When academia feels tough or uncertain | Academia et al

Professor Richard Freeman joins Zeinab El-Khateeb to discuss the realities many researchers are feeling, and how easy it is to become pessimistic at times. But the heart of his message is supportive, reminding listeners that doctoral skills travel well and that people with doctorates often find satisfying work in many sectors, not only academia.

His advice? Try not to lock yourself into only one definition of success, and stay open to what interests you as your career grows.

Full show notes and links (including the MOOC - 'Is a PhD Right for Me?'): https://www.ucl.ac.uk/ioe/news/2026/may/when-academia-feels-tough-or-uncertain-academia-et-al

More IOE Insights podcasts: https://uclioe.info/podcast
UCL Institute of Education: https://ucl.ac.uk/ioe

Creators and Guests

ZE

Host

Zeinab El-Khateeb

What is IOE Insights?

Thoughts and ideas on education, culture, psychology, social science and more from our academics, students, alumni and wider community to create lasting and evolving change. Podcasts brought to you by UCL Institute of Education (IOE), the world's leading centre for education and social science research, courses and teaching, and a faculty of University College London (UCL).

More from us: https://ucl.ac.uk/ioe

Voiceover: 00:00

You're listening to IOE Insights, the UCL Institute of Education podcast at University College London.

Zeinab El-Khateeb: 00:23

This is Academia et al. The podcast for anyone and everyone. Figuring out life in academia.

Zeinab El-Khateeb: 00:39

This is Academia et al, the podcast for Early Career academics. I am Zeinab El-Khateeb, I am a lecturer in Teacher Education at the IOE UCL Faculty of Education and Society.

Zeinab El-Khateeb: 00:51

In this series of episodes, we are going to hear stories about academic journeys, achievements and legacy, which we hope will inspire you to embark on your own adventure as an early career researcher. Today, I'm delighted to welcome Professor Richard Freeman to the studio here with us. He is a head of the Centre for Doctoral Education and the deputy director for the UCL Bloomsbury and East London Doctoral Training Partnership. He has a particular interest in issues related to doctoral education, especially psychological issue that can affect doctoral submission. Richard, welcome to the episode.

Zeinab El-Khateeb: 01:36

Firstly, I'd like to ask you if it would be helpful if you could provide the audience with an overview of your academic journey and progression to the present day.

Richard Freeman: 01:47

Sure. So I started with an undergraduate degree in natural sciences at the University of Cambridge in the late 80s. So two years of natural sciences and even within that I'd kind of moved away from the sciences so the bit I most enjoyed was actually the history and philosophy of science. But, I'm no philosopher. So I thought, well, I can't do that in my final year.

Richard Freeman: 02:16

So I actually changed to social and political studies and, really enjoyed that and found it very interesting. And when I graduated, I went to America first of all for kind of three months, came back, did some work and then started a PhD at the University of Birmingham in the School of Psychology. So I did a Psychology PhD which effectively took kind of four years and then did a postdoc with Kun Lambert who's now the Vice Chancellor at the University of Sheffield which was kind of interesting and fun. But I was actually keen to come back to London. So as somebody who came from London, I did think I was keen to go to somewhere in London.

Richard Freeman: 03:08

So at the time Southbank University was setting up a psychology department because previously it had been a combined honours option and I liked the idea of being able to join somewhere where you were part of building something. Because at the University of Birmingham, their psychology department was very big.

Zeinab El-Khateeb: 03:25

Yeah.

Richard Freeman: 03:26

They had a large number of staff and the idea of a small department that was being newly formed was really appealing to me. So I started there as a lecturer, becoming a senior lecturer and you know I was doing lots of teaching. It was very much a kind of teaching focused institution as well as bits and pieces of research.

Zeinab El-Khateeb: 03:50

Which is very similar to the IOE isn't it? Yeah. There's a similarity there.

Richard Freeman: 03:54

Yeah, although it's so Southbank is post 92, so their focus is very much on teaching. Whereas somewhere like the Institute, you know, we are you know number one in the world for more than ten years and a lot of that is about research. So research is very important to what we do here at the Institute. Whereas somewhere like Southbank, their focus really is on teaching with research being second. So I was heavily involved in delivering our undergraduate programme so I ended up being the course director responsible for the courses in undergraduate psychology as well as a few other bits and pieces.

