Resisting Knowledge Vampirism: How to protect your intellectual property and protect from becoming prey or predator

Nathalie Martinek

Early career researchers are faced with opportunities for career development and growth when in supportive environments that can be threatened by inequitable power dynamics within any lab or group. Knowledge Vampirism is when a peer or colleague extracts unique information, knowledge and practice wisdom from another peer or colleague to increase the knowledge vampire's competitive advantage in claiming this body of knowledge as their own. The practice of knowledge vampirism is one of the many strategies employed by bullies and narcissistic leaders who rely on others to feed their need for success at all costs and scapegoat those who no longer supply what they need and are perceived as threats to their success. This session will explore how to spot knowledge vampirism already in progress and what to do about it, how to resist knowledge vampires, prevention strategies for being scapegoated and tips on developing healthy and productive collaborations.

Pre-reading on knowledge vampires and pet to threat phenomena:

https://nathaliemartinekphd.substack.com/p/knowledgevampires

From Pet to Threat to Disgraced - by Nathalie Martinek PhD (substack.com)

Short biography

Nathalie Martinek, PhD is an ex-systems biology and cancer researcher turned narcissism hacker, consultant & independent medical culture researcher on the enablers and barriers to professional fulfillment. She investigates human suffering and its influence on behaviour in different relational contexts and combines practice wisdom with conceptual frameworks to help people to discover the root cause and make sense of their suffering in order to successfully navigate challenging personal and professional relationships.

Event Website

Link for online attendance

MS Teams Link

This event is open to UCL staff and students. We would encourage attendance from all career stages

This will be a hybrid event with limited tickets for onsite attendance