By Professor Marcus Munafò

Marcus is Associate Pro Vice-Chancellor of Research Culture at the University of Bristol. He leads on research culture activity across the university, providing direction and vision, working across the institutional landscape, and identifying key challenges and opportunities. He is also institutional lead for the UK Reproducibility Network.

 

Last month we welcomed colleagues from across the University to the Bristol Beacon’s Lantern Hall to learn more about the Working Well Together resource, as part of this year’s Enhancing Research Culture event series.

So, what is Working Well Together?

The Working Well Together (WWT) resource is designed to support teams, and the people within them, who work effectively in an HE context and enhance their team culture. It helps to create an environment in which everyone can thrive, and which enables high quality, reproducible research. The approach is inquisitive, starting with where teams are, identifying approaches which are right for them, and continuing to ask questions along the way.

The resource is designed to help teams do more of what they are doing well, and to support them in areas that are more challenging. It focuses on identifying some quick wins, but offers no quick fixes. The aim of the resource is to offer groups the tools and expertise to develop a culture that can help its members respond to the evolving challenges of their work.

Groups that have used the resource have found it an enjoyable way to take stock of how things are going, and start some of the harder conversations they need to have. They say it’s given insights into challenges they weren’t aware of, and helped remind them of what is going well and how to do more of the things that have a positive impact. Others have found it has equipped them with the skills needed to work well together, and started the process of making time to reflect and review as a group.

Teams / groups are invited to pilot the resource until the end of January 2025. When we talk about teams / groups this can include anyone who is part of, and supports, research activity, so may include academic staff, technical staff, professional services staff and research students. If you are interested in learning more about a pilot, please complete this form.

The WWT resource is about building stronger, more supportive teams in order to work more effectively together and create a more inclusive working environment.

From the Enhancing Research Culture allocated we receive from Research England, to the new People, Culture and Environment (PCE) assessment category in the next Research Excellence Framework (REF) assessment, it is clear that the organisations that shape the higher education system are emphasising the importance of a robust, equitable and inclusive research process from start to finish, rather than focusing solely the outputs of our research.

Panel discussion and Q+A: Looking ahead to REF 2029

To delve into this new REF category and what it means for the research landscape, I was joined by Dr Helen Young (Associate Director of Research Excellence, University of Bristol), Dr Caroline Jarrett (Faculty of Science and Engineering Technical Manager, University of Bristol) and Dr Faith Uwadiae (Research Culture and Communities Specialist, Wellcome Trust).

Over the course of an hour’s discussion we covered a lot, but some key points and highlights are summarised below;

• There was recognition from both academic and technical colleagues in attendance that the culture within research is improving, but there is still a long way to go
• Funders are already considering, and in some cases requiring, grant applications to consider people, the environment they work within, and the culture they create.
• The REF measures research outputs, which are naturally downstream from the work involved in setting up research or project teams, and carrying out the work.
• Positive changes to how we approach project setup and delivery therefore have an impact on our research outputs.
• Investing time and energy in building strong groups and ways of working pays dividends down the line, but currently this time and focus is often not prioritised.

The move to include People, Culture and Environment in REF2029 highlights the importance of the work that we have been doing both at an institutional level and within our own professional circles and teams to improve our research culture, and I thank all of you who have been involved over the years.

I’m reminded of a quote from one of our first ever Research Culture events, the talk on The Joy of Failure with Annie Vernon, who won Olympic silver in the Women’s Quadruple Sculls at Beijing 2008. Success doesn’t mean we did everything right, and failure doesn’t mean we did everything wrong. Together, we can continue to build on our success whilst recognising there are still areas to improve.

By Professor Marcus Munafò

Marcus is Associate Pro Vice-Chancellor of Research Culture at the University of Bristol. He leads on research culture activity across the university, providing direction and vision, working across the institutional landscape, and identifying key challenges and opportunities. He is also institutional lead for the UK Reproducibility Network.

 

Two major themes in our research culture vision and strategy are to empower staff and students through effective leadership and management at all levels, and to provide a range of stable career opportunities for those involved in research. Linked to both of these themes are new recommendations on continuing professional development (CPD) link to both of these, developed by a Task and Finish Group reporting to Research Culture Committee, and approved by University Research Committee.

The Concordat to Support the Career Development of Researchers – to which the University of Bristol – requires us to “[p]rovide opportunities, structured support, encouragement and time for researchers to engage in a minimum of 10 days of professional development pro rata per year, recognising that researchers will pursue careers across a wide range of employment sectors”. In fact, the University has gone beyond this and extends this commitment (or the equivalent of 70 hours) to all academic staff at Grade I and above, and all staff at Grade J and above.

CPD refers to the ongoing development of technical and transferable skills throughout ones career. Although early career researchers are often the focus of CPD in academia, in principle it should apply across one’s career, and extent to those in technical and professional roles. Indeed, many colleagues in professional services have CPD requirements linked to their professional registration (e.g., in relation to qualifications in accountancy and the like).

