The recent publication of a series of reviews and the early decisions for REF2028, has highlighted an increased focus on research cultures and environments that extend beyond traditional researchers and research publications. James Baker, Lyndsey Balla…
Category: research culture
Review papers and the creative destruction of the research literature
Review papers play a significant role in curating the scholarly record. Drawing on a study of close to six million research articles, Peter McMahan, shows how review papers not only focus and shift attention onto particular papers, but also serve to sh…
Rewarding contributions to research culture is part of building a better university
Elizabeth Adams and Tanita Casci discuss how they developed and implemented awards for contributions to research culture at the University of Glasgow and how this can contribute to higher education institutions’ overall strategies to build better research cultures. Higher Education has many awards for teaching and learning, and increasingly for other aspects of academic roles … Continued
How do we know that our research is ‘inclusive’?
COVID-19 has led to new ways of working which have transformed research practices. This has created opportunities for research cultures to be more inclusive and accessible- especially to those for whom the university is a barrier. However, post-pandemic, research cultures also need to change. In this post, Stuart Read, Anne Parfitt and Tanvir Bush outline … Continued
From Impact to Inequality: How Post-COVID-19 government policy is privatising research innovation
Post-COVID-19 government policy has included an increase in investment in the UK’s research sector. However, Daniel Hook finds that the emphasis on the impact of this research means that longer-term, less measurable, blue skies research is being pushed into the private sector. Not only is blue skies research the key driver of technological change, but … Continued
Is our current research culture on the brink of major change?
The culture of research often appears timeless and self-evident. Despite the current system of research being critiqued for its lack of openness, diversity and at times quality, it has remained largely unchanged for at least a generation. In this post, Liz Allen, highlights how contrary to this view, a growing number of developments are currently taking place across different countries […]
Better, fairer, more meaningful research evaluation – in seven hashtags
Considering the future of research assessment, Elizabeth Gadd outlines how she believes research evaluation could be made better, fairer, and more meaningful. The resulting seven guiding principles, neatly framed as hashtags, range from understanding our responsibilities to researchers as people, through to ensuring our evaluations are a more formative process, offering valuable, constructive feedback. Imperial College recently held an event […]
A call to build an impact literate research culture
Last week, Julie Bayley spoke at the 2016 Research Impact Summit, hosted by Knowledge Translation Australia. During her presentation she discussed many of the challenges faced when introducing an impact agenda to the academic community, and how the concept of impact literacy can help. An extended version of the presentation has been made available online, but Julie outlines the key points below. Consider impact. A […]