Richard Freeman: 04:42

I ended up with a kind of insane amount of roles within Southbank psychology because I was kind of very good at it, very good at kind of organizing Yeah. But while I was there, I'd got involved in European psychology. It was organizing the European Congress of Psychology. So just as a kind of helper. And that's how I got into contact with who the person who was the then head of the IOE doctoral school, Ingrid Lundt, Professor Ingrid Lundt.

Richard Freeman: 05:18

And, you know, she sort of said, well, have you thought about as your next step coming to the Institute? And I didn't really know that much about the Institute, but it did seem an interesting, opportunity to take up.

Zeinab El-Khateeb: 05:33

Yeah.

Richard Freeman: 05:33

So, a bit of a leap of faith.

Zeinab El-Khateeb: 05:35

What year was that?

Richard Freeman: 05:37

So that would have been Roughly. 2006.

Zeinab El-Khateeb: 05:42

Yeah. That's before it joins UCL.

Richard Freeman: 05:44

That's right. So it is very much joining the Institute of Education. So it's kind of funny that when I told people, they were like, that's great. What's the Institute of Education? So at the time, it had a very strong reputation amongst people in education.

Zeinab El-Khateeb: 05:58

Absolutely. As teachers as well.

Richard Freeman: 06:00

Yeah. Absolutely.

Zeinab El-Khateeb: 06:01

That's how I came to New because I did some training here in leadership. So, yeah, as a teacher.

Richard Freeman: 06:07

Yeah.

Zeinab El-Khateeb: 06:07

Back then. Yeah.

Richard Freeman: 06:07

So but within psychology, most psychologists were just completely unaware. And of course, that was well, the main reason was at the time the institute doesn't didn't really have any, undergraduate programs. And that that was kind of quite important for visibility as much as anything. So I joined the institute, but it was actually a real leap of faith, but something I think is quite instructive because previously I'd been on an academic contract, but coming to the institute, it was for a role that was was then called academic related. So it was effectively as what's called a researcher developer.

Richard Freeman: 06:45

So this is something I've actually had a paper published about. So research developers, because they are what we would call a third space professional. And I think it's

Zeinab El-Khateeb: 06:56

something In between, right?

Richard Freeman: 06:57

Yeah. So the classic example of a third space worker in universities would be a librarian. Because if you think about universities, you tend to talk about the academics and then the kind of administrators. That's on the kind of crudest term. And where does a librarian fit in?

Richard Freeman: 07:14

It's like, well, they're not you know, obviously an academic or not necessarily an academic, but they aren't really an administrator. They're doing something that's very, very important, you know, it's an absolutely crucial role. But back

Zeinab El-Khateeb: 07:28

then the internet was not there for, you know, online libraries.

Richard Freeman: 07:32

So Oh, no. It was in 2006. Libraries were had really kind of developed. I mean, I was an undergraduate at Cambridge, it very much was books and physical journals.

Zeinab El-Khateeb: 07:45

Correct.

Richard Freeman: 07:45

But really in the time, you know, even well probably it would have been when I was at Southbank, it really took off. So you know journals moved to kind of more of an online mode. Yeah so I was on this academic related contract. And interestingly, and it's something that's reflected in the paper I wrote about them, what you tend to find is that certainly at that time, there weren't easy options for promotion. So within the academic related scale, you needed to be managing a team of people.

Richard Freeman: 08:20

And I was a team of one, so I couldn't really manage myself. So I actually switched back on to an academic contract.

Zeinab El-Khateeb: 08:28

Was it easy?

Richard Freeman: 08:30

Well, I was kind of lucky in that I had kind of kept research active. So I was doing bits and pieces. And again, this is something we found of the research developers that that wasn't unusual. And you know, so I moved over to being, well, what we'd now call an associate professor. So I moved over and up.

Richard Freeman: 08:55

So that was good and it was actually particularly nice when we merged with UCL because if I had remained as academic related, I would have gone over to the kind of team that in UCL does research development and frankly then it would have been very difficult to go back into academia. So you know I kind of continued within UCL. So I've actually been here for nineteen years.

Zeinab El-Khateeb: 09:26

Wow, does it feel like nineteen years?

Richard Freeman: 09:29

It's weird, it doesn't actually.

Zeinab El-Khateeb: 09:32

It flies, isn't it?

Richard Freeman: 09:33

Yeah it really does. I think the thing for me is the particularly the kind of PhD and postdoc time I think was kind of really important experiences. And then funnily enough, time at Southbank because we were a small team so it really was working together in a way that was really great fun. So whereas the Institute and kind of latterly UCL, it's more than well, it's kind of getting on for three times the time I spent at Birmingham at LSBU. But, yeah, it it it that time seems to go on very quickly.

