I have known Didi Herman since the start of her long and distinguished academic career. Throughout that time Didi has demonstrated unwavering commitment to the creation of imaginative, original, and significant research in and about law. Importantly, Didi’s academic practice has always treated this commitment expansively, so that support for colleagues at all stages to produce research, publish it and develop their careers has been every bit as important to her as her own highly impressive individual achievements. Knowing the exceptional quality of Didi’s research leadership skills, I was delighted when she agreed to steer Kent Law School through the second half of the REF 2021 preparation cycle. As REF co-ordinator from 2018-21, Didi did an outstanding job in all respects. Her strategic vision enabled the School to submit an exceedingly high quality return that is true to the distinctive ethos of KLS as a critical law school. Her empathy and other emotional intelligence skills supported diverse colleagues through the anxieties that REF engenders. Her deep understanding of broader contexts and academic settings gave the School confidence to negotiate the complex demands of university processes. Her commitment to collaboration and transparency generated a sense of shared ownership among colleagues of the process. Her excellent writing and editorial skills created a REF return that colleagues believed in as an authentic representation of KLS research culture, activities, impact and quality. There is no question in my mind that KLS’s outstanding achievement in standing second in the UK for overall research quality is a collective accomplishment that would not have happened without Didi’s leadership of our REF 2021 process.
Toni Williams, Professor of Law and Director of the Division for the Study of Law (2020-2022), Society and Social Justice. Head of Kent Law School, 2015-20.
I worked closely with Didi on the 2021 Law REF submission at the University of Kent. Didi was able to listen to others, collaborate, and support whilst at the same time creating a clear and focused vision for the future of law at Kent. Didi’s approach was thoughtful, evidence based and above all critical. Didi has an excellent ability to reconcile the needs and aims of the department, with the wider disciplinary context and the strictures of the REF environment. At the heart of Didi’s approach is her total commitment to equality and diversity, not just in her writing but also her actions, the challenge she gives to others and herself and the support she shows her colleagues. Didi was able to support colleagues to provide high quality outputs without resorting to metrics, rather her approach was for her and her team to provide narrative feedback on all outputs. Didi also supported REF leads in a variety of other disciplines for example Psychology, Geography, Social Policy and Allied Health. Her contribution to those disciplines, was extremely valuable.
Professor Tim Hopthrow, School of Psychology, University of Kent (formerly Research Dean for the Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Kent)
I am very grateful to have met Didi. For non-UK academics, like myself, there is much to learn when arriving to the British shores. Fortunately, Didi not only has an in-depth understanding of UK academic and research cultures, she also has the high-level experience needed to be able to skillfully communicate this vast amount of knowledge to someone coming from the outside. Her guidance has been invaluable to both myself and to my law school when developing and building research culture and preparing for REF2027. In addition to being one of the most competent research administrators and directors I have encountered, Didi is kind and able to build trust and confidence among both junior and senior researchers. She can communicate the areas in one’s research where there is a potential for improvement without making a researcher become defensive, but able to hear and implement the advice quite happily. I trust her wholeheartedly and consider anyone who has the opportunity to work with her a very fortunate person.
Professor Maria Grahn-Farley, Leeds Beckett University School of Law, UK
I’ve known Didi Herman since she was my first Head of Department in 1998. I’ve experienced at first hand her support for academics at all stages of their careers. Her ability to read feedback or reviews alongside a paper and cut through to the most importance issues, and talk you through next steps, has been hugely valuable to me. Her years of experience in leadership roles alongside her real connection with the every day life of academic work means she can both give you the coordinates you need and walk with you as you rework papers, make career decisions, or plan your projects.
Ambreena Manji, Professor of Land Law and Development, Cardiff University
Didi is a fantastic mentor, with years of valuable experience and skills helping to generate excellent research and researchers. She gave me important feedback when I was writing my first monograph that really helped me give the book the right focus. She helped immensely when I was preparing my first academic promotion application, drawing from her extensive experience in supporting successful promotion processes. She is encouraging, critical, supportive, interdisciplinary in outlook and someone great to work with as well. For early career academics looking to really build their careers as researchers, I would strongly recommend that you work with Didi if you have the opportunity to. You won’t regret it..