CPD can take many forms: ‘experiential learning’ on the job, supported through effective development conversations, ‘social learning’ through supportive relationships such as mentoring and peer networks, and ‘formal learning’ through specific workshops and training. In particular, identifying an individual’s training needs is a key function of line management, and CPD discussions should begin with line managers, with both line managers and direct reports responsible for ensuring these conversations take place.

The recommendations highlight the responsibility of the University to support CPD. To support this, the People Development Team will be liaising with Faculties, Schools, Divisions and Institutes to determine what mechanisms are currently in place for this (e.g., to record CPD activity among staff), in order to identify what further support may be needed, and to share good practice across the University. Finance teams will ensure that PIs consider CPD and training costs wherever grant terms allow this.

At the same time, senior management teams within Faculties, Schools, Divisions and Institutes will need to ensure that the importance of conversations around CPD is understood by line managers at all levels, and embedded into regular conversations and annual reviews. The University People Development team will be considering the inclusion of these recommendations as part of the wider university academic line management project.

These recommendations do not change existing University policy. Rather, they are intended to ensure that mechanisms are in place to support researchers, technicians and research professionals in developing their skills – both technical and transferable – throughout their careers. The goal is to achieve equity of experience across the University, so that the support available to you is broadly the same regardless of your Faculty, School, Division or Institute.

Ultimately, however, CPD is the responsibility of individuals (first and foremost) and their line managers. Appropriate support, and effective line management, provides the necessary conditions, but the onus should be on all of us to continue our own professional development. Of course, this isn’t always easy, with competing demands and workload challenges. Hopefully, these recommendations are a step in the right direction, and will help conversations to take place about how to protect time for CPD.

By Matthew Brown, Ingeborg Hers, Liam McKervey, Adam Taylor 

The University Ethics of Research Committee ensures that research is conducted according to appropriate ethical and research integrity frameworks. It facilitates, encourages and teaches best practice across the University and has strategic oversight over ethics committees and processes embedded within UOB. The UERC is an advisory committee to the University Research Committee, the Senate and the Board of Trustees, charged with sustaining a University-wide awareness of research ethics and integrity issues.   

This year we are introducing a new way of facilitating the ethics review of research at the University of Bristol. The Research Ethics Committee (REC) structure has evolved over the past fifteen or so years, led by the massive expansion of research involving human participants and/or their data. This has resulted in researchers sometimes experiencing too much bureaucracy, with complex forms going back and forth, excessive workload for committee members, and a focus on detailed critique of individual projects at the expense of training and best practice guidelines to support researchers.  

Our existing structure (below) is based around the structure of the six Faculties (with Science and Life Sciences combined). There are five Faculty RECs – most of which have sub-committees; for schools with an unusually high number of student applications, or to manage applications relating to specific areas or projects. 

The past twelve years, in particular, has seen an enormous increase in the number of REC reviews tracked within our systems. Some of this is because of better tracking of reviews that were already happening, but it is largely due to increased student numbers and academic activity in areas involving human participant research, and an increase in compliance with ethical requirements.

To deal with the year-on-year expansion in applications (from around 1,000 per year in 2012 to over 5,000 in 2023, see below), the University has been creating new committees at Faculty and School level – there are currently 18 RECs in operation, with 179 members in total.

Only the dedication, commitment, and hard work of these colleagues and the many expert independent committee members from outside the University has prevented these pressures from falling into total crisis and collapse.

What have we done?

During 2023-24 we undertook an extensive consultation amongst researchers, REC members and other universities to develop an improved ethics model. We aimed for it to encourage and facilitate best practice in the ethical conduct of research, to ensure that research ethics policies and guidelines are implemented effectively and with consistency, and to comply with UKRI guidance on good practice in research ethics governance.

We proposed simplifying our committees into one cross-institutional arrangement for research ethics, and this was approved by Senate in July 2024.

We believe that common standards for ethical research apply across all our disciplines, at the same time as recognizing that disciplines can have diverse ways of doing things. As the Chair and Deputy Chair of University Ethics of Research Committee, the Head of Research Governance, and the Research Ethics and Integrity Manager, we collectively draw on a wide range of experience and training in history, pharmacology, archaeology, creative writing, languages as well as research governance. Our objective, in our everyday work and in co-authoring this blog, is to embody this philosophy in our ways of working together.

We will be implementing the new model this year for academic staff and postgraduate researchers (due to their educational remit, the ethical review of undergraduate and Masters student projects will remain the responsibility of Schools).

We expect that the new model will bring a range of benefits, including:

1. Sharing best practice across the University in a practical sense through everyday working together in a horizontal fashion, rather than the current vertical silos which has often led to the duplication of work and decision-making.
2. Using existing expertise to produce more cross-institutional guidelines on difficult areas that will be useful across faculties, such as those we developed last year on working with illegal drugs.

