PeerLadder has been awarded funding through the DisCouRSE Flexible Fund to pilot a new peer-mentoring initiative supporting leadership development among underrepresented digital Research Technical Professionals (dRTPs).
PeerLadder has been awarded funding through the DisCouRSE Flexible Fund to deliver a new peer-mentoring initiative supporting leadership development among underrepresented digital Research Technical Professionals (dRTPs) across UK research-performing organisations.
PeerLadder runs from March 2026 to March 2027 and is part of the first cohort of community-led projects funded by DisCouRSE, a UKRI-funded Network+ focused on strengthening leadership, career pathways and recognition across the digital research workforce.
dRTPs play a critical role in enabling data-driven research, yet many face limited progression routes into leadership – particularly women, disabled people, LGBTQIA+ professionals and those from minority ethnic backgrounds. PeerLadder addresses this gap through a structured peer-mentoring model that builds confidence, leadership capabilities, and sustained professional networks.
A cross-domain initiative, endorsed by ELIXIR-UK
PeerLadder is not a life-sciences-only project. dRTPs work across every research domain, and the leadership challenges they face – and the cross-domain knowledge they can share with one another – reach well beyond any single field. The initiative is designed to be open to underrepresented dRTPs wherever they work.
ELIXIR-UK endorses and supports PeerLadder – providing communications, hosting and coordination – because it recognises the value of investing in dRTP leadership and the cross-domain learning that comes from it. PeerLadder’s co-leads are active in the ELIXIR community, but the project is deliberately broader than ELIXIR-UK and welcomes participants from across the research landscape.
The project adapts lessons from ELEAD, an established European leadership and mentoring programme for women in ELIXIR, focusing on its most impactful element: peer mentoring. PeerLadder broadens that approach to include all underrepresented groups, not just gender.
PeerLadder is coordinated from the University of Manchester, led by Saskia Lawson-Tovey and co-led by Xènia Pérez Sitjà (Earlham Institute), Sara Villa (OLS), and Carole Goble (University of Manchester).
Participants attend an in-person workshop followed by monthly virtual peer-mentoring sessions, with support designed to help groups continue beyond the funded period. Insights from the pilot feed back into DisCouRSE and the wider digital research community, including the Software Sustainability Institute.
Read the announcement on the ELIXIR-UK Node website.
