Date: 14 July 2026
Chair: Morgana Lizzio-Wilson
Lead: Simon Wells, NABS+ Research to Practice Fellow
Overview:
In this meeting participants shared experiences, observations, advice, and resources related to researcher safety. The key points and resources are noted below.
Summary of key points:
Gender: Women (and minority genders) are more likely to be targeted.
Professional visibility and the career penalty: There is a tension between researcher safety, and the need to publish / publicise research. This is especially acute for women, and other researchers who are at greater risk of attracting invidious attention. Researchers who are forced to prioritise personal safety (this cannot be properly characterised as a free choice) may face a career penalty. Universities and other institutions do not always recognise or allow for this situation in their career progression and recognition appraisals. This, in turn, creates an unequal field, as those researchers and practitioners who are less vulnerable achieve greater professional visibility and are therefore more likely to receive reward and recognition.
Collective practices: Safeguarding and self-care should be conceptualised as collective practices rather than the exclusive responsibility of individuals.
Institutional cultural differences: Academics in universities are often ‘sole traders’, whereas practitioners within certain organisations (e.g., law enforcement) are more likely to be within a coherent community of support.
Harassment and threat tactics: Com groups employ similar tactics to law enforcement. Even if researchers employ good opsec / persec, Com groups will target family members. Examples including paying to misuse police email accounts to request emergency disclosure of basic subscriber information for researchers’ accounts, using hacked and leaked data posted online, and abuse of OSINT resources.
Balancing privacy and disclosure: When deciding how much information to share to explain privacy requirements, it is necessary to provide enough context to justify privacy concerns but not so much detail as to endanger yourself, your work, or invite unwanted requests for involvement or advice, etc. This can be especially difficult to negotiate for parents & carers dealing with requests about photos of their children. Ideally there should be a cultural shift towards a default position of not sharing photos of children (see NCA advice). It might be possible to justify concerns by citing general guidance rather than your specific situation.
Curating an online presence: Keep personal and professional online accounts separate. Be aware of the risks of identification in posts by family members and friends.
Technology: Maintain a good relationship with IT departments, be mindful if using equipment that was previously assigned to someone else, use VPNs (and be aware of any institutional policies on VPNs). Consider using secure web browsing services (e.g., Tadaweb), but this can be expensive.
Physical safety at conferences: There are university security networks which monitor risk to ensure safe campus environments. Proactively engage with estates and security teams. Flag any higher risk activities. Request physical checks of attendees. Secure attendee data.
Report harassment: Provide details of any harassment to your institution and the police. Don’t second guess yourself or wait for harassment to reach a certain level of severity. Reporting harassment can also allow the police to identify any ‘cross-firing’ harassers who may have multiple targets.
Use your networks: Reach out to experienced colleagues and others in your network for advice. The NABS+ team are happy to be contacted. You don’t have to go through difficult times alone.
Resources
New Toolkit from Liverpool University Team (please share with your networks)
CALL TO SUBMIT RESEARCH SAFETY ADVICE
Do you have any more tips on researcher safety? Please let us know of any concrete ideas you think would help you and other researchers stay safe, and protect your research via this anonymous suggestion box.
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IMAGE CREDITS: Copyright ©2026 R. Stevens / CREST (CC BY-SA 4.0)