Frequently Asked Questions

We want to create a space for solidarity and community, as we believe that access to a safe space to share and validate both your own and others' experiences can be vital. By sharing your experiences, you raise awareness to important issues inside the academy and also help others feel less alone. While we encourage you to share, we also want to remind you that your personal and professional safety is of paramount importance, so please do not post if you feel that sharing would put you or your job at risk.

In submitting a post you agree to it being made public and we do not encourage redactions except in cases where it may impact your career and wellbeing. If you have posted something but would now like it to be removed (eg. you feel that it now exposes you and puts you at risk) please contact us at review@insideacademia.co.uk. In the email provide us with the details of your post so we can easily identify it and explain very briefly why you need it removed.

We do not take down posts without cause, and will only do so if a post does not fit with our community guidelines. If you would like to flag a post to be reviewed, please see the question below.

We check on posts regularly to ensure that they adhere to our community guidelines, but if you notice that something offensive, inappropriate, or just not quite right on a post and would like to flag it with us, please contact us at review@insideacademia.co.uk. Please provide us with as much information as possible so we can identify the post and review it. If you’d like to provide any additional information as to why you feel the post needs to be investigated please do so in your email.

This is a grassroots community page and so we really welcome feedback and suggestions from our users. If you feel there’s something that needs to be explicitly stated on our page that is not there already, please email us at support@academia.co.uk we will review it and implement it if appropriate

If something goes wrong with the site please let us know by emailing support@insideacademia.co.uk

I need support at my university / need to report an incident, what should I do? We would encourage you to make use of your university’s wellbeing service in the first instance if you feel comfortable doing so, but recognise that these spaces are not always as inclusive and accessible as they should be. You can find your university’s dedicated wellbeing resources:

• On internal university sites such as Blackboard and staff intranets
• Typing the name of your university and wellbeing will typically pull up a generic page. E.g. searching ‘Oxford University wellbeing’ brings up https://www.ox.ac.uk/students/welfare

External sources of support that can be helpful are:

- Mind, the mental health charity

• Rape Crisis, which operates a 24/7 support line for any survivors of sexual violence
• The Black, African and Asian Therapy Network, to help find counsellors trained to work with people of colour
• Your GP, if you have one - if you are worried about yourself or another person, and believe urgent medical attention is required, please call 999 or use the 111 online service to connect to a professional
• The Samaritans, a 24/7 phoneline with volunteers trained to listen
• The UCU, or Universities and Colleges Union
• Unison, which represents public and professional services staff

Example of a good submission:*

I work in a humanities department and have experienced daily microaggressions from my colleagues. People make disparaging comments about EDI and “postcolonial” studies, and it just makes me feel really undermined and isolated as a Black female member of staff. I’ve tried to raise it informally to my line manager and he just says they don’t mean it/are just joking.

Anonymous, University of Inside Academia *good in this context means a post that will be approved

Example of submissions that are likely to be removed:

I work in the History department at the University of Inside Academia. The current head of department (who took over in 2024) told me that I wasn’t good at my job in front of the current head of teaching.

**This contains information that could easily identify people (department names, dates of tenure, use of the term “current”). It also refers to a more general grievance, without supporting information to connect it to a feeling of systemic marginalisation. **

My PhD supervisor, Dr. Academia, told me I couldn’t submit an abstract to a conference I wanted to go to. I feel like this is because I am a mature student with caring responsibilities. His email is dr.academia@ia.ac.uk - I want people to email him to tell him that he’s wrong to do this to me.

**This is doxxing - the public sharing of names and contact information to encourage retaliatory action. **

**Trigger warnings: harassment, assault ** I was harassed at a staff meeting by a colleague, and we ended up getting in an argument and a physical altercation over the curriculum design, which I said needed to be more focused on diverse representation. They grabbed my arm and it really hurt, and I feel like I can’t go into the office anymore. Anonymous, University of Inside Academia **This post reports illegal activity at a named institution, which we unfortunately cannot post on our site as it opens us up to potential legal action (libel, defamation claims etc). If something like this has happened to you, we want to direct you to our list of supporting organisations, or you can email us directly and we can signpost some avenues of support for you. **