Strengthening research culture ‘our principal aim’

A start-of-term message from Professor Parveen Yaqoob and Professor Dominik Zaum, Pro-Vice-Chancellors for Research & Innovation

As we welcome in a new academic year, we would like to take the opportunity to update you on our plans and priorities for research for the next 12 months.

Following two years punctuated by lockdowns and dominated by the REF submission, our principal aim at the beginning of a new cycle is to strengthen our research culture. A positive research culture is one that is ambitious, rigorous, open and inclusive, and we are able to build on a number of existing initiatives to achieve this.

We have initiated a project to explore current understandings of research culture and the actions we can take to improve it; we have launched our first leadership development programme for Research Division Leads and directors of our research centres; we are making good progress in developing new approaches to Open Research supported by Open Research ‘champions’ at all levels; and later this term we will be introducing research integrity training as part of the University’s commitment to the Concordat to Support Research Integrity.

Developing our research culture will be a key focus for the University Committee for Research and Innovation (UCRI) over the coming year, complemented by three new priority projects: (i) learning from the outcomes of the REF submission; (ii) developing our strategic partnerships; and (iii) strengthening our engagement with business and industry.

Our first priority is to learn from our experience of the REF submission and to consider the implications of the results. Over the summer, UCRI began a review of the REF outcomes, with a view to identifying strengths and weaknesses both at Unit of Assessment (UOA) level and across the institution. The UOA-level evaluation will be phased over the next year and we will work with Research Divisions, Schools and professional services to agree actions and priorities for the future.

We have identified three areas of action arising from common themes or patterns emerging from the REF results:

• Changing the output review process (ROSS), so that it more effectively supports the development of high-quality outputs and reduces the ‘tail’ of 1* and 2* outputs. Our aim is to develop a culture of constructive peer review and feedback across all Research Divisions with a process to underpin and support this. We will discuss this initially with Research Division Leads in October and then more widely.
• Strengthening the impact of our research, an area where our improvement has not kept pace with the sector. This autumn we will formally launch our new impact strategy, which aims to strengthen Research Divisions’ ownership of their impact agenda. The implementation of the strategy will be informed by the lessons from the review of REF impact which will take place over the course of the year.
• Ensuring the sustainability of small disciplines under the current REF rules. Almost all Units of Assessment show a correlation between size and REF outcome, reflecting that it is more challenging for small units to diversify and optimise their output selection and to generate the required number of strong impact case studies. While larger units needed to provide one impact case studies for every 11 to 13 FTE, in the small units it was one case study for 4 to 6 FTE. We will be considering the implications of this with relevant Schools and Research Divisions over the coming weeks so that we can effectively support research in these disciplines, and enable this research to continue to thrive in the future.

Our second priority is the continued development of our strategic research partnerships. These partnerships were highlighted as one of our key strengths in feedback on the institutional environment statement for REF. Partnerships are an opportunity to enhance the scope and scale of our research as well as its impact and visibility.

We are working on a comprehensive academic partnership with the Natural History Museum, while the Museum’s Digitisation Centre is being established at the Thames Valley Science Park. To complement the move of the Headquarters of the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) on to campus, we are launching a 15-year, £30m investment into climate and weather science. And we will further develop our partnerships with the Royal Berkshire Hospital and the British Museum, building on the significant grant successes they have supported, including a recent UKRI Future Leader Fellowship.

Our third priority is to strengthen our engagement with business and industry and the commercialisation of our research. The post-pandemic and post-Brexit landscape means that these ways of working are increasingly important. We are in the process of integrating the Knowledge Transfer Centre (KTC) into Research Services to align our research support with the changing funding environment. Over the coming year, we will develop a research commercialisation strategy and support framework in order to increase our income from industry and Innovate UK and to strengthen our capability for research commercialisation.

As we are at the beginning of a new cycle, discussions over the coming year will significantly shape the ways in which we conduct, support, and plan our research and knowledge exchange. We look forward to engaging with you over the coming months to shape these priority areas and will regularly update you on their progress.

Professor Parveen Yaqoob, PVC Research & Innovation
Professor Dominik Zaum, PVC Research & Innovation