#VitaeCon2025 recordings are available from the online element, and the keynotes and panel sessions of the in-person element. Read our reflections below on the online and in-person elements of #VitaeCon2025:
What did we learn from #VitaeCon2025 online?
Skills as Currency
Throughout their careers, researchers build valuable, transferable skills, which closely align with the World Economic Forum’s core competencies. Yet many researchers struggle to articulate or apply them beyond academia. The RDF 2025 offers a framework to help researchers recognise and translate their skills into diverse career paths. Crucially, supervisors and managers must foster open career conversations, helping researchers see their skills as currency for unlocking future opportunities.
The Changing World
Many institutions face extreme financial pressures amid economic uncertainty, forcing them to do more with less. This comes alongside demographic shifts, global competition and advances in technology – all of which are reshaping the nature of work. Employers are increasingly seeking high-level skills, but also highlight gaps in resilience, adaptability and self-awareness, especially as AI continues to transform roles and our relationship with technology. But this evolution isn’t just technical; researchers must embrace collaboration and strengthen their ability to communicate across sectors, remaining flexible and adaptable to change. They need to be prepared to bridge disciplines, work in diverse teams, and embrace lifelong learning in order to navigate multiple career paths with confidence.
Leadership and Culture
Healthy, inclusive research cultures don’t emerge by chance – they require deliberate effort and shared responsibility. Leadership is not just positional but behavioural, expressed through everyday actions like mentoring, encouragement and recognition, the sharing of credit. These acts build trust, visibility and belonging. Across the workshops, we saw how leadership can take many forms, with peer recognition often the most valued. While challenges vary across institutions and countries, shared principles adapted to local contexts can help us shape research cultures that are both supportive and sustainable.
Safe Spaces for Innovation
We saw inspiring examples of innovation in practice – from peer-led workshops and coaching that encourage “small experiments” in daily practice, to co-designed doctoral programmes shaped directly by stakeholders to meet their unique needs. These approaches create safe spaces for learning and empower researchers at every career stage. They show that development can thrive even with limited resources, when designed creatively and delivered collaboratively. Researcher development has the greatest impact when it’s practical, inclusive and flexible – meeting researchers where they are.
Expanding Horizons Through Inclusion and Collaboration
Researchers grow not only through their own work, but through the people and perspectives they encounter. These influences build confidence and help researchers apply their skills in new ways. To realise this potential, opportunities must be inclusive and accessible. Embedding equality, diversity and inclusion from the outset enables collaboration to extend beyond academia – connecting researchers with businesses, communities and the third sector. By working inclusively across sectors, researchers can enrich their work, open new career pathways and strengthen the communities they are a part of.
Navigating changing landscapes: key insights from in-person #VitaeCon2025
Inclusion and belonging
The conference placed a strong emphasis on inclusion, with Dr Wayne Mitchell’s keynote underscoring the importance of creating a sense of belonging for underrepresented and minoritised researchers. Discussions addressed race, ethnicity, disability, class, age, and the unique challenges faced by international students, highlighting the need to support diverse backgrounds and experiences within research environments.
Researcher identity and safe spaces
Sessions reinforced that researchers have varied identities, motivations, and career paths. The importance of fostering safe spaces where individuals can be authentic and do not feel pressured to conform was a recurring theme. The value of learning from failure and supporting researchers beyond their research outputs was also highlighted, echoing Dr Julie Bayley’s insights on the necessity of a healthy culture around failure.
Engaged and responsible research
The conference explored what it means to be an engaged and responsible researcher, encouraging individuals to pursue research with impact in ways that align with their own values and aspirations. The message was clear: supporting researchers as whole people enables greater impact and innovation.
Evaluating impact and defining success
The closing panel challenged participants to reflect on what success and impact mean in researcher development. Vitae’s new Evidence and Evaluation in Researcher Development survey invites institutions to share how they measure and evidence the value of their activities, especially in the context of increasing financial pressures. The call to action: focus on meaningful change and the broader value that researcher development brings to the sector.