Zeinab El-Khateeb: 10:19

Absolutely. And when you have fun, you know, you don't you don't the time flies. Yeah. So, yeah. Excellent.

Zeinab El-Khateeb: 10:25

That actually leading to the next question. Which professional accomplishment or initiative do you consider the most significant to date? Which you touched on it already, but you know

Richard Freeman: 10:37

Well, funnily enough, I think probably the greatest impact I've had I mean, I'd like to think I've made an impact, in the kind of doctoral space with various initiatives. So for instance, one we've, I've been involved with that, happened relatively recently is a MOOC to support people going into a doctoral study. So it's a completely free online course that lasts three weeks that helps people to get a sense of what's involved in doing a doctorate. Because I think one of the barriers for people to go into doctoral studies, quite simply, they just don't know what it involves. Undergraduate study is very kind of common now.

Richard Freeman: 11:19

Yeah. Even masters, you know, increasingly

Zeinab El-Khateeb: 11:23

Get in there,

Richard Freeman: 11:23

isn't it? But the idea of doing so a PhD, I think most people just wouldn't know what what it involved. Yeah. And I think so if you don't have that kind of family background I mean I'm certainly the only person in my extended family, who's ever done a PhD it's a kind of leap into the dark. So the idea is this is shining some light and the idea is that that then makes kind of more realistic for people from, underrepresented backgrounds to kind of think, well, maybe this is something that's right for me.

Richard Freeman: 11:55

Yeah. So that that's the kind of recent one. I think probably the biggest, though, in a bizarre way is the work I did, in Europe with this organization, EFPA, so the European Federation of Psychologists How and did

Zeinab El-Khateeb: 12:08

you find that? That's something really interesting as well.

Richard Freeman: 12:10

Well, was, helping to organize the conference. And they were keen for their Secretary General to be someone British. I don't think for any more complicated reasons than we need someone who is a native English speaker. Kind of, to be honest, and I think this is an important lesson. I was in the right place at the right time, and I was asked, would you do it?

Richard Freeman: 12:33

And I thought, have no idea what this involves. I have no real familiarity with this organization, but, well, why not?

Zeinab El-Khateeb: 12:40

Exactly. Sometimes it is really good to just go and explore it, you know, and learn as you as you work, as we say. You see what I mean? So was there any specific country in Europe or it just generally

Richard Freeman: 12:53

Oh, well, EFFA's head office is based in Brussels, actually, just off the Grand Place. Yeah. But we would, meet all across Europe. So Yeah. I see.

Zeinab El-Khateeb: 13:04

Better, isn't it? It's really eye opening too.

Richard Freeman: 13:07

Absolutely, although I still remember one time flying back into Heathrow and the customs officer saying where have you flown in from? I thought I don't know because I flew into an airport, went straight to a meeting, spent a day in a meeting, literally didn't leave the office until I got into a taxi to go back to the airport. So in that case I got kind of no experience of the place. But we

Zeinab El-Khateeb: 13:35

Become very familiar, isn't it? You just forgot where you've been.

Richard Freeman: 13:38

Yeah. But we also got to spend more time in a number of different countries. And I made some really good friends. But you see what's, with EFPA, their focus at the time was developing, a kind of standard for psychology across Europe. So this is what they, the European Union developed, things called sectoral directives.

Richard Freeman: 14:00

So the idea is, say for medicine, you want someone who's got a particular level of medical expertise to have their qualifications recognised. So if you're a kind of medical doctor, it should be that you can go from France to Germany and there might be some things that you have to do, there could be a kind of particular extra course or something like that.

Zeinab El-Khateeb: 14:24

Have adapt to the country, But isn't

Richard Freeman: 14:26

the idea is you have a clear structure so you're not trying to do this for each person in a kind of ad hoc way. Yeah. So we tried to do this for psychology, but the European Union was already not keen on these sectoral directives because they realized all of the professions would be doing this. But that was fine. So we developed our own that was called Eurosci.

Richard Freeman: 14:48

And I was involved in trying to get it launched. And in particular, the problem with a lot of projects like this is people were kind of wary of launching it too early. So there was this kind of sense of people always kind of putting it off. And I realized that, you know, you had to kind of seize the day as it were. So I said it will launch at the next general assembly, it were, in eighteen months time, and we worked back from that.

Richard Freeman: 15:16

And I kind of did the work to make sure that whenever people said, oh, I think we need more meetings. I think we need to, you know, do some work on this. Just said it launches at that general assembly. And, you know, in retrospect, well, I suppose we got away with it. But I think it probably was a good good move because otherwise, people would have just always been a bit reluctant to say, let's go for it.

