iREACCH: Difficult Conversations

Prof Kate Williams has been talking about research culture since 1996, long before it had a name. Many of the problems she raised as a contract researcher in the 1990s are still on the table today.

In the fifth episode of Difficult Conversations, Dr Kike Ladipo and Dr Gez Williams talk to Kate, Co-PI on I-REACCH, who leads its Leading with Empathy workstream. Kate explains why a healthy research culture starts with investing in the people doing the research, and makes the case for micro communities: the small teams where people feel safe enough to share their ideas. She talks about normalising failure, what the 2020 Wellcome report on research culture exposed, how the pandemic changed the way teams work together, and why research culture statements for REF and funders have to be lived, not just written.

Her one meaningful change is to redefine leadership, so that empathy and the time spent listening to people are valued and rewarded. If you've ever told a colleague you're too busy to talk, this conversation is a good place to start.

Show notes, links and resources: https://difficultconversationspodcast.com/episode-5-rebuilding-research-cultures/

Nobody comes into research as a neutral observer, whether they're interviewing young people in Johannesburg or looking down a microscope in Leicester.

In the fourth episode of Difficult Conversations, Dr Kike Ladipo and Dr Gez Williams talk to Dr Diane Levine, whose research looks at how children and young people survive and thrive amid adversity, much of it with communities in sub-Saharan Africa. Diane explains what positionality means and why acknowledging who you are is only the start: the real work is changing how you do research because of it. She talks about why it matters just as much in STEM, from AI training data to clinical trials, how working with a colleague who became a traditional healer during her PhD changed the way she understood mental health, and why being an insider in a community isn't automatically better. 

Her advice for researchers starting cross-cultural work is to be curious, be humble, listen for longer than feels comfortable, and when you make mistakes, own them and fix them. If you've ever wondered how your own background shapes the questions you ask, this conversation is a good place to start. 

Show notes, links and resources: https://difficultconversationspodcast.com/episode-4-positionality/

Equality means treating everyone the same. Equity means recognising that people start from different places and face different barriers. That distinction sits at the heart of this episode.

In the third episode of Difficult Conversations, Dr Kike Ladipo and Dr Gez Williams talk to Dr Patrick Highton, an NIHR Advanced Research Fellow at the University of Leicester whose research looks at hypertension and health inequalities in ethnically diverse populations. Patrick explains how joining the NIHR Applied Research Collaboration East Midlands changed the way he thought about who benefits from research, why EDI is facing more organised opposition, and why the claim that it lowers standards gets things the wrong way round. With universities under financial pressure, he also argues that the real question is the cost of not investing in EDI.

Patrick points to mentoring as one of the most effective ways forward, along with teams where people feel safe to say when a policy is creating inequalities. If you’ve ever wondered whether your EDI efforts are making a difference, and how you’d know, this conversation is a good place to start.

Show notes, links and resources: https://difficultconversationspodcast.com/episode-3-equity-diversity-and-inclusion/

Most people want to be good colleagues. Fewer feel confident stepping in when someone is talked over in a meeting, or when a student’s name is mispronounced on purpose.

In the second episode of Difficult Conversations, Dr Kike Ladipo and Dr Gez Williams talk to Dr Lynne Howells about allyship in higher education. Drawing on 30 years at the University of Leicester, Lynne explains why allyship is about removing barriers rather than giving anyone an advantage, and why the small everyday actions often matter more than big gestures. She talks about the fears that hold people back, from confrontation to using the wrong language, how people in senior roles act as gatekeepers to networks and opportunities, and what she learned when colleagues asked her to rethink the terms she used.

Lynne’s advice for anyone worried about getting it wrong is simple: listen first, stay curious, and if you make a mistake, apologise and learn from it. If you’ve ever wondered whether you’re already an ally, or what being an active one would ask of you, this conversation is a good place to start.

Show notes, links and resources: https://difficultconversationspodcast.com/episode-2-allyship/

Harassment happens in universities, at every level of study, and for many students it has become so normal that they don't call it harassment at all.

In the first episode of Difficult Conversations, Dr Kike Ladipo and Dr Gez Williams talk to Dr Amy Clarke, Deputy Director of the Centre for Hate Studies at the University of Leicester. Amy is Co-Investigator on A Catalyst for Change, an ESRC-funded study that surveyed more than 1,300 students across five English universities and interviewed 100 of them about their experiences. She explains why postgraduate researchers, who are often students and staff at the same time, find it so hard to report harassment, why international PGRs can be especially exposed, and why researchers whose work is labelled controversial are facing growing hostility from outside the university. She also sets out the financial case for protecting researchers at a time when budgets are under pressure.

Amy's research shows that many of the changes students asked for are practical, achievable and not expensive. If you've ever wondered whether someone in your research team would know where to turn, and feel safe doing so, this conversation is a good place to start.

Show notes, links and resources: https://difficultconversationspodcast.com/episode-1-tackling-harassment-in-research/

Difficult Conversations is coming. This trailer introduces the podcast about the parts of research culture people experience but rarely discuss openly, hosted by Dr Kike Ladipo and Dr Gez Williams. The first series features Prof Kate Williams, Dr Patrick Highton, Dr Diane Levine, Dr Ruoying Zhou, Dr Lynne Howells, Dr Amy Clarke and Dr Cleo White, on subjects from harassment and EDI to allyship, publishing pressure and the CIRCLE Toolkit. Made for the University of Leicester's I-REACCH project, funded by the Wellcome Trust. Episode one out Thursday 1 October: difficultconversationspodcast.com.