By Isabelle Nic Craith, (PhD candidate, School of Psychology, University College Dublin, Laura Foley, Postdoctoral researcher, Geary Institute for Public Policy, University College Dublin, Pat Mulvaney, PhD candidate, School of Psychology, University College Dublin & Glen Jankowski Lecturer, School of Psychology, UWE Bristol
While academic publications and other writing outputs are crucial to success within academia (Kwiek, 2019), many researchers in higher education institutions struggle to balance these requirements with teaching, supervision, administrative and pastoral commitments. This time poverty is particularly striking for female (Murray, 2023) and minoritised (Trejo, 2020) researchers, who shoulder a disproportionate burden. Siloed working conditions also contribute to feelings of isolation (Hazell et al., 2020) and mental health challenges (Evans et al., 2018) among academics. We argue that creating a research culture of community, solidarity and respect, and carving out dedicated time for writing and deep focus in a supportive environment, is crucial to addressing these challenges.
Towards this aim, in March 2025, we established the Interdisciplinary Writing Solidarity Group (IWSG). We aimed to support researchers to progress their writing and publication goals and build an inclusive research culture of solidarity and collegiality. We ran 24 full-day writing retreats, and 3 in-depth workshops facilitating reflections on barriers to research and career progression. Our project was funded by the University College Dublin Research Culture – Local Actions, Initiatives and Measures (ReCLAIM)initiative and we now run writing retreats supported by the UCD Geary Institute for Public Policy.
In this blog post, we share reflections on our experiences running the IWSG, how the project helped to enhance productivity and community among researchers in our institution, and share an open-access toolkit which can be adapted to run an IWSG in your own institution.
Creating dedicated, distraction-free research and writing time
The IWSG was founded on the idea that working alongside others in a supportive, distraction-free environment can help academics to work towards their goals – particularly those academics who are balancing research commitments with administrative roles, teaching and care responsibilities. We argue that creating such a space can not only bolster solidarity and cohesion among researchers, but that it can increase their productivity and that of the university.
Sessions did not teach researchers ‘how to write’. Rather, they adopted structured Pomodoro sessions to enhance focus, allowing researchers to work alongside one another, discuss their progress during the designated break times, and sow the seeds of future collaborations and relationships.
We aimed to create a safe space, through sharing our own goals, experiences and the challenges we were experiencing, and encouraging others to do the same. We were careful to share not just successes, but failures and difficulties also, creating a norm of honesty and transparency. The fact that our team comprised two doctoral researchers, a postdoctoral researcher, and an assistant professor likely meant that researchers across career stages felt comfortable attending and sharing their experiences.
Highlighting and addressing common barriers and challenges in academia.
The IWSG project also aimed to shed light on common barriers and challenges in academia, and create a space where researchers could discuss them. We identified several key issues which affect all academic researchers, but which disproportionately impact women (Goyanes et al., 2025), racialised academics (Liu et al., 2020) and early career researchers (Evans et al., 2018; van Dalen & Henkens, 2012). These included citation gaps in bibliographies and university curricula, the flawed nature of the publication industry, and difficulties bridging the gap between research and policy.
To bring these challenges to the fore, build a community of solidarity, and empower researchers to develop the skills to resist, we held three dedicated workshops.
Workshop 1: Cite Me Maybe – Addressing gendered and racialised research barriers (Glen Jankowski, with Oluromade Olusa)
The first workshop focused on the issue of citation gaps, with a particular emphasis on inequalities in citation, research and higher education for women, racialised academics (Jankowski et al., 2022) and researchers from non-Western contexts (Kahalon et al., 2022). It also positioned imposter syndrome as an internalisation of research inequalities which exist in our institutions and disciplines.
Attendees considered how to acknowledge and confront these research barriers, before being presented with options such as citation audits, databases of minoritised researchers and openly discussing the disproportionate pastoral and emotional labour taken on by marginalised academics.
Workshop 2: Academic publishing and the publication industry: The good, the bad, the ugly, and how to (try to) improve it(Isabelle Nic Craith & Pat Mulvaney)
This workshop focused on the academic publication industry, its strengths and challenges, and discussions around potential solutions.
Participants began by considering the merits of academic publishing: peer review as a mechanism to enhance the quality of research, serve as a quality indicator and making science accessible through Open Science practices.
This was followed by guided discussions about the challenges of the publication industry. These included intense publication pressure (van Dalen & Henkens, 2012), high numbers of unread papers, questionable research practices (Hardy Mutongoza, 2023) and the commodification of academic publishing creating exploitative and biased systems (Butler et al., 2023).
The workshop concluded with discussions about resisting these structures while maintaining careers within academia. Facilitators and participants highlighted measures such as engaging in collective action (Fazackerley, 2023), using alternative outlets (Trueblood et al., 2025) such as non-for-profit journals and preprints, fighting for incentives for reviewers (Dance, 2023), following models of slow science (Muecke, 2018) and making use of alternative metrics of success ((i.e., making evaluations based on competencies such as teaching, mentorship, public engagement and impact rather than citations alone; for example, using frameworks like RDF, 2025).
Workshop 3: Bridging the gap between evidence and policy (Laura Foley)
The third workshop focused on the evidence-policy gap, and how a considerable amount of academic research is not widely read or implemented in policy solutions.
It introduced concrete strategies for effective communication of research findings to a policy audience, including layout, language, policy recommendations and identifying public and governmental appetite for change.
Finally, the workshop highlighted avenues for policy publications, with a particular focus on Ireland as a policy landscape.
Participants’ voices
IWSG writing retreats were attended by over 100 researchers from 15 different Schools in our institution, including research interns, doctoral and postdoctoral researchers, and faculty. Attendees raved about the retreats; “This is the single best thing I have done at UCD in terms of progressing my writing and making me feel part of a supportive community. I would love to see more of this at UCD.”
Participants reported having completed a range of writing tasks. These outputs include research papers, grant, promotion and ethics applications, preregistrations, policy papers, PhD theses, reports, teaching materials, presentations and conference abstracts.
In our final evaluation, 100% of participants stated that they felt the retreats were helpful. They stressed that the IWSG retreats were creating a research culture of solidarity, collegiality and support.
Highlighting the strength of our interdisciplinary approach, participants expressed that they enjoyed “getting to meet people from across different disciplines”, and that “interacting with people from different backgrounds brings in new perspectives and ideas for research.”
Moreover, many participants recounted the support and feeling of camaraderie they experienced at retreats, as we created a “community of practice” and a “supportive environment” in which they “loved working with peers who share the same worries and type of work.” Some participants made specific reference to the isolation among researchers which we hoped to address with our writing retreats; “[I liked] sharing a space with other postdocs [and] PhDs (isolation is a real problem for early career researchers).”.
A toolkit to establish writing retreats in your institution
We have developed an open-access toolkit which can be adapted to run an IWSG in your own institution. This toolkit includes (1) practical recommendations for running writing retreats, (2) materials needed to run writing retreats (email templates, timetables, writing block goals, sample posters), and (3) the presentation slides from our three in-depth workshops.
We encourage you to adapt our materials and let us know how you got on using #IWSG on social media or by getting in touch at isabelle.niccraith@ucdconnect.ie or laura.foley@ucd.ie.
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