In this Critical Reflection, twenty open questions relating to sustainability are presented and discussed. It is suggested that asking, answering, and then acting upon the answers to these questions is essential to both prompt and perpetuate Sustainability Culture. The process is undertaken with no expectation about what answers will emerge, but rather answers emerge through examining individual and group assumptions, beliefs, and values. A number of worldviews, conceptual frameworks, and theoretical distinctions are discussed. In conclusion individual and group action are briefly considered.

This critical reflection examines how a team of academics began to tackle the challenge of developing research culture among their professions-facing colleagues through two interconnected initiatives. It presents the theoretical underpinning of Facilitated Practice-based Research (FPR ©University of Sunderland) and its practical implementation through Research Culture Roundtable (RCR) events and subsequent formation of Agile Research Teams (ARTs). Drawing on contemporary debates around research excellence and practitioner-researcher identity, it explores how structured collaboration can support academics in integrating their practical and scholarly expertise. The ARTs model enables manageable, time-bound participation in research projects while building sustainable research capacity. Initial outcomes demonstrate the potential of this approach for developing research confidence and creating a more inclusive research community. The authors conclude that supporting practitioner-researchers through facilitated, practice-led initiatives can enhance both individual development and institutional research culture, particularly in teaching-intensive settings. Funding Acknowledgement This research was supported by internal research grants provided by the University of Sunderland UKRI Enhancing Research Culture Fund 2024.

This study presents Nigeria’s researchscape as an archetype of sites where intersections of multiple identities of gender, race, and class are performed. Despite the acclaimed strength of intersectionality to unearth hidden oppressions, its commitment to addressing the oppressions it uncovers requires scholarly scrutiny. The study takes a historical approach regarding intersectionality to probe into what comprises any intersectional focus in academia and how much the researchscape has benefitted from intersectional methodological thinking. Using methods of critical analysis and deconstructive argumentation, ‘Detrimental Agency’ is introduced to highlight how positionality and reflexivity influence multiple layers of oppression in academia, depending on who possesses the ‘intersectional wand’. Funding Acknowledgements This publication arose from a project financed by the Africa Multiple Cluster of Excellence at the University of Bayreuth (funded by the German Research Foundation under Germany‘s Excellence Strategy – EXC 2052/1 – 390713894).

This reflection explores the anxiety and physical sensations felt by some scholars when navigating interdisciplinary research. The author describes personally experienced physical and emotional challenges faced during collaborative research, emphasizing the lack of common language and knowledge, and arguing for greater acknowledgment of these embodied experiences. The aim is to foster more honest and productive interdisciplinary dialogues, highlighting the importance of addressing emotional and physical responses to being able to succeed in collaborative research settings. Funding AcknowledgementThis work was supported by Riksbankens jubileumsfond (grant #MXM19-1161:1), to whom thanks are noted.

This article focuses on the new term of ‘translanguaging’, first developed in applied linguistics and then critically discussed in critical multilingualism studies. The term foregrounds language use as opposed to language competence. In this way, translanguaging is understood as shaking up the commonly received ideas about standardised language. With such a term, new avenues of thought and research open up to better understand multilingual practices. The new proposed way of regarding multilingual practices as more ‘energeia’, processual, and varied – instead of a fixed entity or tool – takes centre-stage in this article. I analyse the term ‘translanguaging’ by way of two practices, literary translation on the one hand and exophony on the other hand. In choosing these two practices, I ask how can translanguaging help bring down old-established epistemic walls such as clear-cut ideas about Jakobson’s intra- and interlingual translation. These terminologies will thus be analysed by way of multi- and translingual texts to discuss the extent to which translanguaging practices can challenge current ideas about literary translation and multilingualism. In my discussion, I focus on two Brazilian authors; firstly, on Wilson Bueno’s Mar Paraguayo alongside its translation Paraguayan Sea by Erín Moure, and secondly, on Geovani Martins’s O Sol Na Cabeça alongside its translation The Sun on my Head by Julia Sanches. I show how a translanguaging approach does justice to the way in which these authors and narrators speak in their own languages as well as in and between other languages than their own (exophony). I draw on examples showing how the translators have gone about these particularities, at once reflecting on the process of creative writing and literary translation as an open-ended practice.