3. Reduce delays by better managing the peaks in applications across the year.
4. Remove single points of failure from our processes.

Reduce the amount of workload hours dedicated to reviews in the medium-term, as a result of better training and more effective guidelines earlier in the process.

What will the new system look like?

The new structure of ethics review is shown below. All applications for ethics review will still be made through the (OREMS), and researchers will answer a few questions to make sure their application reaches the correct review group.

The standard route, which we are calling Workstream 1 and will deal with the majority (95%+) of applications, will have review groups with representation from each of the three faculties, a chair and an Independent Member from outside the University. Workstream 2 will coordinate the work of Schools reviewing their undergraduate and Masters projects. Workstream 3 will be our secondary data analysis panels. Workstream 4 will coordinate bespoke panels of experts to look at unusual and emerging fields where the standard panels may not have the expertise to provide effective review.

We see this as an opportunity for a ground-up systematic restructure of our systems, in order to address current strains on the system and imbalances of workload allocation, and to strive for greater adherence with UKRIO’s Core Principles for research ethics reviews.

• Independence – RECs will no longer be comprised solely of members of the applicant’s own Faculty.
• Competence – REC members will gain experience of a wider range of research areas and types, benefiting from the knowledge and expertise of other colleagues.
• Facilitation – Applicants will no longer need to wait for a specific committee’s next meeting, their project will simply be assigned to the next committee with capacity.
• Transparency and Accountability – We will retain and build upon our unified online application process and an oversight structure managed by the .

Although there are always teething problems with new processes no matter how much you test them, we trust that dialogue between our researchers and committee members means that we will find out about them quickly and will be able to act to remedy them. We have designed the process so that researchers will be getting feedback on their applications quicker than in the past.

A new culture that emphasises guidance and dialogue

Although the new structures and processes might grab the headlines, we see them as just the visible part of a wider change that we have been developing.

Research ethics is about dialogue and guidance rather than prohibition. In the new system, Faculty and School Research Ethics Officers are moving away from chairing committees and approving projects and expanding the guiding and mentoring aspects of their role. They will have the time to develop and share best practice in their disciplines.

During our consultations we heard from many researchers, especially at postgraduate level, that they wanted more training and guidance about Research Ethics before they got to the stage of completing the application. We organised BREW24 (our new annual Bristol Research Ethics Workshop) to record new online training materials that show the human faces behind committee review.

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Images from our consultations and BREW24

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One of our priorities for the next couple of years, as the new system beds in, is to develop clearer, subject-specific guidelines on areas that have challenged our reviewers. We are currently drawing up guidelines on how to conduct research ethically with Schools (e.g., the ethics of paying research participants – when is it ok to pay cash, or vouchers?). We will always draw up guidelines like this in dialogue with the people involved (teachers and researchers, in the case of the Schools guidelines).

If there are areas where you think it would be useful to develop some guidelines, please let us know by completing the Ethics Guidance Request Form!

Working in research ethics

Research ethics is one of the most rewarding parts of university research. You are often dealing with pioneering, complex research that is seeking to make a difference. People who serve on our committees often do so for a long time, and we seldom struggle to find replacements when they do. However, we are always looking for people who would like to be more involved. If you are passionate about research being conducted in an ethical manner, or your experience of our processes has made you want to improve them, then please get in touch and express an interest at research-ethics@bristol.ac.uk

We are excited to be leading this new way of thinking about research ethics, and we would like the University of Bristol to become a beacon for clear guidance and effective processes. During this year we will be working with Schools and Faculties to manage the transition, and will be out and about talking to researchers and committee members. If you have any ideas or concerns, let us know and we will be delighted to listen and talk.

 

 

 

 

A new Open Research Policy (and associated sub-policies) was approved by URC in June this year. Marcus Munafò – Associate Pro Vice-Chancellor – Research Culture explains the importance of Open Research as part of the wider Research Culture Vision and Strategy for the institution.

Open research is the process of making as much of the research process as possible available to others. The most well-known example is perhaps open access publishing where journal articles (and increasingly other outputs such as monographs) are published under a Creative Commons license, meaning they are free to read and (depending on the specific license) can be re-used in a variety of ways. Most funded research in now published open access, and the REF (Research Excellence Framework) requires work to be published open access, either through the publisher making the article available through a Creative Commons licence for a fee or the author making a copy of the accepted manuscript available (in our case via the Pure repository) to be eligible as for REF. Our recent Scholarly Works Policy is the latest effort to increase the extent to which our published work is available to as wide an audience as possible.

But the final output of a research process – the journal article or the monograph, say – is only a small part of what is produced during that process. Study plans and protocols, data sets (which can include anything from numerical data on spreadsheets through to qualitative transcripts or digitized images), code used to analyse those data and so on are all produced in the vast majority of our research activity. And these intermediate research outputs can also be made more widely available – either open or (if they are published on our institutional data repository – data.bris) under more restrictive conditions. This might be necessary if, for example, there are ethical or legal reasons for doing so (e.g., qualitative data may allow re-identification of participants, which would preclude open publication).

