Felicia at the UKRI Future Leaders Fellowships Conference

11-12 October saw the annual UKRI Future Leaders Fellowships Conference that took place in person for the first time since 2019. Two very intense days at the Hilton in Birmingham’s National Exhibition Centre were filled with plenary sessions, workshops, and networking amongst the Fellows from the different cohorts during workshops and poster sessions. The conference themes this year were “Collaboration & Impact” and “Creating a Healthy Research & Innovation Ecosystem in the UK”.

It was an intense and exciting time: inspiring and motivating, but also with a fellow-driven critical awareness of the challenges faced by researchers in the UK: a hostile climate for immigrants, the precise “global talent” that the FLF awards seek to retain in and attract to the UK: prohibitively high visa and NHS fees that can come up to over £20,000 for a family and which most institutions do not cover; childcare costs that are higher than almost anywhere else in Europe; postdoctoral talent that consequently decides to leave. But there was also much to feel optimistic about: Dame Ottoline Leyser, Chief Executive of UKRI addressed fellows and took part in a frank panel discussion that addressed questions of inclusiveness and diversity in academia and how to foster these; how to overcome systemic overworking, impostor syndrome, and insecurity, and how to “put the joy back into research and innovation.”

Above all perhaps, this was an amazing opportunity to meet fellows from across the entire research spectrum, have interdisciplinary conversations, and discover just how much exciting research is ongoing to address some of the most pressing concerns facing our world. What a fantastic scheme the FLFs are!