This study provides a thoughtful analysis of effective tactics for achieving success in academic publishing. It explores the intricate and challenging obstacles that scholars encounter while trying to meet the requirements of publishing their work. This study examines the connections between academic productivity, multidisciplinary cooperation, and developing patterns in scholarly communication. Its goal is to offer practical advice and tactics for scholars to improve their publication efficiency while emphasizing their well-being. The study highlights the significance of balancing practicality in publishing output and self-care practices. It also underlines the value of embracing multidisciplinary audiences and research, investigating alternate pathways for publication, and utilizing digital and Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools for disseminating research. Based on academic publishing literature, personal observations, and guidance from experienced scholars, this paper provides significant insights and recommendations for early-career researchers who want to succeed in the competitive academic world and progress in their scholarly careers.

This short article details the little known links between the Transport and General Workers’ Union (TGWU) and the Warwickshire town of Leamington Spa, from its formation in 1921 to the post-war activities of its future General Secretary, Jack Jones.

A brief critical reflection on the term ‘Research Enabler’ within the context of the developing UK national agenda to broaden and deepen the collective understanding of research communities and cultures within higher education and whether that is a helpful term to support the development of healthy research cultures. The term ‘Research Enabler’ refers to a broader set of occupational groups beyond research administrators to include academic librarians, IT staff, knowledge exchange professionals, technicians, and estates staff. This paper will reflect on the term from the perspective of a research administrator. An enabler is a person or thing that makes something possible. However, within taxonomies of addiction the term ‘Enabler’ has more negative connotations as someone who encourages or enables negative or self-destructive behaviour in another. This is not to characterise researchers as addicts and research administrators as negative enablers but to draw attention to the language being used having potential negative and dualistic interpretations for an occupational group who often self-report ambiguity and duality as inherent in their complex roles.

Although belief in the ‘sage on the stage’ (the teacher as an expert standing at the front, delivering information) and tabula rasa (the student as a blank slate, ready to be written on) belongs to the distant past of outdated pedagogical theory, writing skills, especially grammar, are often treated as exceptions. This is especially the case when learners are also researchers; with pressure to produce high-quality work within tight deadlines, researchers are often expected to receive grammatical knowledge passively and replicate it promptly. This is what we sought to change. At the end of 2021, I created a series of academic writing workshops, which I have subsequently delivered to postgraduate students at Warwick University. This article provides a critical reflection of what I did, what challenges I faced, and what lessons I learned. It is hoped that this reflection will empower other academics and instructors to approach academic writing for postgraduates with confidence and integrity. Exchanges Discourse Podcast There’s a Write Way to get Published: In Conversation with Anna Fancett [26:49]

Systematic reviews are the gold standard of evidence syntheses and underpin decision making which affects outcomes for patients globally. A research integrity project funded by the UK Research and Innovation Medical Research Council, entitled ‘Systematic Reviewlution’ aimed to understand and document problems with these highly cited and influential articles, which are often being published at a rate that outpaces primary clinical research. This living systematic review found 485 articles in the first iteration, documenting 67 discrete problems relating to the conduct and reporting of published systematic reviews. These problems potentially jeopardise the reliability or validity of systematic reviews. A variety of institutional factors are likely fuelling the publication of substandard systematic reviews and these factors are representative of issues affecting the entire evidence ecosystem. These factors are discussed in reference to themes identified through this meta-meta-meta-research initiative. The publish or perish perverse academic reward system is fuelling a lack of reproducible research. Paradoxically, the reputation of systematic reviews as a high-quality form of evidence is leading to an overproduction as they are likely seen as a certainty for publication. Wider issues of the influences of research culture generally, the fallibility of peer review and the importance of diversity and representation in research teams are emphasised.