Making the Most of Feedback in Research: Recommendations from the Hidden Curriculum

Feedback is an important mechanism to support education, development and quality within research. Yet current feedback mechanisms are often hard to navigate and sub-optimally timed such that feedback often extends existing inequalities. Much knowledge about how to ‘do’ feedback is not formally taught or trained and remains a significant part of the hidden curriculum of research. Using qualitative insights drawn from a trans-disciplinary global survey of researchers (n=867), the current study provides seven recommendations for improving feedback. Moving beyond widely accepted ‘good’ feedback practices, and exposing some of the unspoken realities of navigating the feedback culture of research, we hope the collective wisdom of this vast array of researchers supports researchers (especially early career, and those from minoritised backgrounds), towards a more accessible research culture for all.