Research Culture Uncovered

In this episode, host Taryn Bell considers the state of research journalism in 2026. After the recent announcement of the closure of the UK's biggest research journalism outlet, Research Professional News, what does this mean for the research sector as a whole?

She talks to Adam Forristal Golberg (Strategic Research Development Manager, University of Nottingham) and Michael Salmon (Editor, Research Agenda) to discuss how we benefit from a trade press, and what comes next.

Key takeaways:

• Research journalism isn't just about reporting on updates: it's about holding the sector accountable, providing detailed analysis, and helping those in the sector put changes into perspective.
• A robust trade press is key to a healthier research culture: research journalists play a key role in speaking truth to power, and scrutinising topics such as working conditions, bullying, integrity, and AI.
• All is not lost!: 2 new outlets, Research Agenda and The Finding, have already been announced.

Explore more:

• Clarivate's statement on RPN's closure
• Research Agenda
• Introductory webinar for The Finding (11 November 2026)

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In this episode of Research Culture Uncovered, host Emma Spary speaks with Professor Tracey Reynolds, Associate Dean for Research and Knowledge Exchange in the Faculty of Law, Arts and Social Sciences at the University of Greenwich and Director of the Institute for Inclusive Communities and Environments, about designing and delivering a week-long Research Culture Week.

Tracey explains how the initiative aimed to connect siloed multi-campus communities, make existing activity more visible, and create inclusive spaces for staff, students, technicians and professional services. The week featured around 50 sessions across campuses and online, including Pint of Science events, a technicians’ “Hidden Heroes” exhibition, and an undergraduate student conference. Tracey shares evaluation insights, unexpected benefits, and practical lessons on early planning, communications, curation, and co-design.

Listen in to find out:

• Why hold a Research Culture Week
• How planning and securing buy in are key for success
• Some of the unexpected wins
• What to do differently next time
• Advice for others considering their own Research Culture Week

Find out more:

• Connect with Tracey Reynolds and Kate Farrow, the team behind the Research Culture Week
• Research Culture Week website
• Pint of Science
• REF2029 Strategy, People and Research Environment (SPRE)

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Follow us on Bluesky: @researcherdevleeds.bsky.social (new episodes are announced here), @openresleeds.bsky.social, @researchcultureuol.bsky.social

Connect to us on LinkedIn: @ResearchUncoveredPodcast (new episodes are announced here too).

If you would like to contribute to a podcast episode get in touch: [email protected]

Host Dr Emily Ennis is joined by colleagues from the University of Leeds Researcher Development and Research Culture team, Dr Taryn Bell, Dr Shareefa Fadhel, and Malaika Khalid, for a post-conference reflection on the International Research Culture Conference (IRCC).

Following presentations, workshops, networking, and conversations at Warwick, the team share what stood out, what surprised them, and what gives them hope for the future of research culture.

• A movement growing up. Four years on from the first IRCC, there was a strong sense that research culture conversations are maturing. Discussions are increasingly focused on implementation, evidence, and sustainability, rather than simply defining what research culture is.
• Hope in uncertain times. Amid challenging funding landscapes and questions about the future of research culture initiatives, delegates repeatedly returned to a sense of optimism. Despite uncertainty, there remains a strong appetite for collaboration and positive change.
• Microinclusions, not just big interventions. Malaika reflects on the power of small acts of inclusion and recognition. From ensuring everyone has a voice in meetings to acknowledging contributions that often go unseen, meaningful culture change can start with everyday interactions.
• Recognition as culture change. The team discuss how recognising the labour of colleagues, especially work that is often invisible, can improve belonging, motivation, and collaboration across research communities.
• Getting the right people in the room. Taryn shares reflections on discussions involving funders, institutional leaders, and practitioners, highlighting the value of bringing different perspectives together to tackle sector-wide challenges.
• From conversation to action. Conferences provide space to connect and reflect, but attendees also explored how to translate ideas into practical action, ensuring discussions lead to meaningful and lasting change.
• Finding community. Beyond the formal programme, the conference reinforced the importance of networks, shared learning, and creating spaces where people working in research culture can learn from each other.
• What's next? Emily, Shareefa, Taryn, and Malaika each share one idea, insight, or action they'll be taking forward from the conference into their own work.

