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

Team members

• Dr Tina Skinner, Social and Policy Sciences
• Dr Kristine Brance, Social and Policy Sciences
• Prof Sarah Halligan, Department of Psychology
• Heather Girling, HR (Staff Health and Wellbeing Manager)
• Professor Paul Chadwick, Department of Psychology (and Bath Centre for Mindfulness and Compassion)
• Emily Tsang, Department of Psychology

Resources for researchers, supervisors and institutions

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

Quick tips for writing a grant application

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

Researcher Wellbeing Plan guidance

• Researcher Wellbeing Plan guidance
• Researcher Wellbeing Plan Template
• Clinical supervisors who specialise in secondary trauma
• Example costs to add into grant applications

Guidance for what to do if a researcher/you get(s) distressed

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

Wellbeing guidance for researchers, teams and supervisors: gold, silver and bronze

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

Guidance for institutional support of emotionally challenging research (funders and employers)

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

Risk assessment guidance for emotionally challenging research

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

Guidance for researchers if participants experience distress

• Guidance for researchers if participants experience mild or moderate distress
• Guidance for researchers if participants are at risk of serious harm

Researcher Wellbeing Project standard training

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

Our next training session will take place in February 2025. We will add booking details to this web page when they are available. If you would like to register ahead of time, please email Alison Borgelin (sssasw@bath.ac.uk)

Researcher Wellbeing Project bespoke training

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. Bespoke training is approximately £300-per-hour.

Free emotionally challenging topic networks

Free emotionally challenging topic networks you could join include:

• Researcher Wellbeing Group (for PGR/T and Early Career Researchers)
• Research Resilience Community of Practice
• Emotionally Demanding Research Network Scotland
• Australian Advocacy for Safe and Ethical Research in Sensitive ConTexts Network
• Challenging Research Network
• The Sexual Violence Research Initiative
• Sexual Violence Researchers Group (SVRG)

Researcher Wellbeing Strategic Change Group (RWSCG)

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:

• Further information about RWSCG
• Guidance for principal investigators, supervisors and managers who can commit time to be part of a core group of RWSCG in order to work together to instigate/influence/lead strategic change around researcher wellbeing in your Institution and/or discipline.
• Guidance for master's and doctorial students, early career researchers and other researchers who wish to learn more about how to start introducing this to their Institutions or those who want lighter touch involvement.