P5 - The lived experiences of current research fellows in prestigious fellowship schemes

Dr Eli Saetnan, Educational Developer, University of Liverpool

We share emerging outcomes from an ongoing project investigating the lived experiences of current Research Fellows (Fellows) who hold a prestigious research fellowship, and are based in a research intensive university. Adopting a research approach known as interpretive phenomenological analysis (IPA), through semi structured interviews the aim is to explore thematically the personal accounts and insights of a group of Fellows. Attention is drawn to the way Fellows assert themselves in their roles, the culture of the department that they are part of and how their roles are seen by their academic colleagues. The study also highlights the decisions taken by Fellows in their postdoctoral years to bring themselves to a position to apply for these highly competitive schemes. Findings from this study may be useful to 1) aspiring postdocs thinking of applying for prestigious fellowship schemes, 2) staff developers developing support mechanisms for researchers in universities and 3) leaders developing strategy and policy to enhance institutional research culture, especially in relation to the attraction and retention of Fellows.