Alloying ambition and annealing ideas

By Dr Joanna Royle, Researcher Development Manager

One of the University of Glasgow’s longest running, high-profile Research Staff development programmes, the Glasgow Crucible follows a model found across UK Universities. ‘Crucibles’ are intensive opportunities that bring cohorts of mid-career research leaders together to forge interdisciplinary connections, think creatively about bold ideas for funding and publications, and develop career-relevant knowledge exchange expertise. Perhaps most importantly, they are a chance to carve out time to disconnect from daily work and explore the bigger picture of how their own actions as leaders matter in creating the conditions for a thriving research culture.

Melting point: the Glasgow Crucible so far

The Glasgow Crucible is part of the ‘Talent Lab’ suite of leadership development initiatives (read much more on Talent Lab here) which includes mentoring, networks, and career and research leadership programmes. Led by the Research Culture and Researcher Development team in Research Services, Talent Lab initiatives are a mechanism for delivering our UofG people-focused Research Strategy. The Glasgow Crucible attracts experienced Postdoctoral Researchers, Research Fellows and new Lecturers, from all disciplines, via an application process that scores potential participants equally on their potential for research leadership, and on their intention to create a collegial learning environment for their cohort.

Over the last decade the four core learning days of the Glasgow Crucible have been iteratively refined, including delivery through off-site residentials, visits to to the Science Centre, team building activities, expert workshops, and even ceilidhs! The programme design is grounded in our knowledge that the talents of researchers are best fostered by carving out spaces for development-in-practice, not through a deficit model of information deposits. Following a break caused by the Covid pandemic, the programme returned in 2021-22 and the energy in the room was regenerative as people found powerful value in having informal unfettered head space to explore common ground, and engage with the forward planning that led to refreshed professional identities and grant submissions.

Designing the Glasgow Crucible 2022-23

This year we lent heavily into the Crucible metaphor to describe our intentions to facilitate an active and energetic blend of people and disciplines. The heart of the programme was a two-day ‘igniting the crucible’ residential at Lodge on the Loch, on Loch Lomond. Led by Dr Robin Henderson, these initial days explored the gap between current and ideal research cultures, and equipped researchers with creativity tools to enable them to play their own part in bringing about change. This was followed by four half-day online expert-led workshops: Forging Engagement, Forging Collaboration, Forging Communication, and Forging Applications. The programme was framed by two personal coaching sessions (‘the pilot light’ and ‘polishing the steel’) and closed with an in-person celebration offering a chance to reflect and talk through key issues with senior university leaders.

Annealing and alloying: the value of Crucible 2022-23

If, like me, you’re not an expert in metalworking, these metaphors for development refer to the heat treatment (annealing) that increases ductility making metal easier to work, and to materials mixing (alloying) to increase strength. If that sounds a little stretched, bear with, because it was borne out in what researchers told us about the long-term value of the Glasgow Crucible programme.

When we went back to participants 6-months later they told us that they particularly appreciated the ‘heat’ of the two concentrated days leadership retreat, and the alloying of interdisciplinary cohort peer networks. They also valued feeling more plugged into how the university works overall and the chance to meet senior leaders, with one researcher noting “I felt quite dissociated from the University … since bringing my fellowship here 2 years ago – COVID restrictions perhaps, but now have a better sense of what the University can offer me if I choose to stay here to establish my independent research career.”

Researchers also prized the strong values, and sense of integrity underpinning the programme content, saying “I reflected more on what kind of researcher I want to be and what my values are”. In particular they resonated with the research culture threads: “There needs to be a ‘new guard’ of academics bringing in a shift… definitely made me think of myself as an ambassador and driver of positive research culture” and “I realized that a positive research culture requires every little effort from all of us… a healthy communication environment in a small research group would facilitate the growth of the bigger positive research culture”. Looking to the future, there was interest in building the programme further to offer more support for practical project and people management.

Looking forward: Forging into 2023-24

We are really proud of the Glasgow Crucible, but we are also always looking to how we can improve the programme to maximise value for our talented researchers. Key enhancements we hope to pilot next year are, at least:

• A fully in-person model: The accessibility benefits of online sessions were outweighed by the challenges of zoom fatigue as participants struggled to engage with content and with each other in the digital environment. To improve momentum and cohort building the main programme body will be two pairs of days: one off-site and one on-campus. This means we will need to work harder to ensure accessibility options for everyone, and we are committed to doing just that.
• Career stage cohorts: Researchers always note the value of sharing longitudinal development spaces with their peers. To improve this cohort-identity, the Glasgow Crucible will focus on researchers who are already leading projects and a new ‘Ignite’ programme will be piloting for aspiring research leaders at an earlier stage in their career. We will be aligning recruitment timing for all Talent Lab leadership programmes to create a clear pathway for how researchers can progress through development through their UofG career.
• Coaching to mentoring: The individual coaching sessions piloted in 2022-23 didn’t significantly improve researchers’ perceptions of their growth and development on the Glasgow Crucible programme. For 2023-24 we are instead looking to cross-link into the Talent Lab suite to line up the Glasgow Crucible with the Catalyst Mentoring programme.

Applications will open at the end of 2023, and we are looking forward to firing up the kiln in the Spring!