TheCultureLab: Weekly Drop-ins @ Uni Cambridge PDN
Michaelmas Term 2024
4 x 1.5-hour sessions
Exploring and improving local research culture - with postdocs.
– Hosted by Prof. Bénédicte Sanson at the PDN Department. Link
For me, it's a treat to come here. It's not like another thing on my agenda
This autumn, we won funding promoted by Action Research on Research Culture to run a project at Cambridge’s Physiology, Development and Neuroscience Department. The idea (and the challenge) was – how to say – to practically empower the local community of postdoctoral researchers.
It’s surely nobody’s secret that issues in academic culture are plenty. For all other things, they also strongly undermine people’s sense of agency and freedom to choose and do – whatever they contextually need – for their well-being and professional and personal growth.
In our with Helene Scott-Fordsmand TheCultureLab, we went against it with participatory creative workshops. We combined creative practices (theatre and creative writing) with thematically framed, but open-ended discussions. Our hunch (supported by experience and research) was that creative exercises would help form a space for co-creating intensified collective knowledge and awareness. Not to mention that the exercises also organically help people work on their public speaking-, presentation-, negotiation skills and so on.
The first term went by rather quickly, and the next one is awaiting (looking very much forward to it). For now, we can humbly whisper: that our work seems on the right track. At least, this is what people’s feedback suggests:
I really look forward to the [workshops], and I think it's a nice space to have because post-doc can be quite isolating
[These exercises] move different parts of your brain
[The exercises] created a feeling of confidence in the room
The depth of the conversations: I never spoke with anyone from the department on that level
It made me think how to improve communication and how to be part of the community rather than just focus on yourself
