HERG's research

Research funded by Carnegie Education Fund

PIs: Gale Macleod and Fiona O’Hanlon, RAs Alice Smith, Colin Brough and Lianya Qiu-Bremner

March – September 2026

This project will generate a national, cross‑institutional understanding of why under‑resourced undergraduate students in Scotland withdraw from, or change, their courses. Using in‑depth qualitative research, complemented by quantitative data (demographic profiling and analysis of data held by Scottish universities in relation to course withdrawal), the project aims to:

• Identify the financial, academic, institutional, social and personal barriers shaping retention and progression for students from low‑income and other backgrounds under-represented in HE
• Explain how these factors interact across different institutional and programme contexts
• Produce evidence‑based, practicable recommendations to inform institutional strategies, national policy and funding decisions. 

Study participant information sheet - PDF

Study participant information sheet - Docx

Participating members: Fiona O'Hanlon and Gale MacLeod 

HERG members Fiona O'Hanlon and Gale MacLeod are co-leading a project as part of the InFrame initiative, which aims to improve collegial research leadership and research culture in Higher Education. 

The project will include research on staff experiences of academic failure - reflecting on aspects of the local research culture that supported them and on elements that would have been helpful. The project will use this data to inform the development of resources to support research leads to create resilient research communities. 

The project runs between August 2025 and May 2026, and further information is available on the InFrame webpage.

Visit the InFrame webpage

The University of Edinburgh is undertaking a large-scale, long-term Curriculum Transformation Programme and we are members of the Curriculum Transformation Programme Support Group.

An influential study by Australian researchers Fraser and Bosanquet in 2006 examined academic staff definitions of curriculum. Yet there is very little literature exploring higher education students’ perspectives on curriculum. We have identified that conducting a small-scale pilot study to investigate student definitions of curriculum would be an extremely helpful and timely contribution to a deeper understanding of curriculum informing the University’s Curriculum Transformation Programme. We asked students about their definitions of curriculum and their role in relation to the curriculum using a short online questionnaire. 

This research was undertaken by:

• Dr Catherine Bovill, IAD
• Dr Ian Glen, Curriculum Transformation Specialist
• One Pusamane, Student Intern Academic Services
• Emma Taylor, Student Intern, IAD

Participating member: Dr Catherine Bovill

Higher education research consistently demonstrates that student-staff relationships matter for a wide variety of positive outcomes for students. However, the influence of student and staff identities are a less-explored area of relationship development. Research in sociology and psychology, mostly conducted outside of higher education contexts, suggests that identity similarities often contribute to meaningful human connections. We gathered data from students and staff using an online questionnaire and our findings include some evidence that shared gender identity was the most frequently mentioned identity considered to support relationship formation. Many students and faculty thought other factors were more important, such as shared interests, an opportunity to talk about identity, and staff behavior and attitudes.