In higher education institutions, we often speak of “developing talent,” “building capacity,” or “supporting our people.” But what do those phrases really mean when you’re a researcher navigating uncertainty, precarity, or a system that too often assumes resilience, but offers limited resources?
With the renewed focus of REF 2029 on people, culture and environment, and the momentum of the Concordat to Support the Career Development of Researchers, there’s a growing imperative to evidence not only what support is offered, but how it’s experienced.
That’s where I believe that coaching comes in – as a strategic, systemic tool for transforming research culture from the inside out.
At a time when UK higher education is facing significant financial pressures, widespread restructuring, and the real threat of job losses across institutions, it may seem counterintuitive to invest in individuals’ development. But it is precisely because of this instability that our commitment to people must be more visible and deliberate than ever. In moments of systemic strain, the values we choose to protect speak volumes. Coaching offers one way to show – through action, not just intention – that our researchers matter, that their growth is not optional, and that culture isn’t a casualty of crisis, but a lever for recovery.
By coaching, I mean a structured, confidential, and non-directive process that empowers individuals to reflect, identify goals and navigate challenges. Unlike mentoring, which often involves sharing advice or experience, coaching creates a thinking space led by the individual, where the coach supports them to surface their own insights, unpick the unspoken dynamics of academia, build confidence in their agency, and cultivate their personal narrative of progress.
Coaching is not just development – it’s disruption
We tend to associate coaching with senior leadership, performance management, or executive transition. But over the last seven years, I’ve championed coaching for researchers – especially early career researchers – as a means of shifting the developmental paradigm from “this is what you need to know” to “what do you need, and how can we co-create that space?”
When coaching is designed well – thoughtfully matched, intentionally scaffolded, and thoughtfully led – it becomes a quiet form of disruption. It gives researchers the confidence to think through difficult questions. And it models a research culture where vulnerability is not weakness but wisdom.
This is especially powerful for those who feel marginalised in academic environments – whether due to career stage, background, identity or circumstance. One early career researcher recently told me that coaching “helped me stop asking whether I belonged in academia and start asking how I could shape it. For the first time, I felt like I didn’t have to shrink myself to fit in.” That’s the kind of feedback you won’t find in most institutional KPIs – but it says a lot about the culture we’re building.
Why coaching belongs in your research strategy
Coaching still suffers from being seen as peripheral – a nice-to-have, often under-resourced and siloed from mainstream provision. Worse, it’s sometimes positioned as remedial, offered only when things go wrong.
As someone who assesses UK institutions for the European Commission-recognised HR Excellence in Research Award, I’ve seen first-hand how embedding coaching as a core element of researcher support isn’t just the right thing to do – it’s strategically smart. Coaching complements and strengthens the implementation of institutional actions for the Concordat to Support the Career Development of Researchers, by centring the individual researcher experience – not just a tick-box approach to the principles.
What’s striking is how coaching aligns with the broader institutional goals we often hear in strategy documents: autonomy, impact, innovation, wellbeing, inclusion. These are not incidental outcomes; they’re the foundations of a healthy research pipeline, and coaching delivers on these – but only if we treat it as a central thread of our culture, not a side offer.
Crucially, coaching is evidence of how we live our values. It offers a clear, intentional method for demonstrating how people and culture are not just statements but structures – designed, delivered, and experienced.
In REF 2029 institutions will be asked to evidence the kind of environment where research happens. Coaching offers one of the most meaningful, tangible ways to demonstrate that such an environment exists through the lived experiences of the people working within it.
Culture is personal – and coaching recognises that
In higher education, we often talk about culture as though it’s something we can declare or design. But real culture – the kind that shapes whether researchers thrive or withdraw – is co-created, day by day, through dialogue, trust, and reflection.
Culture lives in the everyday, unrecorded interactions: the invisible labour of masking uncertainty while trying to appear “resilient enough” to succeed; the internal negotiation before speaking up in a lab meeting; or the emotional weight carried by researchers who feel like they don’t belong.
Coaching transforms those invisible moments into deliberate acts of empowerment. It creates intentional, reflective spaces where researchers – regardless of role or background – are supported to define their own path, voice their challenges, and recognise their value. It’s in these conversations that inclusion is no longer an aspiration but a lived reality where researchers explore their purpose, surface their barriers, and recognise their value.
This is especially needed in environments where pressure to perform is high, and space to reflect is minimal. Coaching doesn’t remove the pressures of academia. But it builds capacity to navigate them with intention – and that’s culture work at its core.
Embedding a coaching culture as part of researcher development shouldn’t be a fringe benefit or pilot project – it should be an institutional expectation. We need more trained internal coaches who understand the realities of academic life and more visibly supported coaching opportunities aligned with the Researcher Development Concordat. The latter encourages a minimum of ten days’ (pro rata) professional development for research staff per year. Coaching is one of the most impactful ways those days can be used – not just to develop researchers, but to transform the culture they inhabit.
A call to embed – not bolt on
If we’re serious about inclusive, people-centred research environments, then coaching should be treated as core business. It should not be underfunded, siloed, or left to goodwill. It must be valued, supported, and embedded – reflected in institutional KPIs, Researcher Development Concordat and Research Culture Action Plans, and REF narratives alike.
And in a sector currently under intense financial pressure, we should double down on culture as a lived commitment to those we ask to do difficult, meaningful work during difficult, uncertain times. Coaching is a strategic lever for equity, integrity, and excellence.
