Dr Emma Bolger

I'm the Keynote speaker today at the National Research Conference for Career Practitioners. In my keynote I speak about the how we need to shake up our perspectives on how we value research. Good research does one thing: it fulfils its purpose. I believe we need to move away from hierarchies and prescribed structures to better ensure that our research meets the audience it needs to meet. In doing so, we can prioritise ourselves as researchers; conducting and sharing our knowledge in manner that suits us best, to the benefit of all.  And in a possible juxtaposition for a research conference, I also speak about how not wanting to be a visible researcher is also ok.  My slides for my Keynote are available here: Appropriate Outputs For more information about the innovative researcher skills development module YXM830, Advance your independent learning, that I tutor on for the Open University , go to: Advance your independent learning My book, The Career Professional's Guide to Rese...

I have been appointed as the Chairperson of the Board of Directors and Trustees at Scottish Charity, Connect. In the coming months, expect to hear from me about the vision, mission and values of Connect, and our strategic priorities as we head into our 78th year. I'll also be talking about how the work that we do impacts on every early years and school community in Scotland. If Connect is new to you, here’s our website where you can find out more: https://connect.scot/ For now, it is my first task to thank outgoing Chair Denny Henderson whose 5 years in the role have seen significant activity at Connect, particularly behind the scenes in relation to finance and governance. Thanks also to my fellow Board members for appointing me as Chair. But most importantly, I want to take the opportunity to commend the Connect staff team , a brilliant collective of dedicated and proactive folk who drive forward the work of Connect, Scotland’s independent charity for parents and carers in ed...

The start of 2026 marked a number of work/life changes for me. It is February, already, and I haven’t really conveyed what these are, despite enquiries! For those who missed the “big news” I left my full-time role as a senior lecturer at a campus university on 31 December 2025. Friends and contacts who know me well, have said one thing to me on this: “You’ll still be busy, though?” I think this conveys that people have an accurate sense of who I am ; someone who, using the Scottish turn of phrase on this, likes to “keep busy.” There has however been a rebalancing of where that “busy” lies. In a switcheroo of previous roles, I’m now the main parent managing the kids and home with my husband being the one working more than full-time hours. I’ve spoken about the gender balance of our set up before, in a nutshell: society still isn’t really set up for mum to be the main earner and dad to be the main carer, but we put in a shift at trying to improve this. I’ve also said before that it’s i...

News of a forthcoming conference and some collated resources, all for free! It’s been almost 4 months now since my book, The Career Professionals’ Guide to Research * was published. If you haven’t heard me speaking about the book and the importance and value of career practitioner-led research yet, I will be the keynote speaker at the National Research Conference for Careers Practitioners , taking place online on Wednesday 18 February 2026.  For the first time, this conference will be completely free to attend. The importance of things being free is what I am here to talk about in this post. When writing my book, my editor and I laughed about my imagined tagline for selling the book to readers. In short, this was: “It’s cheaper than doing a course.” Something that has long concerned me about practitioner-led research, and which I cover in my book, is how the costs for research, particularly in the early days, are so often borne by the freelance researcher themselves. This is in a r...

Our report from our  Gaelic Medium Education and Careers research project will be out early in 2026.  Thank you to everyone who has been a part of the project so far. We look forward to sharing the findings with all stakeholders and developing new initiatives that build on our recommendations for next steps.  If you are  interested in our work on Gaelic Medium Education and Careers, you can now sign up for project updates via the link on our Linktree at:  https://linktr.ee/gmecareers

We are now halfway through our month of data collection for our major project exploring the career planning and career outcomes of Gaelic medium education (GME) pupils in Scotland ( https://linktr.ee/gmecareers ). This article is an update for stakeholders and wider interested parties on the fieldwork so far. If the project is new to you, here is a quick summary: the purpose of the study is to explore the benefit of Gaelic medium education for young people’s careers. We are exploring senior phase (S4-S6) pupils' perceptions of the career benefits of GME and the impact of GME on the early career decisions of GME school leavers aged 17-25.  Our online survey targeted at young adults aged 16-25, who have left GME within the last 8 years, launched on 1st September 2025. Our first respondent was a recent GME leaver, whose Gaelic language skills helped them to secure a highly competitive Modern Apprenticeship, so that was a great start! We took a soft start, by promoting the survey throu...

The final proofs of my forthcoming book have been checked and it has gone to the printers! A few reflections at this point on how it came about, and why. I wrote The Career Professional’s Guide to Research  primarily to encourage career development professionals to engage in practitioner-led research. Through it, I hope to demystify research, and promote how frontline practitioners are uniquely positioned to conduct meaningful, ethical, and impactful research project. In the book, I explore the full research journey; from identifying and justifying a topic thought to data collection, analysis, and dissemination (sharing your work with the right audiences). I cover what makes a good researcher and topic, explore key skills such as qualitative and quantitative methods, and provide practical tools to support you through the planning and delivery of a research project. Throughout the book you will find practitioner quotes and practical templates to support readers’ learning now an...