Research that helps mitigate risk to vulnerable populations online — helping to avoid experiences like cyberstalking or digital exploitation — is essential work for making technology safer for everyone. SARU (supporting at-risk users) research requires precautions that minimize harm to participants, but that same work can also pose risks to researchers themselves. It’s therefore essential that researchers have institutional support that promotes their wellbeing when undertaking this work, and that often begins with a proactive and reliable research lead or mentor.
To help guide senior researchers in this field on how to lead in their labs and on campus, the Computing Community Consortium (CCC) has published a new brief: Leading and Mentoring in Research Supporting At-Risk Users.
Fostering Research Skills
At the core of a successful research project is the skill of the researchers conducting it. Leading and Mentoring in Research Supporting At-Risk Users reiterates the importance of helping team members develop rigorous research abilities, complementing the respect for and connection to at-risk populations they often already bring to the table. To do so, it is crucial to foster low-stakes learning environments — not only when exposing them to more responsibility in the lab, but when practicing foundational skills.
Crafting Support Plans
This brief also emphasizes the importance of being both proactive and collaborative when it comes to setting up support plans for SARU research teams. Support plans should be in place from the get-go, rather than developed in response to incidents, and should be adapted as the research project evolves. Other ways research leaders can support their team members include:
- Ensuring each team member has a professional support system outside of their supervisor
- Encouraging students to set work-life boundaries and seek mental health support when needed
- Setting expectations around research timelines
- Helping team members handle risks like harassment or doxxing
- Leading by example
Building Community
Finally, research teams — and projects more broadly — often benefit significantly from collaboration beyond the lab. Interaction with experts in complementary disciplines can be particularly valuable in SARU research, where diverse expertise, resources, and institutional support can be leveraged to tackle complex problems. To do so, this new brief highlights the value of workshops and asynchronous groups that build community across labs and institutions. They have the additional secondary benefit of providing professional pathways for early-career researchers, which an effective mentor can help build.
Thoughtful leadership and mentorship in SARU research spaces helps set early-career researchers up for long-term success. In doing so, it also creates an increasingly impactful next generation capable of instigating and executing change-making research in the future.
View the SARU Leadership and Mentorship Brief Here
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