The University of Suffolk is still early on in its research journey. Having submitted to just one REF so far, we're building towards multiple submissions in the next cycle. This means nurturing a community of predominantly early career researchers who are still gaining confidence in the complex world of research funding. Advance HE’s Research Leadership Development Programme has proven invaluable in meeting this challenge.
Creating a collaborative culture
As the only team member participating in the programme, I needed to think carefully about translating what I learned into practical changes to benefit everyone. The key insight? Transparency and collaboration over competition.
We've started bringing staff together to jointly develop funding bids, working in the open so that even those not directly involved can learn from the process. This approach is building something fundamental: a willingness to co-operate rather than compete internally. We're competing against the rest of the world for funding, but within our walls, we're building each other up.
The results have been encouraging. Colleagues now actively search for grant opportunities and, when they find something that doesn't fit their own work, pass it around to others. This collegiate behaviour emerges from deliberate culture-building, from creating an environment where people feel supported rather than threatened.
Building confidence through experience
Research funding is, let's be honest, often like lottery tickets. You need researchers willing to take chances and put themselves out there. The Research leadership Development Programme helped me give my colleagues the confidence to try, to risk failure and to not worry when things don't work out.
If we keep building experience and putting in applications, we'll see successes. Those successes will catapult us forward, positioning us strongly for the next REF and giving individuals the track records they need to progress their careers.
Beyond my own discipline
As previously an Associate Dean for Research and Knowledge Exchange in a multidisciplinary School and now as a Director of a pan-university Research Institute, my responsibilities extend beyond computer science. The programme equipped me to mentor colleagues in the arts, business and psychology - areas completely distinct from my expertise. The principles remain the same: building confidence, creating opportunities for track records, encouraging people to aim for the best journals and conferences in their fields.
This broader reach means the programme's impact extends across our entire institution, helping develop a stronger academic research profile university-wide. And it's about more than metrics - it's giving individuals the opportunity to demonstrate that their research has meaning and makes things better, whether for companies or for people's lives.
Learning from peers
One of the most valuable aspects of the Research Leadership Development Programme was having frank discussions with people at my level from completely different disciplines and universities. We discovered we're all facing similar issues. Exchanging potential solutions in a friendly, non-judgmental environment was genuinely refreshing.
The programme introduced different frameworks for understanding our environment. Beyond VUCA (volatility, uncertainty, complexity, ambiguity), we explored concepts like brittleness, non-linearity and incomprehensibility. While these sound pessimistic, they help frame problems in ways that reveal why colleagues might be anxious. Once you understand that, you can start helping - giving people a sense of control, autonomy and value in what they're doing, no matter what challenges the sector faces.
A powerful metaphor we explored was the “balcony and the dance floor” where leaders need to balance hands-on and operational work (being in the dance whether doing one’s own research or day-to-day management) with making and taking time to have a strategic perspective (watching from the balcony). A key insight for me was that balcony time isn’t just an opportunity to observe patterns and judiciously direct, it’s an opportunity to cheer on and encourage colleagues in the dance.
The spider web revelation
Perhaps the most surprising element was a 360-degree feedback exercise. We scored ourselves across various dimensions, then had volunteers from different levels score us as well, with results appearing as spider web diagrams.
My self-assessment produced a modest spider, hugging the middle of the diagram. But others saw me differently - their assessments created a much broader web. This confidence boost reminded me that we're often harder on ourselves than others are on us. When the world tries to overwhelm me now, I can hang onto that insight. And if I can maintain my equilibrium, others can take reassurance from that stability.
Impact at the University of Suffolk
For a young university building its research culture, the Research Leadership Development Programme's benefits are concrete. We're seeing greater confidence among colleagues, increased willingness to submit funding bids and genuine team collaboration. Academics can now see their future and understand how they can contribute over the next few years to building something valuable.
The programme has fundamentally enhanced how I manage and influence people
giving me tools to help colleagues find peace of mind and reassure them that their work is worthwhile. We're creating an environment that will benefit the University while helping each individual academic progress in their career and make meaningful contributions to their fields.
And that, fundamentally, is what leadership in research is all about.