Starting a doctorate is about more than timetables, systems and introductions. It is also about beginning to inhabit a new identity: that of a researcher.

This week I was privileged to spend four days with over 20 people from across the world at an induction event hosted by Dr Xose Rosales and his amazing team from the Graduate School.

It was a week of new beginnings and the creation of a new identity as a postgraduate researcher at UON. I started thinking about what that meant to me and, while catching up on LinkedIn, came across a post about shibboleths. I had always understood Shibboleth as a form of authentication used to access academic journals, but it seems it is also “those little verbal passport checks that reveal whether you are comfortably inside the tribe or an outsider” (Warner, 2026).

Thinking about that in the context of the induction event, I became curious about the language that helps make a group of curious individuals into insiders in a research community. At UON, as a part-time staff member, I am already familiar with terms such as REF, TEF and FHEA, and in my full-time job, Data Lake Houses, MDM (Master Data Management) and DPIAs (Data Protection Impact Assessments) are all common insider terms in my community. So I started thinking about the shibboleths that make us insiders, members of our own discipline-specific Communities of Practice (CoP), as well as a wider researcher CoP within UON.

Listening to the range of presenters at the induction sessions, we were introduced to ORCID, not the flower, but an Open Researcher and Contributor ID; PURE, not water, but a research information management system; NILE, not the river, but Northampton’s Integrated Learning Environment; and a team we will undoubtedly spend time with LLSS, the Library Learning and Support staff. Oh, and did I mention the ARC, the annual research conference? 

Then the was RDB, RDC, and possibly my favourite acronym, FRAKE: the Faculty Research and Knowledge Exchange committee.

But insider status is not conferred by acronyms alone. Language matters because it helps us navigate systems and signals belonging, but the deeper markers of research community lie elsewhere. They show up in learning what it means to wrestle with the literature, in recognising that a rejected journal article is not necessarily failure, and in understanding why a good question often becomes more complex the longer you sit with it. Becoming an insider is not just about speaking like a researcher; it is about beginning to think, read and question like one.

I am not sure I am looking forwards to all of the harder parts, but understanding their value in the learning journey is key.

Developing a deepened understanding of what it means to make a claim to knowledge, and the limitations that must apply to that claim and the multiple ways to problematise something are things which motivate me. As a group, having a shared curiosity, a desire to know and understand why, alongside an acceptance of differing views will undoubtedly be key to our success as researchers, and I’ll be honest, going to the edge of the map of current knowledge in my area and venturing into the unknown, moving into an area marked “there be dragons”, excites me.

I wonder how many rabbit holes there are to go down and which one will contain the gold, is energising.

Knowing that I have a community of like-minded individuals to share it with makes that journey all the more motivating.

So, back to the beginning: the creation of a new identity. That identity formation has begun and will deepen over the next few years. I am excited to share that journey with those at the induction, with other UON researchers, and with the amazing Graduate School staff who worked tirelessly, both in front of us and behind the scenes, to make the event such a success.

If this week was an introduction to the language of research, it was also an introduction to the generosity of the research community within UON. As we learn the language and behaviours of those within it, I hope we will be as open to welcoming future cohorts of new researchers as those we met this week were for us.

Blog post written by: Ian Hall