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CU Staff Portal: Health and Wellbeing pages

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CU Staff Portal: Health and Wellbeing pages

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From the University of Liverpool

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#ResDevInYourPJs   Wellbeing and self care

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ZJA focuses on improving mental health for researchers, Her poster on academic mental health highlights some of key challenges faced by researchers. Her 100 voices project and Voices of Academia blog give researchers space to share their experiences.

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#100voices project

100 researchers, 100 mental health journeys, over 100 days

Want to raise awareness of academic mental health issues? I have experience giving a range of talks to university departments, institutions and professional bodies.

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Zoë J. Ayres | Mental Health in Academia

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100voices project 100 researchers, 100 mental health journeys, over 100 days Want to raise awareness of academic mental health issues? I have experience giving a range of talks to university departments, institutions and professional bodies.

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Triumphs and challenges in conducting research on sensitive issues (CU webinar) 

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Triumphs and challenges in conducting research on sensitive issues (CU webinar) 

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From University of Bath

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1 Apr 2023 to 31 Jul 2024

The Researcher Wellbeing Project (RWP) focuses on understanding the potential impacts - including distress, secondary and vicarious trauma - of researching emotionally challenging topics; and establishing what, if anything, researchers have in place to help them cope and what they would like to be in place.

The overwhelming reception the RWP receives from staff and students is very positive, because it addresses a topic that has been "a really invisible issue" (Participant 22) within academia until recently.

Year 1 of the project involved 31 semi-structured interviews with researchers who did potentially emotionally challenging research. These participants were also asked to do follow-up questionnaires: the coping mechanisms/interventions questionnaire and the secondary trauma scale.

Our findings indicated that, although the majority of researchers interviewed were positive and passionate about their research, symptoms linked to secondary and vicarious trauma were common across topics and disciplines. Some researchers had informal mechanisms to help them cope with their research and a very small minority had formal support. But what the majority wanted was formal specialist-funded support put in place by the University (e.g., Researcher Wellbeing Plans, including clinical supervision and counselling, as well as physical and mental wellbeing activities such as swimming and walking).

The RWP Report contains further details of the findings and recommendations from year 1 of the project

In year 2, the project developed and piloted a package of measures to help prevent and mitigate distress, vicarious and secondary trauma in researchers, based on our findings from year 1 including: development of this webpage, guidance to help improve practice (see below), mainstreaming researcher wellbeing training in undergraduate, master's and doctorial provision; instigating GW4RWELL (Great Western 4 Wellbeing Evidence and Learning Laboratory) a coalition of RWP Teams across Bristol, Bath, Exeter and Cardiff that aims to take the RWP into other research organisations; and working with researcher wellbeing leaders internationally to establish the Researcher Wellbeing Strategic Change Group.

On this page you can find:

Team members

Resources for researchers, supervisors and institutions (including the RWP guidance and downloadable template)

Researcher Wellbeing Project standard training

Researcher Wellbeing Project bespoke training

Free emotionally challenging topic networks

The Researcher Wellbeing Strategic Change Group (including guidance on how to change your organisations)

Funding details

RWP in the media

Below are resources developed as part the University of Bath Researcher Wellbeing Project (funded by the Research England Enhancing Research Culture Fund).

These are tailored for researchers, supervisors and institutions who may be exploring emotionally challenging topics and are not formal institutional policies of the University of Bath.

Resources can be used in any institution free of charge (if you use them, simply reference the documents as indicated in the footnotes).

Please note: If you are a University of Bath staff member, you can access bespoke resources

An easy-to-access round-up of the resources below.

Researcher Wellbeing Plan guidance

Guidance for people experiencing distress while working on emotionally-challenging research topics.

Guidance on managing researcher wellbeing when undertaking emotionally challenging research. Our recommendations are grouped into gold, silver and bronze categories.

Guidance for funders and employers supporting researchers working on emotionally challenging research topics.

Guidance for researchers completing risk assessments (ideally) before undertaking emotionally challenging research projects.

Guidance for researchers if participants experience distress

We provide online training sessions (usually in 3.5 hour blocks) accessible to researchers, supervisors, managers and funders on:

impacts of emotionally challenging research

coping mechanisms

how to use the resources listed in the 'Resources for Researchers, Supervisors and Institutions' section on this web page

This training runs twice a year in October/November and January/February. Sessions are free for staff and students from the University of Bath and the University of Exeter. General admission is £40 for staff and £20 for students.

If you are a University of Exeter Postgraduate Research student please register your interest in attending by emailing ResearcherDevelopment@exeter.ac.uk with the subject line 'Researcher wellbeing for emotionally challenging topics workshop'.

Upcoming training sessions

The dates below are planned. We will add booking instructions soon. Please check this page regularly for updates

Postgraduate Research student training

5 November 2025: 9.30am - 1pm (GMT)

18 February 2026: 9.30am - 12.30pm (GMT)

Staff training

22 October 2025: 9.30am - 1pm (GMT)

11 February 2026: 09:30am - 1pm (GMT)

If you have any questions about these sessions, please email sssasw@bath.ac.uk

On request, the Researcher Wellbeing Project team can also provide online and in-person talks and training on researcher wellbeing for teams/institutions/networks/associations.

The sessions range from awareness raising on secondary and vicarious trauma and the possible impacts, to bespoke sessions on how to:

set up and manage Researcher Wellbeing Plans in your teams

supervise/manage emotionally challenging research topics

risk assess emotionally challenging research

change the culture in your institution around potentially distressing research

If you would like to talk to us about this, please contact t.skinner@bath.ac.uk.

Free emotionally challenging topic networks you could join include:

Through collaborative working, we're aiming to make the psychosocial wellbeing of those researching potentially emotionally or morally challenging topics a priority. This includes people undertaking, commissioning, overseeing or supporting research.

We want to improve how research institutions, funders, supervisors, research teams, stakeholders, policy makers and practitioners address and fund researcher wellbeing. The following information and guidance was written to support the joint work of RWSCG, the Researcher Wellbeing Project and GW4RWELL. It is designed to provide:

Writing for THE, Dr Tina Skinner discusses why she started the Researcher Wellbeing Project, which aims to support those doing emotionally challenging research.

Writing for The Thing, Dr Tina Skinner shares her expertise on research into traumatic and challenging topics, and its impacts on researchers' wellbeing.

The Excellence in Doctoral Supervision Prize is awarded to a supervisor/supervisory team who has demonstrated exceptional performance in doctoral supervision.

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The Researcher Wellbeing Project (RWP): addressing researcher distress, trauma and secondary trauma

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This project explores the impacts of researching emotionally challenging topics and aims to establish what interventions researchers want for their wellbeing.

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A library of self-care resources to support your own and others' mental wellbeing.

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A library of self-care activities to support yours and others’ mental health