ESRC Leadership Fellow: Building Leadership Capacities for the Twenty-First Century

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The ESRC's Strategic Plan 2015 contains a commitment to 'develop capability for social science leadership'. This commitment recognises both the manner in which the nature and scale of scientific leadership are changing, and how the potential role and relevance of the social sciences in society has never been greater. The aim of this fellowship is to build upon internal research that was undertaken in 2017 and develop this into an ambitious vision and strategy that places the ESRC at the forefront of this agenda both domestically and internationally. The need for the research that will be conducted under this fellowship is driven by broader changes in the publicly funded research and development landscape and the manner in which research investments are likely to become larger, more complex and increasingly ambitious. New leadership skills - for example, in relation to inter-disciplinary awareness, financial management, communication skills, working with non-academic partners and modes of collaborative leadership - will become of increasing significance. Therefore the main focus of this research will be to: (1) review existing leadership support frameworks; (2) identity gaps in provision and examples of best practice, both nationally and internationally; and (3) to come forward with a set of recommendations that combine to offer an innovative and ambitious leadership development strategy. Critical elements of this research will include a focus on 'the professional journey' and how leadership skills and competencies are provided and incentivised at different career stages; an emphasis on achieving positive cultural change alongside institutional reforms; and also explicit consideration of how a new strategy for developing leadership capacities might offer positive synergies to address equality and diversity challenges within higher education. In July 2017 Sir Mark Walport, the chief executive of UKRI, outlined his vision of the new funding landscape and underlined the need 'to stimulate and reward audacity, ambition and agility, where imagination and innovation are actively encouraged'. Achieving this vision will require a fresh approach to leadership within the social sciences and the aim of this fellowship is to work with partners to identify the core components of this approach and how it can be delivered.