The Reason We Are Here
Academia is a weird and wonderful sector to study and work in. It brings the excitement of being at the very forefront of human knowledge and the responsibility of translating and imparting this information to the wider public and the next generation’s budding minds. But it also has a rather murky, unspoken, underreported downside.
Factors such as high internal/external pressure, unrelenting workloads, sheer stress levels and both job uncertainty and insecurity can have deleterious effects on students, researchers and academics. Unfortunately, the contributory factors, and the damage that ensues (both mentally and sometimes physically), are not often spoken about. A culture of ‘survival of the [mentally] fittest’ has been the result, which is not beneficial for anyone.
We have developed Inside Academia as a platform to help illuminate, describe and navigate some of the contributing factors to these issues in hope to change current academic practises. In order to do this, we have established a number of resources.
What We Are Doing
Article Series: From the people, for the people
Firstly, we are publishing a series of articles from members within the community, in which they describe the experiences they came up against, how it affected them physically, mentally and emotionally, and how they overcame such experiences. We hope these articles will serve as a point of support, an outlet for expression and a learning resource for the community. Read our articles here, or if you are interested in writing a piece then be sure to drop us a message!
Speak and Presenting: Communication is key
We have built up a good reputation for speaking at national and international meetings, seminars, workshops and conferences about topics to do with the academic journey, mental health, mindset and performance. We are very keen to speak at any event applicable and hope by doing so, we help to increase the level of awareness and appreciation of the issues and topics in the industry. For more information and to see if we are available to speak at your event, please follow this link.
Coaching and Mentoring: A helping hand to overcome obstacles
These sessions (1-to-1 or group) aim to tackle some issues that individuals are facing and to help coach the person(s) through them. By utilising our own experiences and the lessons we learnt, we can help you overcome obstacles, hurdles or setbacks you may be experiencing. We will help you develop processes and techniques to navigate similar experiences in the future. These sessions can be informal or formal. Are fully confidential and can happen through email, Zoom meetings, or phone-calls. For more information about these sessions, see here.
Who Are We
Robert Seaborne
(founder, March 2020)
Robert completed his PhD in molecular physiology before transitioning into the field of functional genomics as a postdoctoral researcher. During his earlier research career, Robert went through a number of extremely challenging situations which pushed him to the limits of his psychological boundaries. It was following these experiences that he became interested by mental health, mindset, motivation and leadership psychology, and how these factors can be best trained and continually developed. He is now deeply interested in helping others to develop such attributes that can help them navigate the turbulent world of research and academia, on a personal and psychological level.
Robert started presenting and speaking about topics related to his academic journey in 2018 and has since been invited to speak at a number of seminars, workshops and conferences on topics ranging from motivation, culture, community and mental health.
He has always got time to help speak with, nurture, help to mentor and develop psychological skill sets in people. If you’re interested in learning more about how Robert may be able to help you, someone you know or a group or team of people, then please drop him a line here!
He published an article in Nature about his loss of identity during his PhD studies (https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-00306-y).
Martino V. Franchi
(joined, June 2020)
Martino moved from Italy to UK to complete his MRes and PhD in skeletal muscle physiology between Manchester and Nottingham. He’s currently back in his home country after a 12+ year journey between UK and Switzerland, working as an Assistant Professor in Skeletal Muscle Physiology at the University of Padova.
As a foreign student pursuing his academic ambitions, Martino spent long periods away from his native country, culture and most importantly, his friends and family. This added to some of the more traditional difficulties faced in academia for Martino, and, while tough at the time, it began Martinos journey into thinking about the mental health culture within our industry. He has since become interested by motivation and leadership psychology, and how these factors can be best trained and continually developed. Martino got in contact with Robert in early 2020 and is now deeply interested in Inside Academia project, aiming to help others to develop the attributes that can help them through this world of MScs, PhDs, Postdocs and more.
Martino joined the Inside Academia team in June 2020
We hope this platform is able to instigate meaningful change to the mindsets and mental health of students, researchers and academics, and help create positive change in the culture associated with these factors.