Reflecting on Mental Health and Wellbeing in Research – Doctoral College and Centre for Research Capability and Development

A number of recent reports, events, and studies have drawn attention to the prevalence of mental health issues within the postgraduate research community (Wisker, 2011; Hopwood and Paulson, 2012; HEFECE, 2015; Vitae, 2017), with a 2017 study stating that 1 in 2 PhD students experiences psychological distress and 1 in 3 is at risk of a common psychiatric disorder (Leveque et.al., 2017). Clearly, the mental health and wellbeing of researchers is a serious issue in need of addressing.

Research on wellbeing interventions, though, is lacking. While there is evidence to suggest resilience and mindfulness courses are effective in the workplace (Cooper and Hesketh, 2017), they might not work for all (Farias, Wikholm, and Delmonte, 2016). The fact is, whilst personal and professional development is important, courses and workshops will only ever be part of a solution. There are many structural issues within academia that need investigating and resolving, such as issues of equality, diversity, and inclusion; of working patterns and modalities; of intersections between the personal and the professional; of expectations and realities of research work; of employee precarity, recognition, care, and reward. There are no quick fixes or solutions to these issues. And even if there were, our lives and work will always present new situations and challenges that cause stress, anxiety, change, and grief.

To improve researcher wellbeing, we must move away from a deficit model way of thinking, of trying to fix something or someone. Although the term wellbeing has contemporary connotations, the idea of workforce wellbeing has a long history (for example, http://www.philosophyforlife.org/what-quakers-can-teach-us-about-well-being-at-work/). The contexts in which we work are ever changing and this brings with it new challenges. As such, interventions need to be dynamic and iterative, with researcher wellbeing at the heart of everything we do. A continuous approach is needed where support, policy, and development work together to continually improve our working lives and the cultures in which we work.

Towards the end of last year, we were involved in writing a bid – unfortunately unsuccessful – that started to look at doctoral study from this perspective, working with the Open University and the University of Brighton. Through a process of co-design with the doctoral community, this project sought to develop a novel, researcher-centred approach to doctoral education, one that would be developmental, inclusive and flexible. By uncovering the structural and systemic issues in the contemporary doctorate which can lead to poor mental health, this project aimed to address: structural barriers, stressors and triggers; PGRs identity, voice and value; multi-form support and development across the research lifecycle; and wellbeing and mental health needs of researchers.

Although this bid wasn’t funded, the Centre for Research Capability and Development are looking to continue working on this project, albeit in altered form. We would like to encourage anyone who would like to participate in this project or who would like to contribute to the development of activities, events, or to the research to get in touch with recap at coventry.ac.uk

In the meantime, we have a couple of upcoming events that may be of helpful for researchers at CU:

Useful posts and discussions

Useful resources, platforms, and tools:

Got an additional resource to highlight? Get in touch with recap at coventry.ac.uk and we can add it to this post.

We also welcome comments, thoughts, and suggestions on the above using the comments feature below or on Twitter @CU_ReCap

This post was written by Dr Kieran Fenby-Hulse / @drkfenbyhulse