The Courage Festival is a one-day festival focusing on mental health and wellbeing of postgraduate researchers. This will be a day designed by PGRs, for PGRs and staff working with PGRs from UEA and across the country to participate, discuss and provide feedback on a series of activities designed by the Courage Project. The festival is also aimed at Giving Voice to PGRs and an opportunity to openly discuss your PGR journey. The ultimate outcome is a public statement addressing PGR mental health and wellbeing. 

In this blog, Maria and Bryony, who work on the Courage Project, share their thoughts about the upcoming festival.

Maria, PGR Placement, Strand H: Courage Festival Coordinator

Doing a PhD is a hard enough process in its own right, research is as demanding as is exciting. In the meantime, supervision happens, competition happens, financial obstacles happen, cultural shock happens, where to stop? Imagine, life also happens…

The Courage Project is here to offer help in a very specific way; create the circumstances to either relax and reboot your system before a burnout, or find a way to share your stress with others and lessen it, if not deal with it. Any problem becomes less of a problem with Courage.

A number of the outmost experienced members of the Courage Project team work together to support the PGR community, shape any advisory or guiding line according to PGR standards, and lay the foundation for a secure pathway towards postgraduate researchers’ mental health and wellbeing support. Join us on 11 September 2019 at UEA and explore what all the above is about during our Courage Festival!

The word festival brings to mind positive connotations, right? This is the idea, this is the aim, this is the goal of Courage Festival; to not only celebrate our PGR experiences, voice our stories, mingle with our peers throughout the country and fill each other’s shoes, but to also change the rhetoric about doctoral studies. It should NOT be a nightmare, it should NOT be a war, it should NOT be a pain, and it should NOT break you. It ought to be a dream coming true, it ought to be a long fight to win, it ought to be the gain, and at the end of the day, it ought to be you unbroken.

Bryony, PGR Mental Health Coordinator, Courage Project Lead, uea(su)

Although key to the aims of the project, what many people may not realise is that Courage is far more than a walk in the park or a trip to the allotment. It is also about using this time as a platform to have courageous conversations. It is a time to have your voices heard. Too often I work with PGRs who feel they have no power to speak out against the pressures and demands that are encroaching on their wellbeing, work-life balance and mental health. This is just the way it has always been, after all. This archaic way of thinking is unjustified will only continue to perpetuate the problems that were faced, are faced and will continue to be faced until the structure and systems adapt and change.

As part of my role and the role of my colleagues on the Courage project, including the 12 PGR placement holders working with us, we regularly work with PGRs who have experienced and are experiencing many challenges throughout their research (I doubt many PGRs go through their entire experience without this). One of the key outputs of Courage, although maybe understated and unrecognised, is that the project has provided an avenue for people to raise concerns in a safe, supported and non-judgmental environment. Through this, we have been able to support individual PGRs, provide advice, guidance and solutions.

Courage is about taking a small but vital step towards changing the academic and research culture around mental health and wellbeing. Many of you will become part of the next generation of academics, research group leaders, policy makers, managers, professors etc. and will be integral in the development of supportive working environments and research culture. What kind of research or work community do you wish to be part of in the next steps of your career?

I am delighted to be working with an incredible team of PGR leaders from across UEA, Norwich Bioscience Institutes and University of Suffolk in Courage and now on the development of the Courage Festival and I hope that you will join us in learning more about the Courage Project on this day and using this as an opportunity to have your voice heard.   

The Courage Festival is free to attend and includes refreshment breaks, lovely lunch, welcome and farewell drinks. For more details and for reservations, please sign up by 4th September by clicking here. 

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