Organisations, Networks & Events Mentioned

• International Research Culture Conference (IRCC)
• University of Warwick Research Culture
• Research Culture Enablers Network (RCEN)
• Wellcome Trust

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In this episode, Nick talks to Monica Westin, Director of Open Policy Development at Cambridge University Press, about her wide-ranging work across the open knowledge movement - including roles with DORA, NISO, COUNTER Metrics, and Wikimedia UK.

We discuss some of the challenges facing research communication, and explore knowledge equity, responsible research assessment, and the future of open access publishing.

We talk about the role of Wikimedia and Wikipedia in supporting open knowledge, and why making research outputs more visible and reusable matters.

We consider the impact of generative AI on the information ecosystem. From attribution and provenance to Creative Commons licensing and the future of openness, and discuss how researchers, publishers and information professionals can respond to rapid technological change while remaining committed to the principles of open knowledge.

Links:

• Cambridge University Press Open Access policies
• Knowledge Equity Network
• Knowledge Equity & Open Scholarship Week
• CUP Publishing Futures report (2025)
• Letter: University research must incentivise quality over quantity (Financial Times: paywall)
• Open Access : who's converting and who's just adding? (Rob Johnson LinkedIn post)
• Cambridge Open Engage platform
• Collateral Damage? Human Creativity and Interaction in the AI Crawling Era (Wikimania Panel)
• María Teresa Freyre de Andrade (Wkipedia Article)
• Beyond the Editathon: A New Contribution Model for Experts
• Creative Commons Signals

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All of our episodes can be accessed via the following playlists:

• Research Impact with Ged Hall (follow Ged on Bluesky and LinkedIn)
• Research Impact Heroes with Ged Hall
• Open Research with Nick Sheppard (follow Nick on Bluesky and LinkedIn)
• Research Careers with Ruth Winden (follow Ruth on Bluesky and LinkedIn)
• Research talent management
• Meet the Research Culturositists with Emma Spary (follow Emma on Bluesky and LinkedIn)
• Research co-production
• Research evaluation
• Research leadership
• Research professionals
• Academic failure with Taryn Bell (follow Taryn on Bluesky and LinkedIn)

Follow us on Bluesky: @researcherdevleeds.bsky.social (new episodes are announced here), @openresleeds.bsky.social, @researchcultureuol.bsky.social

Connect to us on LinkedIn: @ResearchUncoveredPodcast (new episodes are announced here too).

If you would like to contribute to a podcast episode get in touch: [email protected]

In this episode, we’re joined by Professor Catherine Noakes to explore the Civic Exchange — an initiative at the University of Leeds that's rethinking how universities and communities work together.

We cover:

🔸 What the Civic Exchange is (and isn't) — it's not about doing new things, but about connecting what's already happening across research, education, and engagement

🔸 Moving from "doing things for communities" to co-creating with them — and why that shift matters

🔸 The persistence of "town and gown" and what it takes to break it down

🔸 What Cath's career — from engineering to the SAGE Committee during the pandemic — taught her about working in partnership, understanding different motivations, and not assuming you have all the answers

🔸 The assumptions we make across disciplines about impact — and how arts, humanities, and sciences have more in common than we think

🔸 What a civic university of the future might look like, and why devolution could be both a carrot and a stick

A few favourite moments from the conversation:

"If you get it right, what you get out the end is so much richer and so much more powerful and impactful." — Cath Noakes

"We do need experts, but many of the people we work with are also experts in a different way." — Cath Noakes

Big thanks to Cath for a genuinely thoughtful conversation. If you're working in or around universities, community partnerships, or research culture, I think you'll find this one interesting.

