About the Network

The Sixth Form Research Network (SFRN) is a community for Sixth Form student researchers, supported by their teachers as facilitators, at whatever stage they’re at.

Some students have a finished project to share. Others have work in progress, a subject that has sparked their curiosity, or an interest in research and no idea where to start. Wherever you are, there’s a place for you, and a role to play: presenting your work, sharing a project in progress, or joining the audience to gather ideas for a project you have only just begun.

Across schools and colleges, this kind of energy usually stays within a single institution, and research about the 16–19 phase itself remains thin on the ground. SFRN brings together Sixth Form student researchers from state and independent schools, meeting on equal terms, with teachers alongside them as facilitators, and acts as a bridge from the Sixth Form to university and beyond. It’s a way of networking past the walls of one common room, getting used to meeting new people and pitching your ideas in a supportive environment, building skills that are transferable and make you much more adaptable as you start university and enter the working world, and enjoying research as something sociable and academically empowering.

Sharing happens in a setting that is supportive. Our webinars and face-to-face meetings, including poster conferences, put students in front of a small, friendly audience of students, teachers and researchers who ask robust but constructive questions, closer to a university seminar or the workplace than a school classroom. It is low-stakes, but it carries prestige of its own, and the reflection it prompts helps to develop the skills but also the identity and profile of a researcher.