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Research Culture Cafes

Research Culture Cafés

An opportunity for you to share experiences of our current research culture.

As part of our ongoing work to create and promote a positive and inclusive research culture we are holding a series of café style conversations. These are based on the format used by the Wellcome Trust as a space to discuss challenges and propose ideas. By getting involved you can contribute to discussion on the challenges you face, what we are already doing well and could share more widely, and what would a better culture look like. The Cafés form part of an ongoing project to promote a positive research culture, and the discussions will help to propose solutions for how the institution could change. Collaboration and community are key to a vibrant, healthy culture so come along and take part. Have your say.

How the cafés work

They are run as small group discussions with a facilitator to help guide and direct the conversation. There may be some information and resources shared at the time of advertising the café and on the day to define the remit. We will use some reflective questions to help get the group conversations started. Groups will contain a mix of up to 10 people. The facilitator will make notes but these will be anonymised. At the end of each event the challenges, examples of best practice and ideas will be shared with all participants through our Research Culture Community Teams Channel.

Get involved

Café conversations will be run regularly, approximately every two months. You are welcome to participate in as many as you wish. Each Café will cover themes  aligned to our Research Culture Strategic Objectives (SOs), which are listed below, and or other national initiatives which include Research Culture, like for examples the Concordat(s) and the Technician Commitment. As a result some cafes will also be dedicated to staff categories.

  • SO1 Valuing diverse forms of research activity
  • SO2 Embedding EDI principles in research
  • SO3 Enabling Open Research practices
  • SO4 Mutually supporting and developing research teams

Another part of the project is to build a Research Culture Community, a network to discuss further plans and to provide members with an opportunity to share their ideas and examples of best practice.  The Cafés and community will be supported by our Research Culture Team.  Join the Research Culture Community and get involved.

Upcoming cafés

11 December 2024, 10-11am – Research Culture Café: Open Forum (On campus) 

This  forum provides an opportunity to engage with Professor Luke Windsor, Research Leader and Dean of the Doctoral College. Luke will give a short 10-minute presentation about his roles and then will answer your pre-submitted questions. Refreshments will be available from 9.30am.

You can submit questions in advance of the Open Forum via Padlet around the following topics:

  1. Opportunities and support for engagement for postdoctoral researchers in PGR supervision.
  2. Leadership and positive work culture. For example, what you think the key things to consider are in order to create and sustain a positive culture around supervision/management.

If there is enough time, the guest speaker will welcome more questions from attendees. After the event, we will write a case study of the discussion outcomes and a selection of frequently asked questions, with permission from the guest speaker.

Sign up for the Open Forum on 11 December 2024

The themes and remits for the following sessions will be confirmed closer to the event. In the meantime, you can still book your place on the following links:

Previous events in 2024-25:

The following sessions ran as part of our Research Culture Café series in the 2024-25 academic year:

14 August 2024 (11am-12noon, online via Zoom) 

Theme and remit: PULSE Survey feedback and discussion on future format of our Research Culture Cafés.

16 October 2024 (11am-12noon, online via Zoom)

Theme and remit: Professional and career development, research integrity and responsible research and innovation. In addition to this café event, you may be interested in the following online training module:

Our online course on research integrity and ethics provides a comprehensive introduction to the key principles and policies that guide our research practice. Based around the UK Concordat to Support Research Integrity, the modules are designed to help you reflect on the ethical considerations for conducting research. The content is highly recommended for all researchers and those who support research at the University of Leeds.

Join the Research Culture Community

Click here to join the Research Culture MS Team