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Facilitated and chaired by: Dr Martin Gough who is the co-convenor of the Postgraduates Issues Network. For more details about the network and its activities, please click here. 

Overview

In this event, speakers draw on discourses of belonging and inclusion to consider how doctoral students experience the academy, using a range of empirical work to reflect on the challenges for those from marginalised groups, including international, racially minoritised and women doctoral students. While literature indicates the significance of academic socialisation in supporting academic identity development (Emmioglu et al., 2017; Parry, 2007), doctoral students experience challenges in developing a sense of belonging within academic communities due to their liminal status within the academy; something not fully acknowledged or understood by institutions and those working with doctoral students (Leading Routes, 2019; White and Nonnamaker, 2008; Wisker et al., 2010). Inequalities relating to race, gender, disability and social class influence individuals’ ability to access, feel a sense of belonging to, and imagine a future within, the contemporary academy; especially for those facing intersecting forms of discrimination (Arday, 2017; Fisher et al., 2019; Mattocks and Briscoe-Palmer, 2016; Pásztor and Wakeling, 2018). Yet the consequences of not belonging as a doctoral student are considerable, with implications for individual’s wellbeing, progression and retention within doctoral programmes, as well as longer-term career aspirations and outcomes (de Welde and Laursen, 2011; Handforth, 2022; Levecque et al., 2017). Presenters examine the position of doctoral students within academic hierarchies, drawing attention to how different forms of discrimination act as barriers to belonging. We invite attendees to consider the implications of not belonging for individuals, institutions, and the future of the higher education sector, and together imagine what actions might present possibilities for change.

Schedule

Speaker bios

Dr Rachel Handforth is Senior Lecturer in Doctoral Education and Civic Engagement at Nottingham Trent University and works on the Co(l)laboratory Research Hub doctoral training programme, working with community partners, academics, and doctoral researchers to support community-engaged research. She won an SRHE Newer Researcher Award in 2023, undertaking a place-based project to explore public perceptions of and attitudes towards doctoral research in Nottingham, and her research interests include gender, mental health and wellbeing and doctoral graduates’ career destinations. Her book, Belonging, Gender and Identity in the Doctoral Years: Across Time and Space was published by Palgrave Macmillan in 2022, and she is currently guest editing a special issue of the Studies in Graduate and Postdoctoral Education journal on doctoral education for the public good.

Thirsha de Silva is a doctoral researcher at the University of Portsmouth. Her doctoral study employs narrative and visual diary methods to explore mental wellbeing experiences of international women doctoral researchers from the Global Majority. Prior to embarking on her PhD, Thirsha worked as a Lecturer in Psychology in Sri Lanka, teaching on a wide range of topics including health behaviours and social inequalities in health. Her research interests include lived experiences of minoritised groups in higher education and the impact of social inequalities on wellbeing. She is enthusiastic about intersectional, interdisciplinary and multimodal approaches to research.

Dr Bing Lu is a Higher Education researcher at Nottingham Trent University and works on the Equity in Doctoral Education through Partnership and Innovation (EDEPI) programme. Bing’s research centres around academic mobility, inclusive admission, postgraduate community, and supervisor development. Bing is currently guest editing a Special Issue on Taboos in Doctoral Education Across Cultures hosted by Higher Education Quarterly scheduled to be published in April 2026.

Dr Barbara Adewumi is a sociologist and Senior Researcher at the non-partisan think tank British Future, working on the Nuffield Foundation–funded project Voices for Equity: Moving from Evidence to Action. Her research examines national polling data on racial equality, identity and lived experience to inform social policy. She previously held roles as Lecturer in Sociology and Senior Research Fellow at the University of Kent, where she completed her PhD. Her work focused on Black student’s academic progression in higher education, including degree-awarding differentials, belonging, and the lived experiences and pathways to progression of Black doctoral students.  She has won multiple EDI awards for diversifying the curricula work known as Diversity Mark and as co-chair for University of Kent’s Global Majority staff network. Barbara serves on the National Windrush Museum and co-editor of the open access book Race, Capital and Equity in Higher Education, Palgrave Macmillan.

Gina Wisker PFHEA SFSEDA is Senior Lecturer in the Bath University International Centre for Higher Education Management, doctoral supervisor there and at the University of Liverpool Institute of Education.  She is Professor Emerita of the University of Brighton where her previous role was Professor of Higher Education and Contemporary Literature and Head of Centre for Learning and Teaching, holding a National Teaching Fellowship. She has taught for the Open and for Cambridge Universities, in FE colleges in schools. She is passionate about teaching, including integrating research and professional practice into teaching, learning and assessment practices. She has been involved with several HE research projects and other international work, on doctoral supervision, HE curriculum development, internationalisation, decolonisation, student learning.  Books: The Good Supervisor (Palgrave, 2002, 2012); Getting started in Supervision (Routledge, 2026). Journal editing: Innovations in Education and Teaching International. She has two adult sons, a dog and lives in Cambridge.