Am I collegial?

Dr Kay Guccione, Head of Research Culture and Researcher Development, with strong thanks to Dr Rhoda Stefanatos, Charlotte Bonner-Evans, Dr Joanna Royle, and Dr Rachel Herries in the Research Culture and Researcher Development Team, for their input.

In this post I aim to encourage readers to think about what collegiality is, what it looks like in practice, what is meaningful to them, and to see how they benefit from being part of a collegial culture.

Why collegiality?

The cultural traditions of the academy are visible as the shared values, assumptions, beliefs, rituals and other forms of behaviour observable within our working cultures (Evans, 2007). They influence the tone, temperature and cohesiveness of the academic community. There has been a rapid emergence of culture change initiatives in universities in recent years, initiated in response to the increased reporting of the negative experiences of researchers through research articles, as well as news and social media accounts documenting the negative consequences of poor research culture (see just a few examples in the links below).

Underneath that umbrella term we often find detailed such issues as casualisation of research work, bullying and harassment, career stagnation, a reproducibility crisis, and professional misconduct, causing concern for both the integrity of research, and for the mental health of the people at work within the current academic culture, particular those who are already precarious and/or marginalised (Limas, 2022; Ayres, 2022; Jones 2023). Behaviour towards others, especially that meted out by those in positions of power, underpins many of the concerns arising.

Those who fund research are, in response to increasing evidence of a culture of poor behaviour, taking a close interest in how they can responsibly reward those applicants who can evidence their good intent and actions towards others. The term being used to describe this is intentional interpersonal practice is ‘collegiality’. Those of us inside universities who have amassed a great deal of evidence for how poor interpersonal skills waste valuable time, money, goodwill, health, and indeed entire careers, are also keen to understand how we can support staff to develop the behaviours and practices that allow others, and themselves, to thrive.

Collegiality is a term I like. To me, it is a simple way to describe being a good colleague to those around me (even if what ‘good’ looks like is more complicated). Or you may know it as ‘Wheaton’s Law’.

Collegiality between peer scholars who operate on trust is particularly pertinent in academic life. It has been said to be is the “modus operandi of universities” … “the core of what universities are and what their purpose is” Sahlin and Eriksson-Zetterquis (2023). According to Mignot-Gérard et al., 2022, “Collegiality is what regulates academic standards and procedures, identities, and practices”. Even though the current complex regulatory ecosystem of research, and shifting managerial power has changed the notion and validity of traditional honour-based academic agreements, universities could still benefit greatly from a renewed actualisation of collegiality within research culture (Craig et al, 2024).

What is collegiality?

Collegiality has been conceptualised in the literature as “…the manner in which members of the department interact with and show respect for one another, work collaboratively in order to achieve common purposes, and assume equitable responsibilities for the good of the unit as a whole.” (Cipriano and Buller, 2012). The four categories of academic collegiality developed by Brown (2021) provide a useful way of breaking down the elements of a collegial culture. These categories are, firstly, professional collegiality – substantiated through everyday helping interactions such as the support we offer each other for navigating the unwritten rules and insider knowledge of academic and research professions. The second category is intellectual collegiality – which describes trustworthy knowledge sharing and connection through disciplinary communications and conferences. Category three is social collegiality – this is enacted through shared spaces, material objects, and interpersonal negotiations we encounter in the course of getting research work done. Finally, emotional collegiality is category four – this is visible as the recognition of shared emotional experiences, the highs and lows inherent in innovation, and our preparedness to engage in emotional support work.

Collegiality in academic life operates vertically, within formal decision-making structures, and in management, leadership, and supervisory relationships, and horizontally between contemporaries, across teams, disciplinary communities of peers, within departments, across universities, among reviewers, at conferences, or in global scholarly networks Sahlin and Eriksson-Zetterquis (2023).

Collegiality at Glasgow

Collegiality has been one of our five research culture priorities at Glasgow since 2019.

Considerate and intentional relationship maintenance is the basis for so many of Glasgow’s research priorities (collaboration, interdisciplinarity, talent retention, and research impact to name a few) and so it is one we give serious thought to how to build, scaffold and reward. Recognition of collegiality is formalised within Glasgow’s promotion criteria and had been previously understood in general terms as ‘supporting each other to succeed’ (Casci and Padgett, 2021). Using an initial analysis of data collected from over 500 people, as part of Glasgow’s ‘People Make Research’ project (Lim, 2026) we can now expand upon that to define a collegial relationship as a cooperative, fair, inclusive and democratic one, that emphasises care, dependability, reciprocity, teamwork and shared power.

Further, we can position greater collegiality as not only a worthy ambition in itself, but as a foundational condition for the other four of Glasgow’s Research Culture ambitions enabling others’ career development, responsible research assessment, and good research integrity. Without strong collegial relationships that garner trust, grander ambitions like inclusive research, open data sharing, respectful authorship conversations, and career support fall to the wayside.

Why should collegiality be formalised in the promotion process?

