BLOG - Making connections and happy hippos - our ECR Away Day at Edinburgh Zoo

Introduction

We were all looking forward to this new event which had been arranged to strengthen connections within the SCADR early career researcher community. The day began with speed networking, allowing us to have a few minutes with each colleague to introduce ourselves and talk about our research areas. This meant we could have one-to-one conversations with researchers that we hadn’t had the chance to before and gave us the opportunity to meet several new colleagues that had recently joined SCADR. Whilst some of us may have been apprehensive at the start, everyone was very chatty about their research, and it was hard not to run over our 3–5-minute guide!

It was useful to meet other researchers working in similar research areas, and we also had conversations about the practicalities of administrative data research. This included discussing data access procedures, research timelines and requesting outputs from Trusted Research Environments. This meant that we could offer advice to one another and share experiences.

Guest Speaker

We were lucky to be joined on the day by Dr Jennifer Yule, Lecturer in Marketing at the University of Edinburgh, who spoke to us about the importance of non-academic writing to increase the reach and impact of your research. Jennifer shared with us her experience of writing a piece for The Conversation about her research into the psychology behind the advertising and consumption of plant-based meat products. Jennifer shared the story of how this article took off, leading to her work being included as an exam question in schools within the USA, and a request to write an opinion piece for The Guardian. Jennifer’s presentation was really inspiring, and sparked some lively discussion among the researchers about how we can think more creatively about achieving impact through our work.

Great Connections

Overall, all of us felt that the ECR away day was a great opportunity for connecting, with many of us meeting up with colleagues working within ADR Scotland for the first time. The meeting was effective in allowing us to discuss whether we wanted to establish an ECR community, what the aims were and how regularly we wanted to meet throughout the year.

One thing that we all felt worked well, was that with the day being led by ECRs it ensured the programme covered areas we wanted to discuss and the informal setting allowed for a comfortable sharing of thoughts and ideas. One of the actions taken from our day, was that we would establish an ECR community group, which would hold monthly meetings online and regular meetings in-person in either Glasgow or Edinburgh. We are very grateful to Michelle Jamieson and Ana Morales for offering to take on the roles of ECR Coordinators.

The Future

We also discussed what additional information and support would be good for this group. One popular topic was to gather included information on training courses that involved more complex research methods, suited to those researchers who have had a couple of years of experience. Another was for one of the ADR Scotland partners to host in-person events where the details of new datasets could be discussed, together with a discussion from a researcher who had started to use that dataset, so people may know more about it.

Many of us would love to have more in-person ECR sessions like today's, as we particularly enjoyed being able to connect with fellow ECRs and share knowledge and ideas in a safe and informal setting. We look forward to our ECR meetings and hopefully hosting another Away Day in 2026, for all early career researchers and analysts within ADR Scotland.

...the happy hippos?

After listening to our SCADR Research Webinar during lunch, hearing from fellow researcher Dr Olivia Swann and Darren Lightfoot from the SafePod Network, there was time for us all to enjoy seeing the animals at Edinburgh Zoo. And for Beth, there was just one species to visit - that being the pygmy hippo, or more specifically Gloria and Haggis, the mum and calf, who were more than happy to lie out in the sunshine and be talked to by Beth for a full hour!