In this episode,
Dr John Turnpenny discusses his latest research on postgraduate researcher (PGR) wellbeing, focusing on policy implementation and practice. He highlights the Courage Project at the University of East Anglia, funded by the UK's Catalyst Fund, which aimed to support PGR wellbeing through various interventions. John introduces the policy capacity framework, which examines political, operational, and governance capacities at individual, organizational, and systemic levels. He notes many of the challenges to policy implementation, such as organizational marginalization, low political capacity, and fragmented governance. John also indicates how future research could explore analytical capacity and co-creation processes to improve PGR wellbeing interventions.
What motivated research into PGR wellbeing?
- Identified significant challenges faced by postgraduate researchers
- Recognized a lack of focused support compared to undergraduate students
- Aimed to explore political and organizational dimensions of wellbeing interventions
What are the main challenges for PGR wellbeing?
- Ambiguous status (neither staff nor student)
- Organizational marginalization
- Low political and operational capacity within institutions
- Fragmented governance and limited resource
What framework was used to analyze PGR wellbeing?
- Policy capacity framework examining:
- Political capacity
- Operational capacity
- Governance across individual, organizational, and systemic levels
What are the future research directions?
- Updating policy capacity framework
- Comparing international PGR support models
- Exploring analytical capacity in intervention design
- Investigating co-creation processes
Links
Credits
Music by Matthew Sillence
