As part of a 2026 winning team of the Collaborative Award for Teaching Excellence, Puiyin Wong, Buckinghamshire New University, reflects on collaborative leadership and community-building. 

Sometimes, the most significant changes begin with a deceptively simple question. 

For #TELresearchers & #HEresearchers, that question was: “how did you become a researcher?” 

The Advance HE Collaborative Award for Teaching Excellence (CATE) has given me an opportunity to reflect not only on what we have achieved, but on the difference the initiative has made and what I have learned about collaboration, community building and educational leadership.  

At the end of 2021, I was a relatively new PhD student at Lancaster University when I asked Emeritus Professor Don Passey about his journey into research. We often see the publications, grants and achievements of established researchers, but much less often the decisions, uncertainties and opportunities that have shaped them. I wondered whether other doctoral researchers might benefit from hearing those stories too. 

That question led me to establish #TELresearchers & #HEresearchers, with the hope that it could grow into a collaborative endeavour. 

John Brindle, a fellow Lancaster PhD student, became my long-standing collaborator and “the other pea in this #TELresearchers pod”. Together, we began inviting established researchers and scholars to share their journeys. John has been a constant presence in hosting and delivering the conversations, while colleagues including Alice Jesmont, Dr Brett Bligh and Dr Phil Moffitt have provided valuable support. 

What began as a small doctoral student initiative has grown into a global learning community of more than 835 doctoral students, researchers, scholars and practitioners across over 47 countries and six continents. Yet the numbers are only part of the story. The more important question is: what difference has it made? 

Making academic careers more human 

At the heart of #TELresearchers & #HEresearchers are live conversations in which established researchers share their career journeys with emerging researchers. 

These are deliberately different from traditional academic seminars or research skills sessions. Speakers reflect on the decisions, challenges, opportunities and things they wish they had known earlier. 

This matters because researcher development is not only about research skills. It is also about confidence, scholarly identity and belonging. Hearing that even highly successful professors have experienced uncertainty and struggle can make academic careers feel more human and success more achievable. 

One regular attendee described the conversations as helping to “humanise and de-mystify academia”. Since early 2022, we have delivered more than 34 conversations featuring 49 speakers from 28 universities across four continents. Over half of attendees return regularly, suggesting that the initiative has become a community where people return to learn, connect and contribute. 

Keeping learning open 

Open education is our ethical commitment. We believe that opportunities for researcher development should not be limited by geography, funding or institutional boundaries. Participation, therefore, is free and open to all, and our conversations, recordings and resources are openly shared online. 

By making this learning openly available, we hope to create opportunities for educational researchers at different career stages to connect, learn and develop together. The resulting archive also allows people to revisit and build on this learning long after a conversation has ended. 

One unexpected impact has been on our speakers. Many have told me that preparing for their conversation gave them an opportunity to pause and reflect on their own teaching and research journeys. One professor from an Australian university described being excited by “the opportunity to tell a story of how research informed my 30 years of practice”. 

The learning is therefore reciprocal: emerging researchers gain insight into academic careers, while established academics gain space to reflect on their own practice. 

Growing through collaboration 

Although I had the initial idea for #TELresearchers & #HEresearchers, I have never seen it as something to build alone. John has been my constant partner in delivering the conversations, while colleagues, speakers and participants have contributed ideas, expertise and practical support. 

What has stayed with me most is how a small idea can grow in unexpected ways when people come together around a shared purpose. People move between being participants, speakers, contributors and organisers, helping the community grow beyond what any of us could have achieved alone. Across different institutions and roles, #TELresearchers & #HEresearchers has remained a constant in my academic life. 

What I have learned 

It has changed how I understand educational leadership and my own scholarly identity. I have learned that leadership does not always mean creating a large programme or directing a team. Sometimes it means asking a good question, bringing people together around a shared purpose, and creating the conditions for others to contribute and for that work to become sustainable. 

What began with one question has become a global learning community that I could never have imagined. 

For me, this is what collaborative teaching excellence looks like: creating opportunities for people to learn with and from one another, making that learning openly accessible, and creating the space for a community to grow beyond its founder. 

If you are discovering #TELresearchers & #HEresearchers for the first time, you are very welcome to join us and explore our conversations, resources and upcoming events. 

Puiyin Wong is Senior Academic Lead for Digital Education at Buckinghamshire New University, Trustee of the Association for Learning Technology (ALT) and PhD researcher at Lancaster University. Her work explores pedagogy, technology and professional identity in digital education. She founded and leads #TELresearchers & #HEresearchers, a global community connecting educational researchers across career stage.