According to the UK's Health and Safety Executive (HSE), there has been a 36.5% rise in reported cases of work-related stress between 2018/19 and 2019/20, to over 822,000 individual cases. Europe stress-related absence was second only to musculoskeletal disorders, with estimated work-related stress costing European companies 20 billion euros per…

Calls to address concerning evidence surrounding mental health and wellbeing in doctoral researchers have grown internationally in recent years. Adopting an ecological systems approach, this article explores doctoral researchers' perspectives on what influences mental health and wellbeing in early-stage doctoral research. Forty-seven doctoral…

University student wellbeing is increasingly seen as a concern, and as demands on university staff time for research, teaching, leadership and pastoral support also increase, this is mirrored in concerns about staff wellbeing. Dominant sectoral narratives frame student and staff wellbeing as oppositional, with initiatives to support student…

In exploring imposter feelings in early career academics, this article examines the impacts of adopting social constructivist pedagogies. It reveals the significance of reflective practice in a Post-Graduate Certificate in Academic Practice programme (PGCAP), supporting professional development in teaching, learning and assessment for new…

Using a bi-dimensional, fourfold model as a thinking tool to contemplate acculturation strategies we analyse the intercultural experience of international academic staff (IAS) in the United Kingdom higher education. The literature suggests that IAS feel undervalued as a professional group and that institutions do not capitalise on their diverse…

In March 2020 virtually all UK universities were suddenly thrown into an unprecedented and sudden closure of campus and facilities owing to the British Government's COVID-19 pandemic lockdown policies. Further evidence suggests that this exacerbated existing gendered differences. This paper reports on UK academic responses from an international…

Learning in the teaching workplace is crucial for the development of all trainee teachers. Workplace learning is particularly important for trainee teachers in the lifelong learning sector (LLS) in the UK, the majority of whom are already working as teachers, tutors, trainers or lecturers while undertaking initial teacher education. However,…

This article reports on research initiated by the trade union for lecturers and researchers in the UK, the University and College Union (UCU), which examined the pressures, concerns and positive aspects of being a member of research staff at one UK university. The findings are presented from the premise that university researchers are caught…

The literature on higher education acknowledges the importance of context to the effective completion of research by postgraduate students but overlooks to study the importance of this factor for academics in higher education. The research reported here explores the extent to which academics in higher education sense that their research engages…