Before you meet, spend around 60-90 minutes in total engaging with the resources below. There are some lengthy papers so you do not need to read everything in full. Instead, scan, dip into sections, and focus on what feels most interesting or relevant to you.

Try to engage with at least three resources from the selection below.

As you engage, the aim is not to master everything, but to notice what they prompt you to think about in relation to your own research group or lab.

Resource 1: Growing your research group – a practical guide

As you engage, notice:

• How your role has shifted (or is shifting) from researcher to leader of a group
• Where growth in your group is creating new challenges or tensions
• What assumptions you are making about group size, structure, or ways of working

Resource 2: Review and enhance your recruitment practices

As you reflect, notice:

• How intentional you have been in defining roles before recruiting
• What has worked well (or not) in your past recruitment decisions
• Where early hiring decisions may have shaped your group in unexpected ways

Resource 3: Learn approaches to setting up and managing a research lab

As you engage, notice:

• Which early decisions (space, infrastructure, people, ways of working) have had the biggest impact on your group
• What you might do differently if you were setting up your lab again
• Where informal or hidden aspects of lab leadership have required you to learn “on the job”

Resource 4: Plan and manage your research group budget

As you reflect, notice:

• How financial decisions are shaping your group’s development and sustainability
• Where you may be overcommitting or underutilising resources
• How closely your spending decisions align with your longer-term research strategy

Resource 5: Overview of leadership and management advice and tools

This is a large resource. If helpful, dip into one section that feels most relevant to your current challenges (e.g. recruitment and induction, developing a team, managing performance, or supporting development).

As you engage, notice:

• Which aspects of leading and managing your group feel most developed
• Which areas feel less clear, more reactive, or harder to sustain

As you review these resources, you may find it helpful to keep your current research group (or a group you are in the process of building) in mind, and to use the ideas as prompts to think, rather than templates to implement.

The structure below is held collectively by the group. You may choose to rotate who keeps an eye on time or simply move together through the stages.

1. Arrival and framing (5–10 minutes)

• Brief reminder of purpose: learning from different perspectives
• No pressure to have implemented anything yet
• Agreement on confidentiality and respect
• An explicit intention that everyone will have space to speak

2. Resource reflections and shared learning (30–40 minutes)

A simple round:

• One insight that landed “What stayed with you most in relation to how you are developing your research group or lab?”
• One insight that challenged or puzzled you

Pay attention to differences in how you engaged with the materials. The aim is collective sense-making, not consensus. Encourage one another to ask: “What did you take from this that I didn’t?”

3. Coaching-style reflection: so what? (20–30 minutes)

Each participant shares:

• One thing I will do differently in how I build or develop my group
• One thing I am still unsure about
• One thing I might explore next (information, support, or advice)

Peers respond with curiosity rather than solutions:

• “What is important about that?”
• “What would help you to get more clarity?”
• “What would be different in your group in a year’s time if you made this change?”

4. Closing and commitments (5–10 minutes)

Each person is invited to name:

• One small change you will make in how you shape your group environment

Optional:

• Who else they might speak to or involve in this – what can they delegate?
• What conversations they might need to initiate
• What might get in the way, and how they could navigate that

This can be very light-touch and self-directed. Possible options include:

• A personal note to self
• A follow-up peer conversation
• Trying one small change in your group and observing what happens
• Exploring another relevant resource
• Bringing a question to a mentor or senior colleague

No reporting is required unless the wider programme explicitly asks for it.