🔗 Link to listen in the comments below

Links to some of our topics:

Mark Reed’s podcast episode on engagement: Episode 44: What is good practice engagement and impact?

Experimenting with different project leadership structures: Project Toolkit Launched – LivingBodiesObjects

Latest on The Civic Exchange here at Leeds: The Civic Exchange | University of Leeds

Who deserves to be named as an author?

It sounds like a straightforward question, yet authorship remains one of the most contested issues in research. Decisions about who receives credit are often influenced by disciplinary norms, power dynamics, unwritten rules and of course, research culture.

In this episode, Dr Emily Goodall explores four authorship dilemmas drawn from workshops with researchers and research professionals. As each scenario unfolds, you're invited to make your own judgement. Should they be an author? More importantly, what do the answers reveal about how we value different contributions to research?

Join the Conversation

We've turned the four dilemmas featured in the episode into a listener poll and are interested in your thoughts on authorship. This results will be revealed here, a week after the episode launches.

👉 Click here to submit your vote.

The results are in: Perhaps unsurprisingly, our listeners took a notably inclusive approach to authorship, with strong consensus around three of the four scenarios. 100% supported authorship for Maria, the community partner; John, the former PhD student; and Fatima, the technical expert. For Prof Chen, only 25% felt his contribution warranted authorship.

The poll remains open, so we'd still love to hear your views.

✅ Authorship is about responsibility as well as recognition: Being named as an author is not only about receiving credit for a piece of research, but also about taking responsibility for the integrity of the work.

✅ Authorship reflects our values: Questions of authorship touch on some of the most important issues in research culture, including fairness, recognition, accountability, power and inclusion. Decisions about who is named, and who is not, reflect what and who we value in the creation of knowledge.

✅ Transparency supports fairness: Open and ongoing conversations about authorship should include everyone involved in the research, helping to set clear expectations, recognise diverse forms of contribution, and ensure that attribution is fairly acknowledged.

Resources

UKRIO Authorship Integrity Toolkit: Practical guidance on authorship, authorship agreements, contributor discussions, and resolving disputes.

CRediT (Contributor Roles Taxonomy): A framework for describing and recognising different contributions to research.

ICMJE: Vancouver Guidelines: A widely recognised sets of authorship criteria, particularly in health, medical and biomedical research.

COPE (Committee on Publication Ethics): Guidance, resources and discussion documents to support ethical decision-making in publication and authorship.

If you've enjoyed listening to this episode, please consider leaving a review on your favourite podcast app, via Podchaser, or by submitting an online review form.

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Follow us on Bluesky: @researcherdevleeds.bsky.social (new episodes are announced here), @openresleeds.bsky.social, @researchcultureuol.bsky.social

Connect to us on LinkedIn: @ResearchUncoveredPodcast (new episodes are announced here too).

If you would like to contribute to a podcast episode get in touch: [email protected]

If you have enjoyed listening to this episode, please consider leaving a review on your favourite podcast app, via Podchaser, or by submitting an online review form.

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Follow us on Bluesky: @researcherdevleeds.bsky.social (new episodes are announced here), @openresleeds.bsky.social, @researchcultureuol.bsky.social

Connect to us on LinkedIn: @ResearchUncoveredPodcast (new episodes are announced here too).

If you would like to contribute to a podcast episode get in touch: [email protected]

Is the job market really as bad as the headlines say? How can researchers better understand and communicate their skillsets? And how can they manage the anxiety and uncertainty that comes with the current employment climate?

In this episode, host Taryn Bell talks with co-host Ruth Winden, as well as King’s College London's Laura Johnson and Anna Favalessa, hosts of the Careers in Your Ears podcast.

