PGR Matters Podcast

In this episode, Matthew Sillence meets Dr. Holly Prescott to discuss navigating careers beyond academia. Holly recounts her own non-linear career path: after leaving her first university, she returned to study, completed an English degree and PhD, and found that teaching, student support and helping people make decisions mattered more than staying within one subject. A postgraduate ambassador role formed a bridge into recruitment and career guidance at the University of Birmingham.

Drawing on her new book, Navigating Careers Beyond Academia: A Practical Handbook for Doctoral and Postdoctoral Researchers, Holly discusses her decision to address the emotional impact of transitioning out of an academic role, rather than immediately focusing on CVs or job titles. She shares an exercise to help researchers identify valued tasks, what they want to leave behind and what they want to add. Holly also encourages low-risk experiments during a PhD, such as organizing events and engaging with hidden abilities, to test interests and develop transferable skills. 

Through the conversation, researchers are reminded that career management is an evolving process and it may take time to explore different roles and work environments. Drawing on the high-level research skills that postgraduate researchers already possess, and turning these abilities to understanding different sectors and roles, is a powerful means of meeting the challenges of the modern job market.

[00:03:29–00:09:23] Prescott’s non-linear academic journey and transition into career guidance.

[00:10:02–00:12:48] Identifying preferred work activities and using a first post-PhD role to experiment.

[00:14:17–00:19:05] Addressing uncertainty, grief, fear of judgment, and rejection during career transitions.

[00:19:57–00:23:58] The Keep/Lose/Add framework and examples of testing interests during a PhD.

[00:26:11–00:29:07] Career management as an ongoing process, while recognizing structural barriers and separating rejection from self-worth.

[00:30:45–00:32:21] Prescott’s book, Postgradual blog, and career workshops.

This episode of PGR Matters features researcher developer Dr Kate Jones from Manchester Metropolitan University. Kate traces her path from teaching English, literature, and media studies to doctoral research at the University of East Anglia, where she studied child figures in mid-20th-century literature. An AHRC-funded project, After the Archive, helped her recognize how research skills extend beyond academia, igniting an interest in researcher development.

Kate describes her work at the researcher development organisation, Vitae, which included working in policy and well-being, before joining Manchester Metropolitan University in 2023. There, she champions inclusive research cultures and recognizes academics, research technical professionals, and people outside universities as all contributing to a research culture.

The conversation also explores a cross-institutional mentoring scheme for mid-career researchers, offering space to reflect on identity, purpose, and future direction. In discussing challenges, such as job precarity, sector-wide funding cuts, heavy workloads, and limited time for professional development, Kate reminds us that the PhD can lead to many futures, and research skills remain valuable across careers and sectors.

- Vitae
- Manchester Metropolitan University
- Researcher Development Concordat
- Kate Jones | LinkedIn

Matthew Sillence introduces open research and the Copyright Dough project, developed with colleagues at the University of East Anglia (UEA) and University of Essex. Guest Gabriel Baxter-Baker describes returning to UEA after performance work to pursue a PhD on transgender oral storytelling. They explain how storytelling traditions value sharing, adaptation, and tracing stories’ origins, challenging conventional copyright ideas. A Creative Commons workshop broadened their understanding of licensing options and inspired Gabriel to share research to build community. They hope their creative and critical work can invite reuse. This episode also describes the expansion pack’s paired play and chance cards, which explore licensing, collaboration, and responses to research reuse.

[00:00:06] — Open research project and the Copyright Dough resource and expansion pack.
[00:02:23] — Gabriel’s academic journey, from performance to doctoral research at UEA.
[00:05:34] — How storytelling’s shared, evolving traditions relate to copyright and attribution.
[00:09:22] — Learning about Creative Commons licensing and remixing.
[00:11:22] — Making creative and critical research available for reuse.
[00:13:02] — Open research practices, sharing work in progress, and building academic community.
[00:18:00] — A shared vision for a queer storytelling corpus.
[00:19:01] — Advice for researchers and Gabriel’s contact details.
[00:21:32] — Expansion pack features: paired play and chance cards about collaboration, licensing, and research reuse.

- Copyright Dough (Figshare.com)
- Copyright Dough Expansion Pack (Figshare.com)

Gabriel's Profile and Activities
- Gabriel Baxter-Baker (UEA research portal)
- The Folklore Society Rumour conference
- Get a Word in Edgeways Festival
Legendæry Nights (via Instagram - @thorn.lucid and @lucideers)
Lucid Cabaret

In this episode of PGR Matters, host Matthew Sillence explores how open research training is evolving, with a focus on the arts, humanities, and social sciences. Featuring Dr Samuel Moore (MORPHSS project, University of Cambridge) and Hannah Crago (University of Essex), the conversation looks at how traditional ideas of “open science” can be reframed for different disciplines, and how gamification—including the Copyright Dough game and escape rooms—can make open research concepts more engaging, practical, and accessible for researchers at all levels.