The University has always been at the forefront of open research – our repository was one of the first, and continues to have sector-leading functionality (such as the ability to publish under different levels of access). Anything published on data.bris (or on other third party repositories such as Github, Figshare, or the Open Science Framework) is assigned a digital object identified (DOI) and is, in itself, a publication (albeit typically not a peer reviewed one). This is great for those who contributed to the research process; it allows for the early assignation of priority (i.e., publishing our results first!), and – perhaps more importantly – more granular recognition of individual contributions. A researcher may be third author on a paper, but solely responsible for one element.

In other words, there are a range of reasons to engage in open research. There are practical reasons, such as the ability to demonstrate a greater variety of contributions in a more granular way. The transparency afforded by open research allows for greater scrutiny, and for others to interrogate in more detail what you did, what assumptions and choices you made throughout the process, and so on. And it also allows others to use your outputs in a way that can generate new insights. Indeed, methods to use published genetic data to understand cause-and-effect relationships in epidemiology – known as Mendelian randomisation – were developed at the University of Bristol and are now widely used in biomedical research.

There are also moral reasons to make our research as open as possible (but also as closed as necessary!). Around 80% of the University’s funding – from research and teaching – comes from public money, so it’s only right that we make as much of what we do as possible available to those who ultimately fund our work. And we never know how those intermediate research outputs might be used. We know, for example, that secondary schools have downloaded study protocols, information sheets and consent forms, and data sets to use in classroom demonstrations. This all helps with our efforts to be a civic university supporting our local community.

For this reason, we have updated and strengthened our Open Research Policy, with a single overarching policy that supports a range of sub-policies that cover different open research practices. . The new Open Research Policy and sub-policies, in particular, have been designed to be short and accessible – partly a “how-to” guide for those new to the practice. These were developed by the Open Research Working Group of Research Culture Committee, led by Library Services, and with input from a range of voices across the University through an extensive consultation process. The policies were approved by University Research Committee and signed off by Senate, and are now live. Please take the time to look at them if you can!

Of course, open research will look very different across different disciplines, and not all of us will be familiar with different aspects or practices. For this reason, through the UKRN Open Research Programme, we are offering places on a number of open research train-the-trainer courses. These are available to anyone at the University, at any career stage and on any pathway (including professional services and technical staff). After attending a train-the-trainer workshop, trainers will then deliver workshops on these practices that will be open to anyone (we will hopefully be able to offer tailored versions of these across, for example, Faculties and Schools). If you are interested in finding out more about these courses, or the planned workshops, please contact Lavinia Gambelli, our Open Research Coordinator.

Open research is part of our wider ambition – through our Research Culture Vision and Strategy – to be as transparent as possible in how we work, individually and as an institution. The hope is that that transparency will help to foster a trustworthy research ecosystem and institution. We recognise that this is a journey, and our Open Research Policy is an important step on that journey, but just a step. We need to support that with training, incentives (open research is included in the Academic Promotions Framework, and we run a regular Open Research Prize), and – perhaps most importantly – a listening stance that means we continue to develop and improve our policies so that they work for everyone, regardless of discipline, career stage, or pathway.

Following another inspiring and informative Festival of Research Culture earlier this month, I’m delighted to share more information about next year’s Research Culture funding. Part of wider ongoing sectoral efforts to enhance research culture in Higher Education Institutions, the University of Bristol has received further funding from Research England to be spent on research culture activity by the end of July 2025.

What is the award?

This funding is to support work and projects aiming to improve research culture at the University of Bristol and beyond.

Who can apply?

Any staff or student in any role can apply for funds.

More detail

Applicants must demonstrate how they will address at least one of the five priority areas (below) set out in the research culture strategic plan. Applicants must also evidence how their project fits in with the wider activity taking place, considering what has already been funded and what work is planned for 24-25, by reviewing the research culture implementation plan.

As a reminder, our research culture priority areas are;

• Promoting openness and transparency in how we work
• Empowering staff and students through effective leadership and management at all levels
• Providing a range of stable career opportunities for those involved in research
• Embedding diversity in research and those involved in research
• Encouraging internal and external collaboration and fostering innovative approaches

How can I apply?

To find out more and access the application form, please visit our Research Culture SharePoint site.

The deadline for applications for this year’s funding is 6PM, Tuesday 3^rd September. Applications and any queries should be emailed to researchculture-projects@bristol.ac.uk

The team and I look forward to receiving your applications and sharing more information about successful projects in due course. Thank you to all who have been involved since 2021 in our efforts to make the University of Bristol a better place to work, research, and study.

By Christopher Warren, Assistant Research Support Librarian

Following straight on from January’s blog, Change is the word! In 2023, the GW4 Alliance hosted their Open Research Week at the end of November with the theme of The Theory of Change showcasing a broad range of open research practices which make research more visible, accessible, transparent and reproducible (or, Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable – FAIR). 