• As established above, collegiality is something that we want to maintain and increase within the research community as it underpins ambitious research, and
• Being intentionally supportive, generous and considerate relationships takes additional time, and mental and emotional energy. If a collegial academic culture is to flourish at Glasgow, then we need to invest in it. And
• Collegiality needs to be recognised on a par with other forms of academic work as it is established as foundational to academic work. Time spent creating engaging working environments that demonstrate care, reciprocity, and development for others, means time not spent on other, more traditionally rewarded activities.

Ways to engage with collegiality

I hear you asking, ‘if it’s this important, can you please give us some examples of how to do it?’ ‘What can I write on my promotion form that helps me to evidence the work of collegiality?’.

Some hot tips from the Research Culture and Researcher Development Team are:

• Be deliberate, intentional, self-aware. Set out to be collegial on purpose. Let’s normalize proactively learning to be collegial leaders, supervisors and colleagues.
• Think of a colleague who makes a positive difference – what do they do? Why is that important to those around them? Reading through some of the ‘People Make Research’ nominations will give you a lot of ideas.
• Do little things. They all add up. Within the boundaries of everyday policies and processes there can be bags of space to innovate. Just because things have evolved in a certain way, doesn’t mean they have to continue to be that way. Adjust and improve.

Here are some examples of collegiality in research. You will be able to add many more to this starter list, and these are most welcome in the comments.

1. Have a meaningful career conversation with your PGRs and Research Staff. Here’s a toolkit to help you with that.
2. Create a Team ‘Charter’. This idea comes from the concepts of group learning contracts, supervisory agreements, and ground rule setting. Such documents are created as a means of building trust as they clarify expectations, standards, rights, and responsibilities. This removes uncertainty from the process, supports access to the Hidden Curriculum and helps teams feel secure.
3. Peer reviewing (all kinds) is collegial, and what if you were to also delegate and demystify peer review and support junior colleagues to learn how to do it well. And what if you were to redesign a peer review process you lead or are part of to be more transparent, reciprocal, developmental, and inclusive? Are there other implicit practices in your discipline that you could help to reveal?
4. Think about how you conduct interviews. This could be job or studentship interviews, where you could set applicants up for greater success. It could be mock interviews for grants, fellowships and directorships. Are you attending as a gatekeeper or as a guide? How do you hold a space for building confidence as well as competence?
5. Re-imagine unhelpful traditions of academic learning. Adapt and improve. This could involve, for example, rethinking and adjusting common features of academic life such as lab/team meetings, journal clubs and research presentations. We can shift the primary focus, from that of being a corrective or conclusive process designed to generate rigorous outcomes at our own judgement, to being one of enabling the exploration, ideas testing, and critical reflection that enables understanding of rigorous outcomes.
6. Support your Research Staff to engage in research supervision. Post-doctoral Research Staff do so much legitimate and necessary supervision every day. How can you help them be formally recognised for their work, and intentional in their development so they feel ready to take on their own PGRs?
7. Lead or co-lead, or volunteer within a staff project, initiative, network, or community, or take on a voluntary leadership role in your school. Join communities and share generously. Answer questions that others ask. Role model being a supportive community member.
8. Share the wealth. Fairly distribute the freebies, invites, vouchers, discounts, budgets, access, invites and seats at the table you receive. Make sure that what you offer one team member, you can offer them all (at some point).
9. Nominated others in the People Make Research project – call next opens in December 2026. If that’s too long to wait, you could tell them now how much you value them. Look for other ways to hold good colleagues aloft.
10. Get the right experts in the room. Make sure that you invite all people with relevant experiences and ideas to the party. Look at different types of lived and work experiences on panels, speaker lists, and committees and actively include those who are missing. Push your colleagues forward to take the limelight.
11. Be a mentor. As well as volunteering time on formal programmes (such as Catalyst Mentoring and Thesis Mentoring) you can level up your mentoring skills for use with those you supervise or manage.
12. In a system set up to learn by failure, resist blaming. Resist judgement. Check in on whether you are perpetuating narratives of failure.
13. Provide open, honest, and constructive feedback that doesn’t sting.  
14. Think about becoming more predictable. Whilst often equated with being ‘boring’ being predictable as a colleague builds trust. It means you are consistent, that you share the ‘why’ behind your views and decisions, and that colleagues are clear about what you want, need, and are willing to give. They know where you are, and what you intend to do. People know what they will get with you. Your expectations are communicated.

Whilst we are encouraging you to take up your choice of the above, of course, being a reliable, considerate and responsible colleague is not about taking them all on. Being collegial doesn’t mean putting everyone else before yourself or sacrificing your own ambitions and mental wellbeing for those of others. Collegiality can also be expressed as setting and keeping boundaries, being clear about what you will and will not do and being judicious about choosing not to pay into partnerships, teams, or collaborations that don’t pay back. Collegiality is after all a gift, and should be a reciprocal act.

More, we hope you can see benefits to you yourself, through engaging with the different parts of the list above. Clarity and security for your team, strong mentoring skills, and a culture of delegation to those you trust will pay you back, often as much as they benefit others.

And so, returning to the idea above – what one small thing could you fit into your ways of working?