[0:00:00–0:03:15] Setting the Scene: Open Research Training & Series Recap

[0:03:15–0:07:17] Samuel Moore’s Path into Open Research

[0:07:17–0:12:42] Inside the MORPHSS Project

[0:12:42–0:25:57] Rethinking Openness: Broadening Concepts, Ethics, and CARE

[0:25:57–0:53:18] Gamification in Open Research Training (Hannah Crago)

[0:53:18–1:00:00] Adapting Games for Online Open Research Training

[1:00:00–1:03:00] Resources, OERs, and Future Directions

- Dr. Samuel A. Moore

- Publishing Beyond the Market | University of Michigan Press

- MORPHSS – Materialising Open Research Practices in the Humanities and Social Sciences

- Openness in the arts, humanities and social sciences: Documenting open research practices beyond STEM (A MORPHSS Project Report)

- Knowledge Commons - Open access, open source, open to all

- Hannah Crago | University of Essex

- Project - Copyright Dough - Figshare

- Gamified Research Support - Support for Researchers - Library & Cultural Services at University of Essex

Licence
- CC BY-NC-ND 4.0

Credits 
Music by Matthew Sillence.

In this second episode of season 2, Matthew Sillence talks with Sean Andersson, Dr Alison Barker and Dr Sean Seeger about Open Access (OA) publishing for books and articles. Through our conversations, we unpack Green, Gold and Diamond OA routes, Creative Commons licences, image permissions, university OA funding, and how postgraduate and early‑career researchers can make their work more visible and accessible.

[00:00-04:15] – What is Open Access? Green, Gold, Diamond routes and CC licences.

[04:15-16:08] – OA at Essex: funds, repositories, and read‑and‑publish deals (with Sean Andersson).

[16:08-31.20] – Turning an art history PhD into an OA monograph and handling image permissions (with Alison Barker)

[31:20-35:38] – Images, third‑party copyright and choosing CC BY‑NC‑ND.

[35:38–43:51] – OA monographs, utopian studies and interdisciplinarity (with Sean Seeger).

Links
- Creative Commons Licenses

- Open Access Publishing - University of Essex

- Barker, A.C. (2025). The Dissemination of Saint George in Early Modern Art (1st ed.). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003454731

- Seeger, S. (2025). Utopian Variations. Utopia in Literature, Film, and Popular Culture. Peter Lang Verlag. https://doi.org/10.3726/b22926

Licence
- CC BY-NC-ND 4.0

Credits 
Music by Matthew Sillence.

This first episode of season 2 on PGR Matters introduces Open Research and why it matters for postgraduate researchers. Matthew explores how open access policies (especially UKRI from 2021) have reshaped expectations that publicly funded research outputs should be freely available and reusable, with evidence that open access work gains wider and more diverse citations.

Our guest in this episode is Grant Young, Head of Open Research at the University of East Anglia Library and in conversation, move from open access publications to open research across the whole project lifecycle. Key ideas include transparency (making methods, decisions, and processes visible where appropriate), the FAIR principles (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable), and planning for future reuse of data by both humans and machines.

The episode also introduces the MORPHSS project and CARE principles (Collective benefit, Authority to control, Responsibility, Ethics), stressing that open practices must be balanced with ethical responsibilities, especially when working with marginalized communities.

[00:00:11 – 00:04:11] – Series introduction, definition of open research, UKRI policy, citation benefits 

[00:04:11 – 00:11:25] – Grant Young’s role, open research beyond publications, transparency as a research attitude
 
[00:11:25 – 00:19:49] – Funders, public money, research impact, and the open research support team in the library 

[00:19:49 – 00:30:08] – FAIR principles, especially interoperability, metadata, formats, and AI/machine readability 

[00:30:08 – 00:34:35] – Open research in the humanities and cross-disciplinary learning between humanities and STEM 

[00:34:35 – 00:39:54] – MORPHSS, reproducibility vs replicability, FAIR vs CARE, ethics and marginalized communities, next-episode teaser

Links
- Arthur, Paul Longley, and Lydia Hearn. 2021. ‘Toward Open Research: A Narrative Review of the Challenges and Opportunities for Open Humanities.’ Journal of Communication 71 (5): 827–53. APA PsycInfo (2022-60288-008). https://doi.org/10.1093/joc/jqab028. 

- Ensuring open research – UKRI

- Knöchelmann, Marcel. 2019. ‘Open Science in the Humanities, or: Open Humanities?’ Publications 7 (4): 65–65. Directory of Open Access Journals (edsdoj.5fc9ac3e28c04ae8b32e598c5f86fb10). https://doi.org/10.3390/publications7040065. 

- MORPHSS – Materialising Open Research Practices in the Humanities and Social Sciences

- Openness in the arts, humanities and social sciences: Documenting open research practices beyond STEM (A MORPHSS Project Report)

- Open Research - UEA Library at University of East Anglia

Licence
- CC BY-NC-ND 4.0

Credits 
Music by Matthew Sillence.

• Policy capacity framework examining: