We are reaching out to all in our research ecosystem including doctoral and postdoctoral researchers, academic staff, technicians, and all research support and research professional colleagues, to invite you to pause, reflect and then share with all of us who has had a positive impact on you, and how.

We recognise there are a wide range of contributors to good research culture and our process is open and inclusive, please nominate who matters to you. This can be for example a post-doc, supervisor, PI, facilities manager, technician, research manager, PGR Convenor, project manager, a librarian, receptionist, data manager, senior university leader, or anyone else who has contributed to a positive research culture and who deserves to be recognised.

Nominations are just 100 words, and we hope that this enables those with limited time and energy to take part.

We know that so many of our research community work incredibly hard to provide collegial support and cultivate a workplace that upholds the standards of fair and open research practice. We want to recognise the full extent and variety of good practice and say a heartfelt thank you to each and every person making a positive contribution.

Together, Research Excels is not competitive, there are no awards - we will simply publicly name and thank all those who do a great job.

Why Collegiality Matters:

• It fosters a culture of trust and openness.
• It strengthens interdisciplinary collaboration.
• It enhances the wellbeing and resilience of our research community.
• It drives innovation through shared knowledge and diverse perspectives.

What Collegiality can look like:

Professional collegiality – substantiated through everyday helping interactions concerning the business of sharing a profession and advancing a career.

Intellectual collegiality - describes sharing specialist knowledge and expertise and building a trusted connection through disciplinary communications.

Social collegiality – enacted through shared spaces, material objects, and interpersonal relationships in the course of research work.

Emotional collegiality – the recognition of shared emotional experiences, and engagement in emotional support.

(Brown 2021)

The process is voluntary, very simple, and requires only about 10 minutes of your time.

1. Use this online form, to share a short narrative of the impact that your nominee's good research leadership has had on you. You can nominate as many people as you like. Deadline 21 July 2025.
2. After the deadline, all narratives and nominee names (but not your name) will be checked and posted (with nominee consent) to a public online gallery. We will present those stories thematically to show the impact on Collaboration, Creativity, and Careers.
3. We will share the online galleries widely in order to thank the staff who have been recognised and to celebrate good practice across the whole university research community.
4. Our Nominator Data Privacy Notice for Together, Research Excels/People Make Research and InFrame is here.
5. We will also (with your consent) analyse the anonymised narratives thematically, as part of the InFrame project, funded by the Wellcome Trust, which aims to address the paucity of systematic knowledge on how collegiality can be fostered, recognised and rewarded in research institutions.
6. Our Nominator Participant Information Sheet for Together, Research Excels/People Make Research and InFrame is here. You can download it and keep a copy. When we contact the people you nominate to thank them, they will also get a copy, and be able to consent at that point, to how their data is used.

We recognise that some people may be having a different kind of experience than we have described above, and may want to seek help to improve their working relationships, or to manage their experiences. We want to hear from you too. There are options:

(1) To seek support for Research Misconduct, please contact the Research Integrity Team here.

(2) To seek support for sexual violence, harassment, and bullying at the University of St Andrews please use Report and Support.

(3) To make a complaint about someone at the University of St Andrews please refer to this page detailing complaints.

(4) To receive advice about psychological support please refer to the University's mental health wellbeing page.

Questions or feedback about this project can be directed to Catherine Burns, Executive Director of Research Support (execdirrs@st-andrews.ac.uk) or the InFrame Project Lead Dr Kay Guccione (kay.guccione@glasgow.ac.uk) Head of Research Culture and Researcher Development, in the Research Services Directorate.

Together, Research Excels is part of the InFrame project. 

The Together, Research Excels programme draws inspiration from the University of Glasgow’s "People Make Research" model, as per the bid for the InFrame Project, currently being run out of the Research and Innovation Services tea, at the University of St Andrews, and will serve as a vital part of our commitment to fostering a supportive and inclusive research culture. Together, Research Excels is a project that aims to recognise and thank the people who contribute to our thriving research culture. It is an informal way to collect, share and celebrate practical examples of good practice in research leadership, for example from our Supervisors, Research Staff, Principal Investigators and our Research Professional colleagues.

Research thrives when researchers feel that they are part of an engaging, fair, and collegial environment in which people help each other to succeed. The people who lead

research across the University of St Andrews, are critically important in creating these conditions.

Not sure what sort of thing we are looking for? You can look at the University of Glasgow's People Make Research nominations for inspiration:

Read all the 2023 People Make Research nominations here.

Read all the 2022 People Make Research nominations here.

Together, Research Excels is led by the University of St Andrews InFrame team, within Research and Innovation Services. Questions or feedback about this project can be directed to inframe@st-andrews.ac.uk.