Richard Freeman: 15:42

So I think that's probably

Zeinab El-Khateeb: 15:44

like I'm glad you pushed it forward, you know, and used your expertise from previous experiences, you know, to drive it forward, isn't it?

Richard Freeman: 15:52

Yeah. So that I would see as the kind of most significant thing I did. But more generally, it's things like the MOOC where my focus is on trying to increase representation from underrepresented groups because I think it's particularly when you're in the kind of social science space, it's just so important that you have that multiplicity of voices. If you're going to do good social science, you don't want homogeneity amongst the researchers. You want that difference in so many different ways.

Richard Freeman: 16:27

Beyond the social justice aspect.

Zeinab El-Khateeb: 16:29

And it's the intellectual diversity as well, know, having that behind. When did you start that initiative, you know, encouraging people to do the PhD and the doctoral studies?

Richard Freeman: 16:40

The MOOC in particular probably was about three or four years ago. Mean, I would very much say I was part of the team, so I'm not trying to claim kind of it was my idea because it certainly wasn't. So I was asked to join the team and just ended up playing a bit of a kind of leadership role as it was launching. I think it is the thing about thinking what you want to spend your time doing. So you can do things that are very much about you know boosting your own reputation, but I've not seen it as that.

Richard Freeman: 17:15

Genuinely do see it as it's a chance to make a difference. Definitely. And I am in the situation where I get to call myself professor so I have no aspirations to have people call me Vice Chancellor like my old boss. I would rather use the opportunities I have to try to make good things happen.

Zeinab El-Khateeb: 17:39

It definitely sounds really good. Was that around pandemic time or after?

Richard Freeman: 17:45

Yeah, guess it probably Yeah, that sort

Voiceover: 17:47

of time.

Zeinab El-Khateeb: 17:48

Yeah. No, I'm sure that will have a positive impact.

Richard Freeman: 17:51

Well, hope so.

Richard Freeman: 17:52

We hope so.

Zeinab El-Khateeb: 17:53

Yeah. So were there any an individual who inspired your intellectual development? And if there was, did their research, align or research focus aligned with your interests?

Richard Freeman: 18:08

Yeah. I think I think the person who probably had the most impact was, Stuart Hall. Yeah. So I don't know if you're familiar with him. So he largely invented kind of the discipline of cultural studies in The UK.

Richard Freeman: 18:24

So he was cultural theorist, Marxist, sociologist. And when I was an undergraduate and indeed the kind of year after, we used to watch the open university. So this is showing how old I am. When I was in my, I guess it would be the early 20s, you still had the Open University. So this was programmes produced by the Open University that were broadcast late at night.

Richard Freeman: 18:54

The idea was you recorded them onto your video cassettes or you watched them on Sunday morning. So on Sunday mornings we tended to be hungover because we used to go out drinking on the Saturday night so we'd be drinking huge amounts of tea Yeah. You know, having a wake

Zeinab El-Khateeb: 19:13

up call on Sunday morning.

Richard Freeman: 19:14

Yeah. Having a fry up. Yeah. But just kind of watching the open university because I think we were all kind of quite academically minded. Yeah.

Richard Freeman: 19:23

And Stuart Hall's so he was a professor at The Open University at the time. His programmes were just so fascinating and it is I'd encourage people to watch him. He had a fantastic voice. So he's Jamaican born. He sadly died, just over ten years ago, but his wife is, emerita here at UCL.

Richard Freeman: 19:47

But he he had such a good way of explaining things. And it was this whole, you know, I'm not going to try and talk about the kind of theoretical aspects of his work, but it was really just someone who'd come from the sciences, gone into psychology, but still really I think with quite a kind of scientific perspective. So a kind of naive positivism that this was the first person who was talking in a genuinely interesting way and really quite revelatory thinking about culture, thinking about race, thinking about gender, in a way that really got you thinking. And I think some of the lessons I've I've kind of learned from the way he would talk about situations have been so important in the way that I kind of look at the world. And as I'd say, I really encourage people to watch recordings of him talking and indeed he wrote one or two books.

Richard Freeman: 20:47

You know, he really was, you know, I think one of the sort of towering British intellects of the late twentieth century.

