While scientific excellence remains at the heart of successful research, leading a research team requires much more than subject-matter expertise. Research leaders are increasingly expected to motivate diverse teams, communicate effectively across disciplines and cultures, navigate change, and create environments where people can grow and do their best work. The Leadership Academy for Researchers was designed to respond to these evolving demands.

The first Leadership Academy for Researchers, organised by STAR Cluster within the Laser-PRO project, was offered to researchers from 18 partner institutions across the Czech Republic, Lithuania, and Ukraine. Throughout the spring semester, participants engaged in a comprehensive learning journey combining online and in-person formats.

The programme consisted of six online webinars led by Filip Kahoun, attended by 32 researchers from partner institutions. A selected group of twelve participants from the Czech Republic also continued with six interactive in-person workshops facilitated by Jana Puhalová at the Brain4Industry Innovation Centre in Dolní Břežany. These workshops focused on practical leadership development and created space for reflection, peer learning, and the exchange of experience.

“Researchers are often promoted into leadership positions because of their scientific achievements, yet few receive any systematic preparation for leading people. Through the Leadership Academy for Researchers, we wanted to help bridge this gap. The positive response to the programme shows how relevant these topics are across research institutions,” says Jana De Merlier, Director of STAR Cluster.

The Leadership Academy covered topics ranging from self-leadership and communication to team development, feedback, motivation, leading conversations and also institutional leadership. Throughout the programme, participants were encouraged to reflect on their own leadership approach and translate newly acquired insights into their everyday work.

How does Irina, one of the participants, reflect on her experience in the Leadership Academy for Researchers? “It was an experience that was very beneficial for me and my leadership skills. I am at the very beginning of my leadership journey and I think it gave me a lot of insights which will help me to develop as a leader and support my team to prosper in future.”

“For me it was a very nice experience. It was so divided in time that we had always a period of time which we spent learning these skills and we kept building up on what we were learning,“ appreciates Lucie, who was also one of the academy’s participants. „I did get to start incorporating some stuff into my daily work as we were going through and I had enough time to do that because there was a space between the sessions.”

Building on the positive feedback and strong engagement of participants, the Leadership Academy for Researchers will continue next year as part of the Laser-PRO project. This autumn we will also kick off our first tailor-made academy, whose curriculum was designed based on the participants’ needs. Our goal is to open future editions of the programme to a wider range of research institutions, helping to bring leadership development to an even broader scientific community.

We would like to thank all participants and facilitators who contributed to the success of this pilot Leadership Academy. We look forward to continuing the conversation about leadership, culture, and people development in science.