Hidden labour and research culture: IRCC25 (Episode 77) – Sarah reports from the 2025 International Research Culture Conference
For this episode of the Research Adjacent podcast Sarah is at the International Research Culture Conference, also known as IRCC25 at the University of Warwick. This conference, held on 17 September 2025, was an opportunity to discuss progress, challenges and ideas for improving research culture. This episode features contributions from Rika Nair, Alys Kay and Dolly Coates, as well as excerpts from Sarah’s talk on professional development for research enablers.
Recognising hidden labour is a key research culture issue
Although much of the conference centred the experiences of researchers, a number of contributions recognised the hidden labour (often undertaken by research-adjacent professionals) that keeps the research train running. In my talk I likened this to an iceberg. What we see and celebrate – the research discoveries and outputs – is just a tiny fraction of the work that is actually being done.
One of my guests, research culture consultant Alys Kay, ran a session showcasing a game called System Shuffle which is all about this hidden labour. The game, co-created with Rika Nair (Warwick), Ellen Cole (Northumbria), Nicola Simcock (Newcastle) and Andrew Moss (Durham), invites participants to step into the role of a particular research team member and consider their perspective.
“I started to think, what if we could make a game that would actually make it safe to talk about some of these difficult things. To talk about roles, to talk about assumptions, to surface the hidden labor and hidden work that often go unrecognized.” Alys Kay
Hidden labour leads to unequal opportunities
In the episode Sarah shares some snippets from a talk she gave entitled ‘Snakes and Ladders: The Reality of Professional Development for Research Enablers’. The talk centred around the disparity between researchers and research-adjacent staff when it comes to career progression. For research-adjacent folks development opportunities are patchy and frequently self-funded, promotion often means completely changing job, and it’s rare to be recognised for their efforts beyond their immediate team.
“But the point is, when you put those people together working on the same project, the differences are incredibly stark, and that is the issue, and that’s why it feels like it’s not fair.” Sarah McLusky
Tackling hidden labour needs systemic change
Improving research culture and recognising the hidden labour embedded in the system is beyond what any one organisation can achieve. The goal of the conference was to share pockets of success and consider how to share that best practice across the sector.
“A lot of the research culture challenges that we all face are actually common to different institutions, and they can’t be solved by one institution because it is the whole system that needs to change.” Rika Nair
As many previous guests have said, change in big organisations can be painfully slow. Hopefully conferences like this can contribute to keeping research culture it on the agenda, even through tough times (when it is more important than ever).
Find out more
- Connect with Rika Nair, Alys Kay or Dolly Coates on LinkedIn
- Read Alys’s LinkedIn post about the System Shuffle game
- Find out more about Research Culture Knowledge Exchange group, IRCC25 and the work of the National Centre for Research Culture
- Read the Wellcome report ‘What researcher’s think about the culture they work in’
Theme music by Lemon Music Studios from Pixabay
