About the Project

This website is an online research exhibit, which reflects on the experiences of minoritised academics through their own words, exploring factors that affect their mental health and wellbeing and research motivation. 

These quotes have been collected through interviews undertaken during the ‘Enhancing Research Culture for Minoritised Academics’ (ERC4M) research project led by Dr Nadia Jessop, Lecturer in Psychology in Education at the University of York Department of Education from 2022 to 2025. Through interview, survey and experimental research, the project aims to identify steps that institutions can take to increase inclusivity and thereby enhance research culture for minoritised academics. 

Minoritization occurs when people who share a particular identity are marginalised within a particular environment, through social, political and cultural systems of power. Building on the seminal work of Settles and colleagues (2022) on epistemic exclusion, the current research exhibit explores the ways in which one’s minoritised status can negatively impact academics’ experience of working and researching within the UK higher education context. 

Thirty interviewees for this project discussed their experiences with inclusion and exclusion, tokenism, (in)visibility and hypervisibility, devaluation of their scholarship, burnout, disengagement and difficulty with career progression. These experiences often resulted in poor mental health and reduced research productivity for those minoritised academics. 

The data was analysed by Husna Hejazi from the Department of Education and the exhibit itself was curated by Robin Henderson and Jacob Bolda from the Department of History of Art at the University of York. This work seeks to highlight how culture theory can be engaged with in order to drive change on a practical level. By situating the interviewees’ experience within these frameworks, we ask you to explore connections and clashes within these experiences of marginalization.

Funded by the UKRI Research England Fund through the University of York's Enhancing Research Culture Grant.