Past GW4 Connect Programmes

Below you can find a list of past GW4 Connect programmes and brief descriptions of their activities.

2023: Cross-institutional mentorship programme for postgraduate researchers from the global majority*

This pilot programme offered 30 participants new perspectives from peers across the region with the intention to support postgraduate researchers who face racism, discrimination and other structural barriers inside and outside of the research environment to build new partnerships and share or co-create strategies for navigating their research career. The approach was based within developmental mentoring where participants were equal partners, sharing their insight into their lived experience. Whilst the programme avoided a ‘deficit mindset’, it discussed the real structural inequalities, racism and discrimination in employment, education and wider society, which participants are not responsible for, but which impact nonetheless. We encouraged participants to explore strategies to navigate these experiences that drew on their lived experiences as strengths, acknowledging the added value their shared history and culture brings to research and education. The programme was co-designed and facilitated by Kemi Oladapo, an ILM certified coach and facilitator with experience coaching diverse people to fulfil their potential, including at the NHS, Advance HE and Sirona Healthcare.

2023: Cross-institutional group coaching programme for postgraduate researchers with parental responsibilities

This pilot programme offered 12 participants the chance to experiment with peer-to-peer discussion, via a facilitated group coaching approach, as a means of sharing strategies employed and the strengths developed as a postgraduate researcher that enabled participants to try and balance study with parental responsibilities. Caring for children and undertaking postgraduate research often involves navigating a system seemingly inhospitable to families, with research expectations that can involve considerable travel and disruption to support networks, while facing rising costs for essentials like childcare that are rarely supported by research grants. Group coaching provided a safe, non-judgmental, mutually supportive space that enabled participants to explore these structural issues as a group and offerred the opportunity for peer-to-peer learning to develop new ways of thinking, feeling, and behaving. The programme was co-designed and co-facilitated by Alice Ballantine Dykes, Founding Director of Mama Coaching, and Nic Willcocks, associate coach and facilitator at Mama Coaching.

* Global Majority refers to Black, African, Asian, and Brown people, people of dual heritage, those native to the global south, and / or those who have been racialized as ‘ethnic minorities’. These groups represent approximately 80% of the world’s population.

Please note, this programme was previous called GW4 Connect – Peer Mentorship for Postgraduate Researchers of Colour.