This year GW4 opted hold a competitive award event in that week to elevate, celebrate and promote best academic practice: the GW4 Open Research Prize 2023. 

Background

In 2021 the University of Bristol started our own institutional Open Research Prize, with a second event following in 2022. From the success of those, and working with our colleagues at Bath, Cardiff and Exeter as well as the GW4 team, the new GW4 Open Research Prize built on our past work and opened it out to researchers from all four institutions.

To our original two categories – Improving Quality and Widening Reach – GW4 added a prize specifically for Posters, and, with the Bristol University Press (BUP), an Early Career Publishing Prize category for ECRs writing monographs. The amounts of prize money for each category was raised as well, as well as the chance for the Publishing Prize winner to work with BUP explore publication of their doctoral thesis.

Events and awards

After an initial submission period, we invited entries short-listed to attend an afternoon online conference through Zoom, where all entries sent in a short pre-recorded case study presentation video – so there would be a level playing-field for all. Q&As were taken after each between presenter and audience. At previous UOB events we had split judging between a panel of judges and a popular vote from those attending, but here the decision on choosing winning entries was made by the audience alone (other than for the monograph prize, see below).

GW4 Open Research Prize for Widening Reach

The winning entry for Widening Reach was Matt Lloyd Jones of University of Exeter (Penryn Campus): Exploring the potential of using simulation games for engaging with sheep farmers about sheep lameness

This study codesigned a videogame with farmers and vets to identify lameness in sheep. It showed an open, involved process, increasing uptake and impact among those it benefitted. Publications from it were preregistered and published as Open Access. The data itself was published as FAIR data, in an Open repository. It demonstrated excellent Open Research practice, while being honest about the limitations and costs involved in the project.

GW4 Open Research Prize for Improving Quality

The winning entry in the Improving Quality category was a team from the University of Exeter Katie Young, Pedro Cardoso, Laura Guedemann, Rhian Hopkins with their study: Improving reproducibility and transparency of diabetes research with electronic health care records

This study took electronic health data, messy at source, and applied Open Research practices to make it reproducible and transparent. They wrote code so it could be securely shared with clinicians for validation, creating safe, clean data all in one place, that would help reduce researchers’ workload, raising quality and facilitating protocol approval. This was excellent science, showing the benefits of applying Open Research practices in a key area.

GW4 Open Research Prize for Poster submission

The winner in the Poster Prize category was Eoin Cremen of University of Bath: “The influence of AI advice on decision-making strategies in a hypothesis testing task”

The winning poster (which can be viewed here: The influence of AI advice on decision-making strategies in a hypothesis testing task) focused on how people use AI to search for health results. Focusing on ‘aches’, this looked at running a feasibility study for checking the AI-advice provided to test the diagnosis and see whether this is accurate and relevant to the information given.

GW4 Early Career Publishing Prize

The winning Publishing Prize entry was judged ahead of the event by a cross-institution panel of judges working with the BUP. This was an entirely new prize category for us, not having worked on selecting or awarding a monograph prize before.

In first place was Bristol’s own Alison Oldfield, University of Bristol: Going to the farm: A sociomaterial ethnography of autistic young people in a natural environment.

Alison’s thesis, on which her winning submission was based, can be found through the UOB Research Portal here: Thesis: Going to the farm

**Details of all taking part is available from GW4 or the School of Education blog here: GW4 Open Research Prize 2023: Winners announced!

Wrapping up

The Open Research Prize was a great day, bringing together many strands from across the Open Research Week and a chance for colleagues to celebrate and recognise each other’s achievement.

The next prize will be in the spring of 2025. Bath University, which is another of the GW4 institutions, will be taking the reins on organising this prize, but watch out for events and updates via GW4’s website or on our own Open Research pages.

Contact

Christopher Warren is an Assistant Research Support Librarian with the Research Data Service, a section of the Library Services’ Research Support Team that deals with all matters relating to Research Data Management. We’re based online and on the 1^st floor of Augustine’s Courtyard. Please contact data-bris@bristol.ac.uk or lib-research-support@bristol.ac.uk for more information.

 

By Professor Tansy Jessop (PVC Education and Students (biography available online) and Paula Coonerty (Executive Director for Education and Students)

Introduction

In 2023, the APVC for Research Culture, Professor Marcus Munafo, initiated an internal review into teaching bureaucracy, following on from the internal review into research bureaucracy.

Within an organisation as large and complex as the University, a certain level of bureaucracy is necessary to ensure that we have timetables that don’t clash, students are registered on the right units, and well-qualified academics deliver teaching. In contrast to ‘necessary’ bureaucracy, this review focused on staff views of excessive, overly complicated, and hierarchical systems and processes.

