Many of us tend to forget that all research institutions are not big, comprehensive universities. Actually, quite a few are smaller institutions either because they are fairly new, specialize in a single discipline, or are based in more rural areas where there isn’t the population needed for a big research-intensive university.

But how do you navigate international collaborations in a setting like that? And diversity, if you’re a small, almost mono-cultural institution? Should it be up to the perhaps two or three black persons or gay persons to change that?

To figure this out, we invited our friend Rachel Persad on the pod. Rachel is head of research policy at GuildHE (a representative body that supports 67 institutions in UK Higher Education). We talk about her role at GuildHE, their new strategy and how GuildHE is supporting their members before we venture into the topics of internationalisation and diversity.

We talk about allyship, the role of early career researchers, co-creation, Brexit and its impact on smaller institutions, REF, the need for policy flexibility and finally we discuss research culture.

Rachel’s positive attitude, joy and commitment really come through in the chat, and we hope it will inspire you all as it did us.

The episode is sponsored by: Digital Science
The episode is produced and edited by: Peter Xiong.

You can learn more:

You can learn more about GuildHE here: https://guildhe.ac.uk/

You can read more about the EDI and anti-racism initiative here: https://guildhe.ac.uk/guildhe-anti-racism-project/

You can connect with Rachel here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rachelbrockhurst/

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If you're interested in our work with diversity and internationalisation in research, please visit www.diversiunity.com.