Together, they unpack:

• How misleading data and clickbait can amplify researcher anxiety, while the data might not actually be as bad as we think
• Researchers' misconceptions about the non-academic job market, including the common refrain that "I'm not qualified for anything other than research"
• The emotional work of career change, and the challenges and benefits of supporting researchers through tricky career transitions

If you're a researcher developer or careers consultant interested in how you can better support your researchers' career transitions, this is the episode for you!

Find out more:

Listen to the Careers in Your Ears podcast via Spotify, Apple or wherever you listen to podcasts. We particularly recommend the following episodes:

• S15 Ep2 | Q&A | Research is my only passion - what else can I do?
• S14 Ep3 | Q&A | I've applied for over 50 jobs: what am I doing wrong?

Learn more about the team behind the podcast:

• Laura's LinkedIn
• Anna's LinkedIn
• KCL Careers
• LinkedIn - Kings Careers Network for Researchers

If you've enjoyed listening to this episode, please consider leaving a review on your favourite podcast app, via Podchaser, or by submitting an online review form.

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Follow us on Bluesky: @researcherdevleeds.bsky.social (new episodes are announced here), @openresleeds.bsky.social, @researchcultureuol.bsky.social

Connect to us on LinkedIn: @ResearchUncoveredPodcast (new episodes are announced here too).

If you would like to contribute to a podcast episode get in touch: [email protected]

If you have enjoyed listening to this episode, please consider leaving a review on your favourite podcast app, via Podchaser, or by submitting an online review form.

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Follow us on Bluesky: @researcherdevleeds.bsky.social (new episodes are announced here), @openresleeds.bsky.social, @researchcultureuol.bsky.social

Connect to us on LinkedIn: @ResearchUncoveredPodcast (new episodes are announced here too).

If you would like to contribute to a podcast episode get in touch: [email protected]

Episode overview

Artificial intelligence is rapidly becoming part of the research landscape—from finding and making sense of literature to supporting academic writing and feedback. But how can researchers use AI productively without losing ownership of their ideas or compromising the critical thinking at the heart of research?

In this episode, Heledd speaks with Dr Marc-Oliver Gewaltig, co-founder and CEO of Thesify, about what a responsible relationship between researchers and AI might look like.

They discuss how AI can support different stages of academic writing, the importance of transparency about its contributions, and how it may change the skills researchers need. Marc-Oliver also explains why human judgement, intellectual ownership and subject expertise must remain central to good research.

In this episode

• Marc-Oliver’s journey from physics and computational neuroscience to robotics, AI and entrepreneurship
• The challenges researchers and supervisors face when reviewing and developing academic writing
• How AI can provide feedback on manuscripts and support researchers through the drafting process
• Using AI to encourage researchers to develop and communicate their own ideas rather than placing the writing process on “autopilot”
• How AI could support conversations and manage expectations between researchers and supervisors
• Why transparency, AI provenance and clear records of individual contributions matter
• How AI may change the skills researchers need and why deliberate experimentation is essential
• Intellectual ownership, plagiarism and the risks of allowing AI to generate ideas
• What AI cannot replace: human judgement, subject expertise and scientific communication

About Marc-Oliver

Dr Marc-Oliver Gewaltig is co-founder and CEO of Thesify, a startup developing responsible AI tools for scientists and students. He has worked at the intersection of neuroscience, robotics and artificial intelligence for almost three decades.

He was Principal Scientist at Honda Research Institute Europe and Senior Group Leader at EPFL, where he co-directed the Neurorobotics subproject of the Human Brain Project. Before founding Thesify, he was the founding CEO of HeyScience.

Find out more

• Thesify: https://www.thesify.ai/
• Marc-Oliver Gewaltig on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gewaltig/
• Thesify on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/thesify-ai
• Thesify Substack: https://thesify.substack.com/

Episode overview

Exploring a career beyond academia can bring excitement and possibility, but also uncertainty, questions about identity and a sense that moving on means leaving something behind.