Listening

Between February and March 2023, external consultants ran discussion sessions that were open to all staff (academic and professional services) involved in teaching activity. The purpose was to understand their experiences, identify pain points and see what works well. The sessions were advertised in the Staff Bulletin and the Education Bulletin. A total of 55 staff attended small focus group sessions (ten in total). Most participants (87%) were Pathway 1 or 3 teaching staff, and all three faculties were represented.

In analysing the results from the sessions, the consultants commended the ‘passion and dedication that the participants had for their teaching’, which is something we don’t take for granted. Our recent Silver award in TEF 2023 would not have been possible without incredibly dedicated staff delivering inspiring teaching and an outstanding student experience. So, what is getting in the way that we can improve?

Learning

The findings from the review are based on a small sample size, but many of the common themes replicate feedback provided via other routes (e.g. the research bureaucracy review, the Staff Voice workshops held in 2023, network forums, and anecdotal reports about staff experience).

Pain points

• General process and system inefficiencies. An increase over the years in bureaucracy, complex processes, and inefficient, outdated systems.
• Standardisation and the ‘one size fits all’ perception. Participants felt that standardization was stifling creativity and ignoring local context.
• Culture of compliance. More emphasis placed on compliance and less on local innovation and autonomy.
• Challenges when processes operate at scale. Processes and IT systems are no longer fit-for-purpose in a context of growing student numbers.
• Volume of change. The volume of change adds to workload and detracts from the core business of teaching and enhancing the student experience. Plus staff feel disconnected from large change programmes and the drivers for change are often unclear.
• Changing nature of the student body. Increasing numbers of international students and students with additional support entails workload challenges.
• Teaching standards and high-quality teaching. Staff feel there is more focus on metrics (such as the NSS) than on high-quality teaching. Alongside this, Bristol is seen as valuing research over teaching.

Examples of good practice

• Expert support provided by highly skilled, knowledgeable professional services staff who are eager to help.
• Individual roles and teams dedicated to supporting innovation.
• Transformational system and process changes delivered by the Education Administration Enhancement project.

The full report is available on SharePoint (UoB staff access only).

Acting

Systems

Here are some of the changes we are making:

• Qwickly has been decommissioned and replaced with a new Check-In app and system for monitoring student attendance.
• Blackboard is being upgraded to Blackboard Ultra, which includes many new and improved features.
• The Education Administration Enhancement (EAE) project focuses on continuous improvements to systems relating to finance, education, admissions and recruitment (e.g. eVision). For example, from 2023/24 live information about Study Support Plans (SSPs) is available in eVision for personal tutors and unit directors to review.
• UPMS was identified as a pain point in the review, but there are currently no plans to change this system as a new curriculum management system would require significant investment, integration costs, and large-scale institutional change.

Workload

There are several initiatives in train that in the long-term will help manage workload, but in the short-term require staff time and effort to make changes.

• The new Structure of the Academic Year (SAY) is designed to help contain workloads and support student and staff wellbeing. However, we know that in the short-term, SAY changes are time costly and entail extra work for many staff.
• TB1 assessments will take place before Christmas with a dedicated marking week before the start of TB2, and staff will be able to start teaching in TB2 without marking hanging over them. Students should receive their feedback before they start their new units too.
• Reassessment activity has been brought forward to create more space during the summer for staff to concentrate on research and take annual leave. This will also ensure the period at the end of the summer vacation is less intense. As part of the new SAY, we are also introducing streamlined Examination Boards, thereby reducing duplication and multiple touchpoints.
• High assessment loads (and associated high workload for staff) go against the integrated and inclusive principles of our Assessment and Feedback Strategy. In 2023 we held workshops with schools to support reductions in summative assessment load, balanced by more engaging formative assessment and feedback.
• In some larger schools, different personal tutoring models are being piloted (e.g. placing some of the student support functions provided by personal tutors with professional services staff) and the results are feeding into the Professional Services Transformation Programme (PSTP) (see ‘next steps’).

Communication

Our fortnightly Education Bulletin, introduced during Covid-19, is our main regular communication channel about education. In addition, the Bristol Institute for Learning and Teaching (BILT) releases a fortnightly briefing full of inspiring, thoughtful and exciting practices and ideas from colleagues. We also have dedicated communication channels for special projects. Our new SharePoint site for the upgrade to Blackboard Ultra is where you will be able to find latest updates. Similarly, the University Structures programme has a SharePoint site, as does the SAY project where you can find information about these change projects.

We heard from the Teaching Bureaucracy Review that we need to be better at communicating when work is paused, or only limited progress is being made. When there is a communications vacuum this creates space for uncertainty and staff feel they are being kept out of the loop. We will learn from this and share this finding with teams leading education-related projects.

Consultation and engagement

We are continuing to listen to staff and introducing new ways for you to provide feedback.

Since 2020 we have introduced networks to provide space for staff in similar roles to connect, discuss common challenges and share good practice. We now have networks for School Education Directors, Senior Tutors, Academic Integrity Officers, Student Disability Coordinators, Student Administration Managers and Graduate Administration Managers. In January 2024 we launched a new Student Academic Representation Network which brings together staff and students involved in Student Staff Liaison Committees (SSLCs).