Zeinab El-Khateeb: 20:55

Yeah, I'll definitely gonna listen to it because, you know, understanding culture, specifically having our students from all over the world understanding the background is extremely important. You cannot ignore it's how unique they are. Last question, not least. What academic advice do you have for early career researcher that could include myself as a staff and also myself as a student because I've got two hats in IOE? What would you advise them to achieve success?

Richard Freeman: 21:27

Yeah. I think I think for me, the most important thing is to have a really open mind. Just in kind of my academic well, my career, things have really changed. I mean, right now, I mean literally at the time we're recording this, you've got the American academic system that is under the most profound attack from the government that literally six months ago would have been unimaginable. You've got a crisis in the universities in both The UK and Australia where there are dramatic reductions going to be dramatic reductions in the number of staff.

Richard Freeman: 22:10

And I think it's very easy to make be kind of very pessimistic about that. Indeed, I will be very pessimistic about it at times.

Zeinab El-Khateeb: 22:17

It's very normal. Yeah.

Richard Freeman: 22:18

But at the same time, this will provide opportunities. There will be changes. And I think the bottom line is the kind of people who do doctorates and, you know, obviously sort of early career researchers, these are the people who tend to do well, whatever. So not everyone will. You know, you can have health crises, both physical and mental.

Richard Freeman: 22:44

You could just be really kind of unlucky. But if you look at the research that's being done on people with doctorates, they don't necessarily go into academia by any means. So the majority in fact don't nowadays. But what you do find is whatever they end up doing, they're happy with, you know, so it's not like they're doing something and they're really regretting their choices or things like that. People with doctorates, they work in academia, they work using their research skills in industry or for charities, but they also just work more generally doing things.

Richard Freeman: 23:21

Mean if you think Gordon Brown, the previous British Prime Minister, he had a doctorate. Angela Merkel, she had a doctorate. You know you get kind of politicians who succeed but just kind of across all the sectors you have people. And I do think it is the really important thing to realise that it's almost kind of whatever you end up doing, you know, you aren't going to be doing a sort of really rotten job long term. You know, I think you will be doing something good.

Richard Freeman: 23:53

So I think it's the kind of open mind because where I think people can get into trouble is if you say I only want to work in academia. I won't consider anything else. Then I think you get into trouble. If you keep your, options open, you think, well, I will do what's interesting and see what happens. So as I say, for me, I stepped off the kind of academic track.

Richard Freeman: 24:17

It was this sort of step into the dark coming here to the institute. Well I've ended up, you know, right today as a professor. So certainly that wasn't what I expected. I mean actually I remember even as an undergraduate when I changed from natural sciences, my director of study said you've realized you'll never become a scientist and I ended up becoming you know a psychologist and you know in fact you know I was a chartered scientist. So you know don't see it as you know there are avenues that you know can just be cut off to you.

Richard Freeman: 24:54

Particularly in today's society you know, everything's in a state of flux. Everyone's very excited right now about AI.

Zeinab El-Khateeb: 25:03

Yeah, yeah, But who

Richard Freeman: 25:04

knows? Genuinely,

Zeinab El-Khateeb: 25:05

who Exactly, knows what's it has its peak but then like anything has a peak time and then goes up and down. But I do agree with you being open minded, being flexible, and look at the glass half full rather than half empty.

Richard Freeman: 25:19

And Absolutely.

Zeinab El-Khateeb: 25:20

You know, be you know, take it as it comes. You know? As you said, that's absolutely the the the way forward. I use that concept a lot in my life. And, you know, you end up smiling at the end.

Zeinab El-Khateeb: 25:34

Whatever the outcome happens, it meant to happen. So be it, isn't it?

Richard Freeman: 25:38

Yeah. That's right.

Zeinab El-Khateeb: 25:39

Lovely. Excellent. Thank you so much, Professor Richard. It's been very informative and it's really, great to hear about your achievement. Please do follow the link in the show notes to find out more about Professor Richard Freeman's work, as well as discovering more podcasts from the IOE.

Zeinab El-Khateeb: 26:04

And if you like what you've heard, please give the IOE podcast five star rating on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. This will help us to have more listeners and also they may enjoy the podcast. I'm Zeinab and thank you for listening. Have a good day.

Voiceover 2: 26:25

Academia et al is brought to you by the IOE's Early Career Network and IOE Marketing and Communications. The podcast is presented by Zeinab El-Khateeb. The theme music was composed by Ronnie Zhu, editing by Teresa Baker of UCL Educational Media, and Jason Ilagan is the executive producer of the IOE podcast.

Voiceover: 26:53

Thanks for listening. Search IOE Insights for more podcasts from the IOE.