely.
Identifying personas
During the workshops, the team realised that any actions resulting from this work would have to meet the needs of four emerging types of early career researcher personas with very different career trajectories and aspirations. The workshops identified ECRs who:
- Viewed research as a way of life
- Viewed research as a means to acquiring academic tenure
- Saw their research position as the route to a career in industry, consultancy, or starting their own business
- Wanted to use research as the backbone of a portfolio career, allowing for other interests and aspirations
Ella Sivyer, Research and Enterprise Manager in RIPE, explains, “We realised that the goal was to create a research environment that supports all these different personas and priorities. So we had to think more creatively about that.”
The strength of the ECR community
The workshops resulted in a clear set of actions and recommendations that were split into three categories – People, Process and Infrastructure.
This meant that actions taken could be aimed more appropriately to yield the greatest impact. For example, one recommendation under ‘Infrastructure’ advised the creation of a dedicated shared space to foster collaboration and a sense of belonging, encouraging ECRs to spend more time on campus.
This recommendation would help UCL leverage a characteristic that was common across all four personas – a desire for community.
“We noted that ECRs have a generous interest in supporting each other. They like to have peer support groups, so we’re keen to build on the existing capacity we already have in this area," says Ella.
“The other thing we noticed was that while our faculties are quite different, there were common themes that ran throughout. These communities shared many of the same issues.”
Opening the door for positive change
The recommendations from the workshops have already set in motion a variety of responses at faculty and institutional levels.
At the Bartlett, the workshop insights have been used to form a framework for the Bartlett’s next steps, including a series of three co-hackathon events aimed at creating a platform for Bartlett researchers to connect and collaborate. They also held a researcher induction event in 2022.
In the Faculty of Mathematical and Physical Sciences, Professor Andrew Wills has created a new community for ECRs.
While these initiatives are just the start of the planned changes to the research culture and environment within the BEAMS faculties, Ella and the team are realistic about the scope of the ongoing project.
“There are certain things, particularly around the availability of grants and long-term contracts, that we can’t easily address. There are things that need to happen centrally, and things that need to happen locally. And what works in one place won’t necessarily work in another. So we’re trying to look at the issues, see where we can make improvements in alignment with the Concordat – but also lobby where we can within the sector more broadly, to improve understanding and share perspectives with funders and other partners.”
However, Ella hopes that this project was just one part of a wider shift within the sector. “What we’re seeing now is that research culture is becoming a very big issue – a recurring theme we’re seeing across our national assessments and frameworks. We were able to listen to the voices of our researchers in an open, safe space, so we could genuinely hear their aspirations and what they needed.
“It was very much opening the door for discussions on how we can better support our UCL researcher communities.”
"We were able to listen to the voices of our researchers in an open, safe space, so we could genuinely hear their aspirations and what they needed."
- Ella Sivyer, Research and Enterprise Manager, the Bartlett Faculty of the Built Environment “
More information
About research culture
UCL’s Research Culture programme is developing a fair, collaborative and inclusive research culture, where both our research and research community can thrive. We work with UCL’s research community to support and deliver change against our 10-year Research Culture Roadmap.