From spring 2024 a new Admissions and Recruitment Committee has been convened to connect Faculty Admissions Officers with central staff in Admissions.

As part of upgrading to Blackboard Ultra, we are establishing a project advisory group. We will be seeking members from across the University, to ensure your voices are feeding into the implementation plan.

At the time of writing this, the 2024 Staff Experience Survey has just closed and we look forward to reviewing any feedback from that survey which relates to your experience of teaching and education.

Next steps

While this blog provides a flavour of some of the changes we are currently making, the detailed findings of the teaching bureaucracy report have been passed onto relevant teams and leaders to consider.

We welcome the time staff took to attend the discussion sessions and the final report is a fantastic source of evidence for the PSTP. The PSTP launched in 2023 and its purpose is to review and transform how we deliver services, reducing bureaucracy and improving ways of working. Education and student support services has been identified as a priority focus for the PSTP, with areas such as assessment processes, provision of information, and student wellbeing support identified as important. This work picks up on pain points raised via the teaching bureaucracy review).

You can find more information online about the PSTP.

‘Change’ seems to be the word of the day, every day – change is part of everyday life and work. Humans must adapt to survive, and so must universities. But that doesn’t mean it’s easy. The dream is to manage change so well that it becomes part of the day job, and we’re so comfortable with it that we don’t even notice that change is happening. But how realistic is that? The familiar sense of ‘change fatigue’ comes not always from too much change, but from change that isn’t done well.

What does the University do to manage change?

Aiming to ensure that change is done well is the University’s Change Management Team. The team comprises professionally-accredited Change Managers working to support change across the University by preparing people to deliver the University’s ambitions. The team has developed its own model for managing change, with the intention of getting it used across the University by everyone leading and managing change, whether it be a relatively small local change or a large strategic initiative. The framework, which is simply called ‘5 Steps to Successful Change’, puts the University ahead of most within the Higher Education sector.

By following the ‘5 steps’ we take the impact on people into account, and adequately plan for change, thereby ensuring that people retain a sense of control over what is happening and can play their part in long term successful change. It necessitates those leading change to really interrogate the reasons for change, so that they can speak about change honestly and consistently, and in a way that is meaningful to those impacted. The ‘5 Steps’ also helps to ensure as much as possible that people can maintain their day-to-day work during times of change.

To facilitate successful use of the ‘5 step’ model, the Change Team operates as business partners. Whilst a consistent approach to change is essential, it also needs to be contextualized, and by working as partners with each Faculty and Division, the Change Managers can tailor the approach to change to consider what is unique about each part of the University and advise on planning for change accordingly.

Why is change so difficult?

If there is a team dedicated to managing change, and it has a sector leading approach, why then does change appear to be so hard to do well?  To a certain extent, change will always be difficult, particularly in an organisation the size of the University, with multiple cultures at play, and concurrent initiatives requiring many people to play a part in change. Most significantly, change is difficult because of the factor of human emotion. Remaining in our comfort zones is a safer place to be, requiring less energy and threat, meaning that it is normal to desire to move away from change.

The reality of change either posing threat or reward is something that the Change Team talk about in change management workshops, which run regularly for academic and professional services colleagues. If we consider a change that we have felt uncomfortable with, it’s likely that it has posed some threat to us. David Rock’s SCARF model identifies five key factors that impact the extent to which we feel threatened or rewarded by a change. It provides interesting insights into why we may feel differently about certain changes than others, and how these manifest in our reactions to change.

Change fatigued?

To return to the notion of ‘change fatigue’, change is tiring, and it impacts people differently from one individual to the next depending on their history of change, what else is going on for them at the same time, and the extent to which they are either threatened or rewarded by it. Change requires us to psychologically process the change before we can fully move with it, and this alone is tiring, even without having to continue with our day jobs and personal lives at the same time. The extent to which we feel a sense of influence or control over the change is also a key factor. Whilst we may not have ultimate control over whether a change happens, if we can feel a sense of control by understanding the true reasons for change, feeling well informed and understanding what’s expected of us (the first step in the 5 Steps to Successful Change), then that all helps to lessen the sense of fatigue and equip people with the energy to change.

So, whilst we must accept that we must adapt to survive and that change will usually be difficult, by following the ‘5 Steps to Successful Change’, we can set ourselves up to manage change in a way which stands the greatest chance of success with minimal negative impact on people.

Contact the Change Team

Please contact change-team@bristol.ac.uk to find out how the Change Team can support change in your part of the University.

By Neil Jacobs, Head of UK Reproducibility Network Open Research Programme

Perhaps understandably, a lot of attention has been given to the initial decisions about REF2028 and, in particular, to the direction taken on People, Culture and Environment. “Open research” features strongly here; not only Open Access publishing, but transparency in a much deeper and wider sense (perhaps following last year’s UNESCO Open Science Recommendation, which the UK has signed). This will challenge governments, funders and universities to demonstrate real progress.

