Researcher Journeys

At the end of 2025 I was delighted to be awarded a Creative Engagement Fellowship by the University of Leicester as part of the I-REACCH programme. The fellowship project explored how creative methods could be used to capture and share the breadth and diversity of career pathways taken by researchers.

The idealised ‘traditional’ research career path is presented as a straight line from PhD to postdoctoral position and then on to a permanent academic post. However, this is not the experience of most researchers. There is no single path but multiple possible routes. Some researchers start later than others, many take unexpected detours, while others leave and head in an entirely different direction.

Researchers across the University of Leicester were invited to take part in the project. Participants were first asked to reflect on their own career journeys before attending a practical printmaking workshop. During each workshop, participants were introduced to gel plate printing and invited to use the technique to visually express either key moments or broader themes that had been particularly significant in their own experiences.

At the end of each session, participants shared the print that best represented their intentions with the rest of the group. All the prints produced during the workshop - including any test prints, rejected prints and roll-off sheets - were retained for possible use in the final creative outcomes.

The depth and quality of the responses exceeded my hopes for the workshops and as the project developed, I began to see possibilities for two complementary creative outcomes. These were presented this week at Attenborough Arts Centre, where I was delighted that both were very well received by members of the I-REACCH team, project participants and colleagues from across the wider university research community.

Researcher Journeys: Roots to Knowledge

In this collage a garden is used as a visual metaphor for the academic research environment.

At its centre is a well-used ladder resting against an aged stone wall. The ladder represents the traditional career path within a long-established and structured system. Beyond the wall, an area of brightness represents knowledge and the potential that may arise from new and novel investigations.

Surrounding the ladder is an abundant and varied garden, featuring plants and flowers at different stages of growth, from small seedlings to mature trees. Some flowers are still in bud, others are in full bloom, and others have produced seed heads. This diversity parallels the different stages, experiences and circumstances that you would expect to find in a research community. The plants and flowers were created by cutting and combining many of the spare prints collected during the workshops. Each individual fragment carries traces of a participant’s creative response, bringing together many different experiences to create a single, collective landscape.

Researcher Journeys: Mapping Routes through Research

For the second outcome the selected prints were digitally arranged into a grid and short annotations were added. The structure of the piece draws upon the format of an Ordnance Survey-style map, reflecting the themes of journeys and navigation. The cover of the map features the Roots to Knowledge collage and a description of the project from which the work was developed.

I-REACCH (Inclusive Research Environment Achieved through Cultural Change) was supported by the Welcome Trust [228114/Z/23/Z]