The dRTP Context

Who are dRTPs?

Digital Research Technical Professionals (dRTPs) develop and maintain the digital infrastructure, software, data pipelines and computational tools that power modern research. The role family includes research software engineers (RSEs), data stewards, bioinformaticians, data scientists, HPC specialists, community managers and a growing list of newer hybrid roles.

The defining feature is the combination: dRTPs are technical practitioners who work with researchers but are not themselves typically the producers of research outputs (papers, grants) that academia is structured to reward. Their contribution is visible in the tools, infrastructure and reproducibility of research, but often invisible in the reward systems that drive academic careers. The DIRECT framework maps the competencies the role family relies on.

Common challenges

PeerLadder is built for dRTPs whose specific path into leadership is harder than it should be.

  • A less defined route into leadership. The traditional academic ladder (postdoc → fellow → PI) and the line-management ladder (junior developer → manager → director) both exist; dRTPs straddle both and fit neither cleanly. Promotion criteria are often borrowed from one or the other, neither designed for the role.
  • Rarely matching the profile of the “typical leader” organisations are used to promoting. Generic leadership programmes have not closed representation gaps in research-technical roles, which is why PeerLadder is positive action: eligibility is reserved for dRTPs from underrepresented groups (women, disabled and neurodivergent practitioners, LGBTQIA+ professionals, people from minority ethnic or lower socioeconomic backgrounds).
  • Institutional invisibility. dRTPs often sit between groups – supporting multiple PIs, embedded in shared services, working across faculties – which can mean nobody is clearly responsible for their development.
  • Few visible role models. Senior leadership in research is overwhelmingly homogeneous, so junior dRTPs from underrepresented groups frequently do not see anyone in the role they could grow into.
The visibility gap

dRTPs often fall between institutional support structures. Career development designed for academic researchers does not match the role; career development designed for line-managed staff does not match the work. PeerLadder is one of the responses to that gap.

How peer mentoring addresses these

Peer mentoring does not solve the structural barriers. What it does is offer the kind of support that those barriers most clearly remove:

  • Community. A fixed group of peers at a similar career stage and with similar lived experience, meeting over the programme year. The isolation of working between groups is reduced because the group itself is the place to think out loud.
  • Shared experience. Where senior mentors can offer perspective from a different era and different career, peers offer recognition of what you are navigating now. The point is precise: the room is safer to speak in when others have lived a version of what you are facing.
  • Structured reflection. The peer-consultation format creates time and method for working through challenges that do not have an obvious owner: leading without authority, navigating institutional politics, deciding whether to put yourself forward for a role.
  • Cross-domain perspective. PeerLadder cohorts mix RSEs, data stewards, bioinformaticians and others on purpose – a challenge that feels stuck inside one domain often has a ready answer in another.

What the research says

The case for diverse leadership in research-technical roles draws on a wide evidence base. A few headline findings:

  • McKinsey’s 2023 review of 60,000+ private-capital professionals found that 80% of managing-director roles are held by white professionals; women hold just 15% globally. Promotion to principal level – the rung below MD – ran 2.8× faster for men than for women. Women from ethnic and racial minority backgrounds were the least represented group at every level.1
  • The Royal Academy of Engineering’s 2024 EDI Engine review found that engineering businesses with higher diversity generated 19% more revenue from new products and services and saw 121% more patent citations – evidence that diverse teams drive the kind of innovation output that matters in research-technical work.2 The British Science Association / APPG 2025 briefing on EDI in STEM reaches consistent conclusions on commercial performance and on talent attraction and retention.3
  • Scott Page’s mathematical work on group problem-solving shows why: variety in heuristics, perspectives and mental models beats raw individual ability past a threshold. Diverse teams literally search a wider solution space.4
  • The House of Commons Science, Innovation and Technology Committee’s 2023 report Diversity and Inclusion in STEM concluded that significant progress is still needed on representation across the UK STEM workforce, and the UK Government accepted that case in its formal response.5

The full evidence base on psychological safety as the condition that makes diversity work is in the Foundations of Peer Mentoring page.

References

  1. McKinsey & Company (2023). The state of diversity in global private markets: 2023. mckinsey.com
  2. Royal Academy of Engineering (2024). The EDI Engine: Evidencing the Business Benefits of Equality, Diversity and Inclusion in Engineering. raeng.org.uk
  3. British Science Association / APPG on Diversity and Inclusion in STEM (March 2025). Briefing on Equality, Diversity and Inclusion strategies in STEM makes the business case for growth. britishscienceassociation.org
  4. Hong, L., & Page, S. E. (2004). Groups of diverse problem solvers can outperform groups of high-ability problem solvers. PNAS, 101(46), 16385–16389. pnas.org
  5. House of Commons Science, Innovation and Technology Committee (24 March 2023). Diversity and Inclusion in STEM, Fifth Report of Session 2022–23. publications.parliament.uk
Foundations of Peer Mentoring
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