In response Bristol has partnered with the universities of Reading and Zurich, the UK Reproducibility Network (UKRN), and UNESCO to produce a guide to help institutions implement the Recommendation, which will be released during Open Research Week (20-24 November). In fact, that will be a busy week! The GW4 Alliance has arranged events to help researchers more easily adopt open research practices, and this complements the UKRN’s Open Research Programme (that Bristol leads), which is also stepping up its activities. Those will run to August 2027.

Training is a key foundation for open research. The UKRN Open Research Programme has just released a schedule of train-the-trainer opportunities, covering topics as diverse as open software / code, research collaboration, open research and ethics, and embedding open research in undergraduate practice. There will be more information about these opportunities soon. In the meantime, Open Research Week sees an introduction to open research (see also UKRN’s resources for different disciplines), and events on both open source hardware (see also UKRN primer) and rights retention (see also UKRN primer).

Trainers (both formal and informal) will learn from each other in local and disciplinary communities. The UKRN Programme is launching a national trainer community of practice, and Open Research Week sees several GW4/Bristol events on sharing research data (introductory, sensitive data, qualitative data, life science data) that will strengthen communities here at Bristol that can promote training in open research.

However, training is not enough. Unless researchers feel that being open will help their career, then they may not want to invest their time.

The UKRN Programme is working with a group of over 20 UK universities to reform the way they recruit, promote and appraise staff, to recognise open research practices. Bristol is one of those universities, and there is an event in Open Research Week on making research assessments fairer, as a part of this. UKRN is also working with major international initiatives, such as CoARA and the OPUS Project, to make sure the UK and other countries are coordinated.

But how will Bristol and UKRN institutions more generally monitor progress and see the benefits of open research? One part of this is the digital plumbing. To monitor, we need reliable data, and that means using things like ORCIDs and Digital Object Identifiers (DOIs) – Persistent Identifiers for people, projects, universities, funders, research papers and so on. You can learn more about these during Open Research Week. They will be at the heart of UKRN’s work with around 15 universities, including Bristol, to develop and pilot some indicators of open research in 2024.

One of the things that universities can do to support their research community in the move to open research is to have the best possible policy, that sets out our aspirations, and the expectations that we can have of each other in meeting those aspirations. Bristol’s draft policy will be released for consultation during Open Research Week. It has been informed by policies elsewhere and by discussions with other universities, enabled by the UKRN ethos of collaboration rather than competition to promote better research.

On 14 September, Concordat Champions and Research Staff Reps gathered in Beacon House with the University of Bristol Vice-Chancellor, Professor Evelyn Welch, to delve into the challenges that research staff currently face and explore solutions for constructive changes towards a better Research Career Pathway. This is underpinned by the university’s commitment to implementing the principles of the Concordat to support the career development of researchers, which is an agreement between UK funders and employers of research staff.  

The event began with presentations by the Concordat Champion and Research Staff Reps committee chairs, to shed light on the current state of affairs for research staff in academia. Areas in which Bristol can have (and already is having) an impact and leading role nationally were highlighted, including the recent move from fixed-term to open-ended contracts for research staff. However, a survey of principal investigators has revealed significant negative impacts faced in terms of recruitment and retention of research staff due to uncompetitive salaries, job precarity, and the high cost of living in Bristol, resulting in a loss of talent to more lucrative positions in industry or academic institutions abroad. In particular, this is having a disproportionately high impact on staff relocating to Bristol from overseas due to very high visa and immigration surcharge costs. In this regard, Bristol’s reimbursement policy is out of step with other UK institutions.

After a brief interlude for coffee and cookies, Evelyn took to the stage, describing her own experiences of life as an early career researcher and lecturer and the accompanying job insecurity, and her past experiences implementing the concordat in UK research institutions. She shared a genuine desire to listen to the concerns of research staff and to be of service to the research community.

The VCs opening remarks were followed by an open forum, with researchers posing questions including plans to improve university policy on costs incurred by staff from overseas, alternatives to funding-limited contracts and associated redeployment, improving access to the university nursery for short-term research staff, and giving the concordat action plan “teeth” to improve the career progression and prospects of all researchers and staff in research adjacent roles.

The VC’s responses and commitment to addressing these concerns were met with optimism towards positive change. She underlined the remarkable talent and dedication of the university’s research staff, acknowledging their vital contribution to the university’s success. In her own words:

“Positive change comes from listening to your concerns… we get it right when we listen.”

As we move forward, plans are underway for regularly VC gatherings, to continue towards a better research pathway and a more inclusive research culture.

More information on the Research Staff Reps Committee, Concordat Governance Group, and the Research Staff Working Party and associated contacts can be found at the Bristol Clear Staff Development Webpages.