Research units A-Z

Written by:

Dawn Cremonese (she/her) Leadership Developer for the InFrame project and Head of Research Culture at the University of St Andrews  

The InFrame project challenges existing frameworks and perspectives around research culture. Exploring and encapsulating new ideas like this requires new ways of communicating. The title quote, a play on wise words by the Japanese author Haruki Murakami, provides the inspiration for the central idea of this blog post: close engagement with how we use language can help us understand what and who enables or hinders our socialization into new research environments. If we can participate more effectively and intentionally within our research cultures, we can create, or shape, a shared language which aligns with the behaviours, values and aspirations of inclusive, positive research cultures.  

Understanding culture through language 

‘Language socialization’ as a concept is concerned with how people learn language(s) and through this, become socialized into communities. The language used in higher education communities is highly specialized and members of this community are required to learn, adopt and navigate the ‘academic discourse communities’ they enter. Critically examining how both staff and students are socialized into becoming users of this language can provide a window into our research cultures – and their various academic settings and populations. By exploring the texts, events, processes, policies and pedagogies of higher education institutions we can learn how and by whom people socialize into their communities, campuses and careers. For example, a key notion in language socialization is how we learn about (in)-appropriateness or (un)acceptability in terms of a group’s values and accepted behaviors. Consider how social and moral norms are maintained and/or resisted through language (Duranti, Ochs & Schieffelin, 2011) and what the terms ‘publish or perish’, ‘robust data’, or ‘independent researcher’ mean to you, in the context of a research career. How significantly do these terms shape your understanding of what research success looks like? 

Through language we can also gain insights into the demanding nature of collaborative research and interdisciplinary working practices in academic cultures, and how they are mediated and negotiated by mono- and multilingual staff and students. Therefore, by analyzing how we use language within our research ecosystems we can expose dominant conventions and examine inequalities and systemic barriers (Morita, 2004; Kobayashi, Zappa-Hollman and Duff, 2017; and Carter, 2021) 

Cultural and linguistic barriers are often faced in collaborative, teamworking environments, but these are important skills for all researchers to develop (Tomé Lourido and Snell, 2025). Such barriers can occur during the creation of individual networks of practice, and relationships with other communities of practice; in this sense language socialization (e.g. who sets and controls the language, who has access, when and how) can be especially valuable for understanding the power dynamics at play within these spaces (Zappa-Hollman and Duff, 2015). For example, if we look at promotions or research leave policies or examine EDI data for funding panels selection and training, we can gain insights into whether our governance systems and policies align to our intended behaviors and values (Savage, 2025).  

Reshaping culture by reshaping language 

In order to explore how the language of our policies and processes shapes the culture, we need to know how individuals are socialized, thus exposing the behaviors, beliefs and values that are both ‘tolerated’ and ‘celebrated’ within our institutions and where change is needed (Liston and Fitzgerald, 2024). The key to intervening intentionally in order to ‘better’ our research cultures therefore lies in how we lead research culture change through language (Craig, Harris and Woodfield, 2025). To do this we need to take a closer look at our modes of communication and the language used by our communities; here lies the potential to empower individuals to explore different perspectives, which can signal growth and progress (HEPI, 2024; Gadd, 2023; Manville, D’Angelo and Guthrie, 2021). For example, we can choose to perpetuate the commonly used term ‘Early Career Researcher’ or we can use the more inclusive ‘Research Staff’. We can ask how being referred to as a ‘PhD Student’ affects identity and status when compared to a term such as ‘Doctoral Researcher’. We can also ask, who does the term ‘Research Leader’ refer to?   

This concept lies at the heart of the ‘Developing as a Research Culture Leader’ programme, available to all recipients of InFrame Culture Catalyst Funding. The programme aims to develop participants’ ability to recognize, understand, analyze and evaluate their personal and professional values, behaviors and attitudes through a series of workshops focused on the exploration of three themes: leadership of self; leadership of others and leadership of systems.  

Through the programme participants are encouraged to reflect on, analyse and evaluate their professional contexts by exploring themes such as unconscious bias, stereotyping, equity and equality, resilience, microaggressions, empathy and respect. The workshops promote reflection, exploration and discussion of how we can intentionally use language in our everyday interactions, so that we can intervene in language socialization processes, shaping our leaders to create positive, inclusive and collaborative research cultures. The programme ultimately aims to explore, question and challenge how we, as individuals ‘show up’ and interact within our research communities and environments. 

It is our hope that the resources created, and the approach and ethos used to develop this research culture leadership toolkit can be adapted and embedded into a range of higher education settings for a variety of leadership development needs.