Dr Iveta Simera

Profile

I am interim Head of Academic Leadership Development at Queen Mary Academy, QM University of London. I am responsible for the development and delivery of strategic leadership programmes aimed at education and research leaders at all career stages.

I personally lead two programmes: the Executive Leadership Development Programme aimed at heads of schools, research institutes, and deans, and the Research & Innovation Leadership Development Programme targeting senior researchers such as heads of research centres, directors of research and experienced principal investigators.

I am also a professionally qualified coach and beside my university’s part-time role, I launched and run Coaching for Research Leaders consultancy company. As a personal and professional development coach and mentor, I have supported leadership and career development of aspiring and established research leaders from many universities including Oxford, Manchester, King’s, Imperial, Newcastle, Coventry & York, and organisations such as WHO and FAO.

Being an experienced researcher, senior manager and a professionally qualified coach allows me to truly understand the challenges, frustrations and pressures researchers face. My goal is to support them in their challenging roles and to help them come up with exciting solutions that will move them closer to achieving their personal and professional goals.

Aside from research leadership and career development training and coaching, I have a longstanding interest in improving the quality, integrity, and usefulness of health research. For over 12 years, I played a key role in developing a highly impactful international programme, hosted by Oxford University, aimed at improving the quality of medical research (www.equator-network.org). In 2017 I received the Meritorious Achievement Award for EQUATOR’s work from the international Council of Science Editors.

ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5785-6756

Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&pli=1&user=sheiN7oAAAAJ

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ivetasimera/  

Testimonial:

“One of the best decisions I made for myself was to include independent academic coaching into my NIHR fellowship under career development and training.  She has helped me navigate difficult leadership and management relations, career decisions, new work environments and most recently promotion.  I could not recommend Iveta highly enough.

Whilst mentoring is key in academic development, mentors will typically have “skin in the game”: they are either part of your institution, or part of your research field. In addition, when it comes to navigating career decisions and building your career, it can be difficult to find people to talk to who understand the nuances and context of academia. 

Iveta uniquely combines excellent coaching skills with a high familiarity and knowledgebase about the academic world, particularly combining health research and academic career pathways.

I view our coaching sessions as academic self-care: where you regularly stop and reflect about the direction you are heading in, and make purposeful plans, rather than your time being dictated by the usual grant deadlines, student needs, papers to write, presentations to give etc.

Especially as a group leader, the pool of people who understand the pressures and demands becomes very small, and an unbiased mirror in coaching can be difficult to find. Iveta, for me, has been exactly that. She listens critically, and suggests gently, but most of all, she is fully in my corner, with no alternative motivations.   

Having done some mentoring and coaching courses now myself, I recognise her highly skilful coaching approach, which means that whilst our sessions feel like a friendly conversation, the topic, agenda and accountability is gently woven in.  I truly look forward to the sessions every time.” 

ND, Professor and Advanced NIHR Fellow, September 2024

Research