440 British Journal of General Practice, September 2018 transparent career trajectories; 3) to work in a diverse, collaborative, interdisciplinary, open, and ethical research environment; and 4) to have a healthy integration of work with the rest of life. 11 However, we acknowledge that enacting change at that macro-level, in a historic and hierarchical academic system, will take time and perseverance. The desirable outcome of change here must be the availability of a clear, structured, and supportive career path to those who are willing and able to follow it. At the meso-level, we feel that skills assessment, training, and coaching are essential. This is increasingly offered in leadership programmes. However, we have no idea what the outcomes of these programmes are. We must ask whether they are working (what are we really trying to achieve?) and if not, why not? In addition to providing opportunities to build links and learn about leadership, we have benefited from the residential ‘time out’provided by our scheme. Time out from everyday work provides us with opportunity to reflect, and time to develop new ideas, collaborations, and future partnerships. Space for such inspiration and reflection is rare, and we feel this is a particular issue for mid-career primary care researchers. Short, institutesupported sabbaticals with specific foci (for example, grant writing) as well as more seed corn schemes aimed specifically at PCR ought to be prioritised, supported, and instituted to nurture high-quality and innovative research. However, we also need current academic leaders to serve as mentors, showing us how to implement leadership skills in our daily work and be collaborative in spite of the competing and competitive demands (driven by the current system) of the PCR setting. We need our current leaders to help us develop our research ideas, research identity, and methodological expertise. We stress the importance of both formal and informal mentoring relationships, with current leaders within departments actively seeking and partnering with promising mid-career primary care researchers. In short, we encourage a vision of a supportive meritocracy, with varied schemes at departments and institutions, endorsed by professional bodies to facilitate a smooth transition from mid-career to tenured senior posts.

Finally, and most importantly, what do we need from ourselves? We must be strategic with our time and actions, focusing on the key currencies of the current system in order to survive, as well as to develop and show the resilience to work within the current system and change it from within in order to thrive. We must make our research matter;