A few weeks ago I received a mysterious parcel. When I opened it, I found a book called Making Qualitative Research Happen: Getting The Best Out Of Your Qualitative Research Project, edited by Jess Weisser, Cathy Gibbons, and Daniel Turner. I know Daniel quite well, and Cathy a little, and I thought it very kind of them to send me a copy of their book. Until I scanned the contents pages, I had completely forgotten that I wrote a couple of its sections myself!

I wrote the sections on creative research methods and on collaboration, data analysis, and ethics. I’m in good company, too, as other contributors include Mónica Sánchez-Hernández on colonialism, coloniality and decolonising approaches in research, and academic extractivism and exploitation; Christina Silver on what’s occurring in the qual-AI space and why it matters; Kimberley Hirsh on when to use a priori coding; and Anuja Cabraal on using emojis for coding and analysis. But Jess, Cathy, and Daniel wrote most of this 373-page book, and that is a laudable achievement. They are all very experienced qualitative researchers, and experienced teachers of other qualitative researchers, and their wealth of experience and knowledge enriches every page.

The book is written in a friendly style and lightly referenced, and so is very readable. It is comprehensive, too, with sections on epistemology and meta issues, designing and planning research, gathering data, managing and handling data, analysing and transforming data, and writing and reporting findings and research. The structure and contents are well signposted, and there is a useful index, so it’s easy to dip in and out of to read the parts you need or which interest you most. And the chapter on qualitative research and AI brings the book bang up to date.

I was interested to read, on the QDAS website, that Christina Silver’s position on the use of generative AI in research is different from Daniel Turner’s. I wasn’t surprised, though, because I know Daniel to be open-minded and interested in viewpoints that are different from his own. I think this is exemplary book editing practice, because books where all contributors share the same views would soon become boring to read. Also, the book is very competitively priced, with the paperback plus eBook at £30 and the eBook alone at only £8.

But perhaps most importantly, this book acknowledges the challenges qualitative researchers may face as well as giving invaluable advice on the process of qualitative research. I wish I had had this book when I started my MSc in social research methods in 1999 – though some of the content would have read like science fiction back then!

Of course Making Qualitative Research Happen doesn’t include every single thing about qualitative research. That would be impossible because there is too much to cover and the field is always developing. However, the back cover describes it as ‘everything you need to get started with qualitative research’ and I think that is no exaggeration. This book is a very clear and useful companion for anyone who is new to, or would like to know more about, qualitative research in practice.

It is no secret that the university sector in the UK is experiencing a massive financial crisis. I guess this is why I’m getting new requests to work for universities for nothing. I wrote a post about this 11 years ago, after which the situation got a lot better for a while. I’m not suggesting my post caused that: there was a lot of chat about the issue on Twitter and Facebook, which were useful platforms in those days, and sympathetic academics helped to make the change. But now it’s happening again.

One recent request was from a Russell Group university which made a post-tax surplus of £35m in 2025. This was a lot lower than its 2024 surplus, and I do understand that businesses have to be careful with their money. But it is still THIRTY-FIVE MILLION POUNDS. My own most recent post-tax surplus is £14,545. So what makes it OK for that big and profitable business to ask me to contribute my expertise, which is based on 27 years of research experience and 15 years of scholarly experience, for free?

Of course it’s not actually a university asking me, it’s a person. I don’t blame individuals for trying to find good opportunities for their students, events, colleagues etc. But it is the university which would be paying me (or not, as the case may be). And people in universities need to remember that they represent an organisation which is often, despite its protestations, very wealthy.

If I am invited to work in a university, that means there is nobody on that university’s payroll who can do whatever it is I am being invited to do. The same, no doubt, applies to plumbers, roofers, landscapers, and so on. Do universities ask those professionals to work for nothing? Of course they don’t. So why is it somehow, apparently, once again OK to ask external knowledge professionals to work for nothing?

Fortunately there are still universities which are paying me to work for them. So far this year I have worked for Dublin City University, Nottingham Trent University, Bath Spa University, Ulster University (twice), and Queens University Belfast. I have had an enquiry about my availability for 2026-27 from Birmingham City University, where I have worked every year since 2016, and Brunel University invited me to work there but unfortunately that was on a date I couldn’t do.

Also, I get good feedback. Here are some examples from a creative academic writing workshop I ran at Ulster University in April (I have permission to share them):

Very useful for writers – but also just that the speaker was brilliant and inclusive.

This has been the most beneficial workshop / event I’ve been to since I started in September – it was as if Helen was able to climb inside my head and activate the ‘WRITE’ lever!

I’ve really struggled to get the creative & the academic writing as I couldn’t separate them – and yesterday really was a golden pathway that showed how I write IS good enough. I wrote more yesterday than I have from when I started my PhD in September.

Would appreciate taking points from Helen on how to make workshops more inclusive/accessible. She elegantly addresses them without disrupting the flow of the class nor does it feel like she has to do them out of training.

So it’s not just me saying my work has value.

I will and do work for nothing, but I reserve that for (a) user-led groups with no funding and (b) my own passion projects: the International Creative Research Methods Conference, the Journal of Creative Research Methods, and the Independent Research Ethics Committee.

It seems important to highlight this, not only for my own sake, but also for the sake of the increasing number of independent researchers and scholars. Expertise has value. This means we need to set sensible prices for our own expertise, and – where necessary – fight for our expertise to be valued equally by others.