The Research Whisperer

All 4 universities I've worked at are in the bottom 7 for staff wellbeing. My current employer is the 2nd worst across the country. A whopping 82% of participants ranked high or very high in emotional exhaustion - directly related to organisational change.

Highlighted statistics: 69% disagreed that 'Senior management considers employee psychological health to be as important as productivity.' 73% disagreed that risks to their psychological health are actively monitored. 82% of participants ranked high or very high in emotional exhaustion.

Australian University Census of Staff Wellbeing is now out - some shocking stats!

Census WEBSITE for more info and full report: stresscafe.net/census/

#AcademicSky #AustralianUnis

Wonderful post by @agnesbosanquet.bsky.social that was inspired by one of ours by Tess Shirefley!

#AcademicSky #GenAI #AcademiaAndGenAI

Academics’ uses of GenAI – what is appropriate … and what is not? Although universities remain keen to tackle inappropriate uses of generative AI (GenAI) by students, it is becoming increasingly clear that we need to talk much more openly about academics’ (mis)us…

New at RW: Academics’ uses of GenAI – what is appropriate and what is not? By @neilselwyn.bsky.social

"By turning to GenAI to manage workloads, are we simply covering up structural problems with contemporary academic work that need to be properly addressed?"

researchwhisperer.org/2026/02/10/a...

Welcome to 2026 Photo by Warren Griffiths on Unsplash. 2026 is shaping up to be an interesting year. It feels like every year since 2020 has been an ‘interesting year’ for different reasons. Could we h…

Our first RW post for the year shares some of the small things that we're looking forward to in 2026 - a nice change!

What research things are you looking forward to this year?

researchwhisperer.org/2026/02/03/w...

Talking out of school: counting the cost of return-to-office mandates In a recent post on Research Whisperer, two anonymous authors decry the universities’ rush to wind back work-from-home arrangements that were instituted during the COVID crisis. In particular, the …

This post remains highly relevant, if not more relevant, right now: "Talking out of school: counting the cost of return-to-office mandates" (by Daniel Reeders)

"Fixed notions of introversion as a definite type of person don’t always help."

Can you publish too many papers? Competition for jobs and grants in academia has never been tougher. The constant drive to “publish or perish” can make you feel like your career will end unless your output is superhuman. Sometimes…

Can you publish too many papers? (By Shaun Khoo)

"Some researchers become so focused on their publication metrics that they forget the purpose of research is to generate knowledge that, just maybe, solves some kind of problem."

V. interesting post about "zombie citations" - imagine where we might be a few years down the track. 🤔

The Imperfectionist: The freewriting way of life The freewriting way of life Freewriting, as you may know, is the technique whereby you set a timer, open a text file or notebook, then just write whatever comes to mind, even if...

Useful, stimulating post by Oliver Burkeman describing "the freewriting way of life" - does it resonate for you? Burkeman draws on the work of Peter Elbow and it's an astute provocation for all writers.

Folks who are planning to do a social media research project: huge range of tools at this site!

(HT @anntics.bsky.social)

Researchfish — Information for Researchers Regarding Researchfish Sunsetting After careful consideration, Elsevier have made the difficult decision to sunset Researchfish on July 31st 2027, when the product will no longer be availab

Goodbye, Researchfish! The Elsevier research impact tracker is being shut down by July 31st 2027.

Announcement here: help.researchfish.com/en_US/resear...

Research culture on Wikipedia Screen capture from Wikipedia, by the author. Earlier this year, I realised that there was no Wikipedia page for ‘research culture’. I was surprised by the omission, but I probably shouldn’t have b…

Research Whisperer @therealrw.bsky.social and all round good egg @jod999.bsky.social has started a Wikipedia page on #researchculture . Read more and find out how to contribute at researchwhisperer.org/2025/12/09/r...

We're running a very short survey to explore why academics are increasingly turning to GenAI to do things that they know/feel they should probably be doing themselves (e.g. write peer reviews, draft papers, data analysis etc.) - please share (or fill in!): redcap.helix.monash.edu/surveys/?s=L...

Text reads: My unpublished papers from a previous project getting together with the unpublished ones from a new project. Image: the teenage mutant ninja turtles shaking hands with the power rangers

#AcWriMo might be over but the academia / writing / research memes continue. A familiar vibe for many of us, I imagine... #academicsky #academicchatter #PhDchat #resdev #highered

Can you spare a minute to help this campaign? Save the State Library of Victoria!

Help! Sign & share the petition to save the State Library of Victoria from rolling crises, gallery closures, harassment/jettisoning of staff & new cuts to destroy services for children & adults. c.org/Hj9G9WSg2f. (Or change.org, search Save The State Library of Victoria.) #StateLibrary #librarians

Researchers who may be interested in Australian Bureau of Statistics reports: The 2026 Census topics and data release plan is now published on the ABS website.