Gavin Sullivan, Reader in International Human Rights Law, University of Edinburgh, UKRI Future Leaders Fellow (2021 – 2028)
Throughout my career Didi has been my ‘go to’ person when I’ve hit a difficult patch with my research. Her insightful feedback was instrumental in helping me to finish my first book and it winning the SLSA book prize. At a time when I was struggling to figure out my core argument and structure, her feedback helped me to find my voice, direction and the confidence to finish it. She is an incredible mentor and I cannot recommend her highly enough. She has also been my research director and HoD at two different institutions and has such a clear sense of both the standards and strategy required to be successful in the REF and how to get the best from people. Anyone who is new to HoD or other leadership roles would benefit from her guidance and support.
Nicola Barker, Professor of Law, University of Liverpool
I have known Didi since joining Kent Law School as a lecturer in 2010. During this time, I have benefitted immensely from her support and mentoring, both through her institutional roles as Head of School, REF coordinator and Promotions Lead, and through her generous, informal advice. She has offered me hugely invaluable feedback on promotion applications, grant applications and pieces of writing, and been one of my main sources of advice when I took up new administrative responsibilities. At an institutional level, she has a real skill for building communities, fostering conversations and connections in a way that makes people feel part of a collective. This is enhanced by her experience of interdisciplinarity: she strives to support work that straddles disciplinary boundaries, while equally acknowledging and respecting different disciplinary styles and traditions. This enriches her individual feedback, which she approaches with an open-mind, without superimposing disciplinary conventions over individual style. At an institutional level, it also means that she is able to support colleagues equally regardless of their subdisciplines, making scholars from different traditions feel equally supported and valued.
Emilie Cloatre, Professor of Law, University of Kent
When I started my career as an academic, Didi Herman was assigned to be my mentor, later she would become my Head of Department, co-author and friend. In these various roles, the things I learned from Didi were enormously influential in shaping my academic career. Some of these are the quotidian, technical aspects of academic work - the ‘how to’ of research, writing, course management, grant writing, and academic publishing – that I thought I possessed but which improved enormously through Didi’s mentorship. Didi is herself a gifted writer, an original, thorough researcher, and a creative thinker who is able to envision, and then build rich research collaborations. Working with Didi, I also learned about how to approach academic work in ways not bound by top-down expectations about a ‘good career’, but instead centered on care for self and others, and the pursuit of academic trajectories as creative and renewing.
As a mentor and a colleague, Didi’s positive impact starts with the careful thought and planning she brings to everything she does. This meant that in our mentoring relationship and research collaborations Didi offered the guidance and support I needed, but in a gentle, almost anticipatory way, opening up spaces for improvement rather than simply ‘teaching’ me. As a senior member of the department and then Head of Department, Didi often led by example, creating spaces for collaboration that were invigorating and fun but also enormously supportive. She combined original, strategic thinking on how to meet various externally imposed requirements, but in ways that were thoughtful about what her colleagues most needed and could benefit from.
Among the most important things that I learned from Didi, however, and which have been so important to maintaining equilibrium in trying times: there is always a place for whimsy, and never lose sight of what matters.
Doris Buss, Professor of Law, Carleton University, Canada
I have worked closely with Didi on three RAE/REF submissions across two institutions (two where I acted as the primary RAE/REF Co-ordinator and she was closely involved as Head of School; one where she was REF coordinator and I sat on the School Steering Group). In each case, Didi played an outstanding leadership role, delivering excellent results for the School whilst ensuring a transparent, fair and supportive process that commanded an exceptionally high level of confidence amongst colleagues. I can think of no one better placed to mentor, support and encourage individual researchers in developing their research, or to guide and advise Schools in preparing for REF2027.
Sally Sheldon, Professor of Law, University of Kent
I have worked with Didi for nearly two decades since she joined our law school. For me, Didi has been my mentor, senior colleague, manager and great colleague. Her warm personality, erudite academic knowledge, and fantastic managerial ability are great assets. I have no doubt that any academic institution that turns to her expertise will benefit enormously in navigating through any kind of troubled water of academic life.
Few internationally acclaimed erudite researchers are good managers at the same time. Yet, Didi is one of such outstanding exceptions. Her leadership as the Head of Law School was legendary. This was remembered as the most thriving period in which virtually all colleagues at our school (both academic and professional support staff members) felt happy as being given trust and responsibility in an equitable and self-esteeming manner. In a large department like ours with diverging ‘egos’, her gentle but effective management has been very much praised.
From my own personal experience, I assure that Didi has always been an exceptionally good listener while always ready to help colleagues patiently in all matters of academic life. She is a sort of national treasure of 'model academics' whom I miss enormously.
Yutaka ARAI, Professor of International Human Rights Law, University of Kent, Brussels (Belgium); and University of Kent, Canterbury (UK)