Dr Julie Reeves

Hello & Welcome!  I have been involved with researcher development since 2001, when I worked for the Civic Education Project in Belarus and Ukraine – which was a fabulous experience. I was fortunate to return to the UK just as the ‘Roberts agenda’ began and I was recruited, in 2004/05, to the Faculty of Humanities, the University of Manchester, to establish development programmes for doctoral and postdoctoral researchers, supervisors and PIs. I moved to the University of Southampton in January 2009, to support the career development of early career researchers.

In addition, I was a key researcher and contributor to the Vitae Researcher Development Framework and Statement, along with Professor Pam Denicolo (memorably, I drew up the first version of the Researcher Development Statement whilst standing in the queue to see ‘Bansky vs. the Bristol Museum’ in 2009!).  Pam and I went on to promote the RDF to numerous institutions and researchers, who gave us some wonderful feedback.   Pam has been a tremendously generous mentor and inspiration to me, and we have co-authored and co-delivered umpteen workshops and several publications together.  The lesson I would pass on to researchers is to find a mentor(s) who can support you in your career.  Mentors are essential for all careers but are absolutely vital for academic success.

My academic background was in Politics and International Relations, which I studied as an undergraduate at the University of Kent at Canterbury, and as a postgraduate at the University of Southampton. I have had the privilege of being taught by some fantastic teachers including, at Kent, Richard Sakwa who blew my mind by predicting the end of communism and his ‘anti-circumstantialist’ views, Andy Williams who showed me what humane academia could be like, and Chris Taylor who listened to me and my working class ‘voice’; at Southampton, Chris Brown was phenomenally inspiring (I still tell people about his view that lots of Stalin’s and Hitler’s exist but fortunately don’t become heads of state – although they may, disturbingly, become heads of department in my experience!) and Andy Mason, who gave me the courage to write what I believed in, although he and many others didn’t agree with me!

The lesson here, for all researchers, is to have confidence and faith in your ideas.

If you would like to contact me, please complete the form below.