Full info here: www.abs.gov.au/statistics/r...

#AcademicSky

A practical blueprint for legal and ethical AI research - Impact of Social Sciences To use public data researchers must navigate legal regulations & platform norms. The PETLP framework shows how privacy-by-design can be built in at the outset.

"A practical blueprint for legal and ethical AI research" (from @lseimpactblog.bsky.social) - is this possible?

blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsoci...

#AcademicSky #ResearchAndAI #ResearchEthics

Low success rate in early career grants ‘deeply disappointing’ - Research Professional News “Decay continues” as Australian Research Council’s Decra scheme announces 13.1 per cent success rate

Here's a report from Jenny Sinclair @jsresearchpro.bsky.social on the low success rate for DECRAs this week, driven by high demand and low Government funding for early career researchers in Australia.

[Free article in @resprofnews.bsky.social]

This banger from the academia / writing / research meme stash definitely has wider applicability but I do really like using it for coaching, mentoring, and workshop activities when we talk about the importance of saying 'no' to things as researchers. #academicchatter #academicsky #PhDchat

Cooking outside the PhD Photo by Webvilla on Unsplash. Most research development models assume that time, energy, and executive functioning are equally distributed across scholars. They aren’t. Especially not for early ca…

"Most research development models assume that time, energy, and executive functioning are equally distributed across scholars. They aren’t." - @kprmendoza.bsky.social

#academicsky #neurodivergence #ECRchat #resdev

researchwhisperer.org/2025/11/18/c...

Better Together: ORCID + ROR

Better together, indeed!

Learn how @researchorgs.bsky.social and @orcid.org's systems interact and complement each other enhancing data quality and adding valuable trust markers to researchers’ records. buff.ly/daQAyWQ

Happy World Linguistics Day, @superlinguo.bsky.social and @gretchenmcc.bsky.social!

Lauren and Gretchen are the masterminds behind @lingthusiasm.bsky.social, a must-follow podcast if you want to sound clever at dinner parties. 🧐

Librarians versus the world Photo of London’s National Art Library by Sebastien LE DEROUT on Unsplash Here at the Research Whisperer, we love librarians. They are smart, dedicated people who want to help you with your researc…

Australian and Aotearoa NZ academics: Ever railed against the exploitative publishers in the research sector?

Some good news about your work being freely Open Access and actions you can take right now!

researchwhisperer.org/2025/11/25/l...

#academicsky #acwri

Help! I’m an Early Career Researcher and genAI doesn’t know who I am I’ve been a relatively slow-adopter of the genAI movement in academia. For a while now I’ve been under the (misguided?) perception that if I used genAI in any way to conduct my research, I would so…

Recent post on the blog:

Help! I’m an Early Career Researcher and genAI doesn’t know who I am

"Discovering that my work was being inaccurately represented by genAI was frustrating and concerning." - Tess Shirefley
researchwhisperer.org/2025/05/20/h...

#AcademicSky

Writing an ARC DECRA Rejoinder: An Unofficial Step-by-step Guide NOTE for those who don’t know what the ARC (Australian Research Council) or DECRA (Discovery Early Career Research Award) are: The funding body and specific scheme is not the crucial part here. Res…

A good day to post this from @therealrw.bsky.social, written by the fab @geraldroche.bsky.social. All power to researchers' rejoinder arms over the next couple of weeks.

Writing an ARC DECRA rejoinder: An unofficial step-by-step guide
researchwhisperer.org/2022/04/28/w...

#AcademicSky

in case you're wondering, "what's the harm in claiming an extinct species has been brought back from the dead" when it most certainly has not, our interior secretary is already using it to justify taking animals off the endangered species list

A cenotaph with a sculpture of an angel on the top surrounded by pink blossom trees. The sky is a clear blue

A close up of a beautiful pink blossom tree. In the distance is an angel sculpture which is blurred. The sky is a clear blue

A close up photo of a pink blossom tree with a clear blue sky

#10minutesfromhome
Beautiful blossoms this afternoon

Four panel comic with two figures talking. Panel 1: figure in black "How are things going?". Panel 2: figure in red "well...". Panel 3: shows a giant swirling black cloud above with lightning coming out - red figure '... aside from the gaping maw of existential apocalypse looming overhead...'. Panel 4: red figure '... pretty good. Can't complain.'

Reposting. Because it's another day but the same gaping maw

New set of NEH grant program cancellations:
DHAG
Fellowships Open Book Program
Dangers and Opportunities of Technology: Perspectives from the Humanities
Archaeological and Ethnographic Field Research
Institutes for Advanced Topics in the Digital Humanities

No.