I am sharing my lived experience in this blog for a few reasons. One is my role on the Directorate of Research and Business Engagement EDI Committee, where local committees and staff networks play an important part in shaping our everyday working culture. Another comes from my work as a Communications and Engagement Coordinator supporting the Research Platforms, where bringing people together is both part of the role and something I genuinely value. I am motivated by people, their stories, and the connections that help large institutions feel smaller, more human, and more humane.

I also want to mark the University’s Staff Network Day on 13 May 2026, and to invite colleagues to reflect on shared values and build new interdisciplinary connections. This includes the final event in this year’s Interdisciplinarity & Series: a speed networking session focused on research ethos and collaboration.

My relationship with the University of Manchester began in 2011, when my husband started a BSc in Electrical and Electronic Engineering in the Faculty of Science and Engineering. We had recently returned from living and working abroad, with a baby in tow. What initially felt like a temporary chapter gradually became something more permanent. A few years later, I began my own degree in Art History and Visual Studies, connecting with the University in a very different way.

What followed has been a fourteen‑year relationship shaped by study, work, fixed term contracts, professional services networks, mentoring, and above all, people. Colleagues who took time to listen, to encourage, and to make a very large organisation feel personal and welcoming. These relationships have been central to my sense of belonging and continue to influence how I approach my work today.

What has kept me here is community and shared purpose, not as a slogan, but as something lived day to day. Colleagues who showed what real listening looks like and who demonstrated that change is inevitable but manageable with the right tools. Encouragement to join staff networks, including what was then the All Out Allies Network, now BeeProud, helped me find confidence, visibility, and community.

It would be unrealistic to ignore how work has changed with new technologies.  Further, I have worked in the gig economy, without employment rights, job security, or the option to join a union. That experience has stayed with me, shaping how I value the protections many of us now have, and why staff networks and informal communities continue to matter.

Time is the challenge I hear about most: pace, pressure, and the sense of constant acceleration. Yet, we are people.  We need rest, food, sleep, and space to think. Without time and boundaries, good intentions falter, and without behaviour change to support new technologies, progress risks becoming performative rather than sustainable.

This is why conversations about technology matter. The introduction of Gen AI and Copilot marks another moment of change. Used well, these tools can reduce friction and give time back. But tools are only as good as the values and judgement behind them.

Staff Network Day is an invitation to pause, connect, and be present. To listen, share, and support one another. If not us, then who else is best placed to put knowledge, humanity, and wisdom to work for the greater good.

By Rebecca Evans, Communications and Engagement Coordinator in Directorate for Research and Business Engagement

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