In this episode, Heledd speaks with Dr Holly Prescott about the practical and emotional realities of career transition. They explore why researchers may struggle to recognise their skills, why leaving academia can feel like “giving up”, and how careers beyond academia can offer new ways to use your researcher experience.

Holly also challenges the idea that career development is about finding one perfect destination. Instead, it can begin with taking a next step, gathering information and learning more about what matters to you.

Featured contributor

Dr Holly Prescott — Careers Adviser for Postgraduate Researchers at the University of Birmingham, freelance trainer and consultant, and founder of the PostGradual careers blog. Holly is the author of Navigating Careers Beyond Academia: A Practical Handbook for Doctoral and Postdoctoral Researchers (Routledge, 2026).

🔗 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/holly-prescott/

🦋 Bluesky: @holby83.bsky.social

🌐 PostGradual: https://phd-careers.co.uk/

Key themes explored

• The emotional and practical challenges of career transition

• Recognising and communicating transferable skills

• Moving beyond the divide between “staying” and “leaving” academia

• Remaining connected to research in different ways

• Approaching your career as an iterative process

• How universities can help researchers see wider possibilities

Memorable ideas

• Your next job is a step in a journey, not a final destination: even those who have already moved beyond academia see their careers as ‘works in progress.’

• Researchers are not starting from zero when they move beyond academia

• Some of your most valuable skills develop when things do not go to plan

• Moving beyond academia may change how your researcher identity shows up, but it does not have to disappear completely.

Find out more

Find out more about Holly’s book

Holly’s online book launch takes place on 14 September 2026 at 16:00 BST/17:00 CET.

Register for the online book launch

Related episode

From Postdoc to Project Manager: How Do You Make the Leap?

Ruth Winden speaks with Dr Shirley-Anne Paul about moving from postdoctoral research into project management, transferable skills and the emotional experience of leaving research.

🔗 Listen to the episode

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Follow us on Bluesky: @researcherdevleeds.bsky.social; @openresleeds.bsky.social; @researchcultureuol.bsky.social

Connect with us on LinkedIn: @ResearchUncoveredPodcast (new episodes are announced here)

Want to contribute to a future episode?

We’d love to hear from you — especially if you have reflections on research culture from any career stage or role.

[email protected]

In an environment of low success rates, rising research costs, and shrinking opportunities, the research funding system appears to be at a crisis point. This isn't just a funding crisis but a culture crisis, intensifying workloads, stress, and precarity, especially for early career researchers seeking funding to stay employed.

A complete overhaul of the funding system is needed - but seems unlikely at present. In lieu of this, what can funders, institutions and researchers actually do to face up to these pressures?

In this episode, host Taryn Bell considers some doable - yet still meaningful - changes that we could make at varying points within the system, including:

• Increasing transparency from funders when communicating calls and outcomes
• More intentional career conversations - including making space for difficult conversations
• Preparing our researchers to get ready to apply much earlier than they think

We'd love to hear your suggestions for what needs to change in the funding landscape. Get in touch - and perhaps you'll be on a future episode of the podcast!

Find out more:

• Isaac Barbosa - BBSRC caps fellowship bids mid-call after surge in applications.
• Geraint Rees and James Wilsdon - Could agentic AI topple grant-funding systems?
• Kirsty Grainger - Too Fast to Think? Why UKRI Calls Are So Rushed, Why It Matters, and What to Do About It.
• Harriet Swain - Can ‘high-stress’ interviews for grants save a system under pressure?
• UKRI timeline of 2026 funding opportunities

If you have enjoyed listening to this episode, please consider leaving a review on your favourite podcast app, via Podchaser, or by submitting an online review form.

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Follow us on Bluesky: @researcherdevleeds.bsky.social (new episodes are announced here), @openresleeds.bsky.social, @researchcultureuol.bsky.social

Connect to us on LinkedIn: @ResearchUncoveredPodcast (new episodes are announced here too).

If you would like to contribute to a podcast episode get in touch: [email protected]