Gill Stewart – Research Hero

What is the biggest challenge you have faced during your career?

The switch from a research role to a learning and development role was fantastic but a challenging adjustment. I suddenly didn’t have any external clients to manage or multiple reports to write simultaneously. But now everyone in the company was a client, and what ‘good’ looked like was much more nebulous.

My role wasn’t to “deliver this project to budget” anymore (which I more or less knew how to do), but to “create and grow a learning culture” and defining that and measuring it was a little trickier. The learning curve has been steep, with plenty of uncertainty and self-doubt, but I really love it; it’s great to look back and see the changes we’ve made at IFF in this space over the last few years.

What will be the next big trend or development in the research industry, and why?

I don’t know if it is THE next big trend, but something that we see continuously changing is qualitative research moving into the online space, with more varied digital methods of data collection. While there’s long been an online element to qual (digital platforms and video diaries and the like), the pandemic created a shift in that direction that hasn’t reverted in the way that some other things have (e.g. the Northern line). 

Many of our government clients are also moving towards a digital-first approach with customers, which is another reason our research methods will continue to follow. Few and far between are the days of researchers sitting in garages or allotments asking people about tax credits. Which brings gains as well as losses, and the need for a new set of skills. (Or the next big trend could be “AI”, which is what ChatGPT said when I asked.)

Who inspires you as a researcher? 

Wendy Gordon, who sadly passed away last year, inspires me for her lifelong energy and passion. She set up her own successful qualitative research agency in the 1980s at a time of high competition and few women in the business, and further made her mark on the industry though chairing the AQR, consistently challenging and debating the status quo, and writing papers, courses and books.

She was known for her intellectual rigour and curiosity, veering into the worlds of economics, sociology and neuroscience, and coming to behavioural science a decade ahead of the mainstream. Her character was described as multi-faceted: kind but fierce, loyal but combative, generous but resolute. A woman who wasn’t “well behaved” but who certainly made a bit of research history.

View the full list of Research Heroes 2023