Within a European and wider global context, this paper will focus on collaborative strategies adopted by women leaders to promote research and build research capacity, foregrounding successful approaches as well as barriers and problems within new managerial cultures. The research aims to identify factors which enabled or impeded strategic developments, introduced by women leaders, to promote research activities in a teaching-intensive university in the UK. In-depth biographical interviews focusing on critical incidents (Denzin and Lincoln, 2005), were conducted with women in research leadership roles in a post-1992 university, replicating a New Zealand study (Airini et al., 2011). The women were asked to describe stories/critical incidents related to helping or hindering events. The women’s narrative accounts were coded thematically, using a grounded theory approach (Strauss and Corbin, 1998). The women leaders demonstrated highly skilful, principled leadership styles and a blend of inclusive, collegial approaches with direction and vision. It will be argued that a balance was maintained at the new university between new managerialism and a caring ethos, which provided a supportive context for women leaders. Nevertheless, the historical culture of the university as a teaching institution created considerable pressures, which hindered the progress of research developments (Author, 2012).