Month: April 2025

Developing a positive research culture at Bristol – our programme of work in 2024/25

Posted on by University of Bristol

By Yasmine Rhoseyn and Eirini Triantafyllou

Yasmine is Research Culture Strategy Manager at the University of Bristol. She supports the Associate Pro Vice-Chancellor for Research Culture, Marcus Munafò in leading research culture activity across the university, and monitors the implementation of the research culture strategy. She also sits on the committee for the Research Culture Enablers Network based at Warwick, which is a solutions focused group dedicated to exchanging and challenging ideas to improve research culture and drive meaningful change.

 

Eirini is a Project Officer at the University of Bristol. She oversees the process of funding allocation to the Research Culture projects, monitors spending and offers support and guidance for all finance-related matters. Eirini also supports the Policy Support funded projects and Participatory Research projects in the same capacity.

 

 

Over the last couple of years, our research culture programme of work has been led by many talented colleagues and students from across the university, as well as partners and stakeholders beyond.

This academic year, we have a varied programme of different projects, aligned with our research culture vision and strategy that aims to support a positive research environment and culture here at the University of Bristol.

You can find a summary of the projects, and who is leading these below. More detail on project aims, outputs and impact can be found in this PDF or on our research culture sharepoint.

Promoting openness and transparency in how we work

In 2024, we funded the creation of an Open Research Community Manager role at the University to support open research training, work collaboratively with the UK Reproducibility Network and improve open research practices at the university. You can find out more about Lavinia Gambelli’s role and work in her recent blog.

Along the themes of openness and open research, a few of our funded projects focus on research ethics and these important processes and practices. Work has been undertaken to improve signposting to existing tools and practices, as well as co-design collaborative solutions when it comes to the ethics of public engagement (Dee Smart and team).

Another important facet is teaching research ethics , which Jo Rose and team have been exploring at the PGT level, including how change in teaching practice happens at a local level and lessons to be learned.

In terms of the research ethics process itself, Patricia Neville and team have been investigating where sustainability in research considerations could be made and incorporated into our online Research Ethics Management System, and what this would look like, which feeds into the wider UoB research strategy and its commitment to sustainability.

Empowering staff and students through effective leadership and management at all levels

We believe leadership can and should be encouraged at all levels (regardless of role title); to support this the Leadership Ethos framework has been developed. This framework is being embedded into leadership programmes and resources curated by the Staff Development teams, and this work is led by Izzy Frazer-Veli, Bethan Turner and developed by Nadia Soliman.

Relevant to the framework is the concept of transformative leadership – this has been a focus of Alf Coles and team who have developed resources and run workshops over the last couple of years. They are now focusing on adding this programme to the training offered by the Staff Development team, which includes development of a workshop accessible via Develop.

Leadership at postgraduate research level is crucial for developing skills and equipping our future leaders for success. Maya Al-Khouja and team at Bristol Students’ Union have developed a student research leaders programme looking at developing innovative solutions to local challenges and working with local mental health charity Changes Bristol.

To support postgraduate research culture, PGR supervisors play a critical role. At the heart of this is ensuring training and support for PGR supervisors is adequate and practical (Ros O’Leary and team) and that guidance exists to help supervisors navigate supporting their PGR students (Stephanie King and team).

Bristol Students’ Union staff and UoB students gather for launch of student research leaders programme

Providing a range of stable career opportunities for those involved in research

PEER LEAD aims to empower PGR students as trainers equipping them with new skills (coding and research ethics) themselves but enabling them to learn how to teach and support their peers in these areas, developing valuable skills for future employment (Harry Mellor and team). Similarly, Alice Ferns and team have been focusing on careers support for PGRs including development of An Insider’s Guide to Academia available via LinkedIn Learning and a video series about applying for a PhD.

In the Faculty of Science and Engineering, Emma stone and colleagues are establishing a community of Early Career Researchers, which includes connecting with Research Concordat Champions, and equipping ECRs with the skills and connections needed for career transitions through working with external partners. On the Researcher Development Concordat, Lydia Klimecki is putting together an engaging film to make the concordat accessible to staff across the university.

Ros O’Leary and team are providing more support to staff to engage in pedagogic research through training and a central hub of resources, which will in turn help this research culture to thrive and develop and retain staff talent. Staff and students are also being provided with retreats to help develop key skills necessary for their careers, with Claire Wrixon running retreats for black female academics participating in WHEN100 and early career researchers.

Embedding diversity in research and those involved in research

Several projects within this programme of work are looking at diversity and inclusivity across the university and beyond. Caroline McKinnon and Claudia Gumm are further developing and launching the inclusive research toolkit on external platforms to be accessed by the HE sector.

Inclusive Research Toolkit poster

Daniella Jenkins and team are investigating the lived experiences of people of colour among the PGRs and non-academic staff populations, with the view to develop actions to improve the research culture for these groups.

Winfred Gatua, Amanda Chappell, Lawrence Osei Owusu and Helen Natukunda are developing a PGR network for students of Black and White/Black dual heritage to foster community, develop links with Black alumni, showcase examples of academic innovation, enhance career relevant skills and address career trajectory inequities.

Research to Reward, led by Kit Bartlett and colleagues aims to improve commercialisation support for female and non-binary researchers and promote diversity in research innovation by providing funding and recognition for innovative ideas led by these underrepresented researchers.

Professional services staff contribute significantly to research, and Helen Curtis, Charlotte Verney and their colleagues are continuing their work to understand the research activities of these staff at Bristol, implementing some of the recommendations from their prior report to help professional services navigate and feel supported in conducting research.

Antonia Tzemanaki and team build upon the work of Jenny Crane and Erika Hanna to embrace parenthood in research and higher education, looking at three distinct strands 1) community, 2) implementation of positive change and 3) research collaboration.

Helen Thomas Hughes continues her work on the experiences of mature PGRs by developing and implementing a comprehensive suite of resources to address challenges faced by this group and foster a more inclusive research environment. Stephen Gray also leads work on improving the experience of postgraduate students through implementing interactive 3D tours of key spaces on campus, supporting accessibility and the needs of neurodivergent students.

Encouraging internal and external collaboration and fostering innovative approaches

Collaborative and innovative ways of working are key to a thriving and positive research culture. Work is underway to develop and launch an action-focused, reflective framework – the Working Well Together resource – which has been co-produced with over 700 members of staff at the university and led by Sarah Campbell and team. Expanding on this, Alice Beck has been exploring utilising the developed resources among PGR communities and building upon these to develop resources to cultivate a positive research culture.

Attendees at Working Well Together launch, October 2024

Networks and research groups at the university play an important role in contributing to the wider institutional research culture as these create their own ways of working and positive practices. Pau Erola and team have been focused on developing a Health Data Research Network to drive innovation through collaboration by holding best practice workshops, events and sustaining a steering committee. Oscar De Mello and team have been focused on research culture in ‘The Sheds’, working with Artists in Residence and creative practitioners to inform operation of The Sheds so they are an open and collaborative space for relevant communities, and establishing working and business models that could be best practice exemplars for wider University hubs.

Creative thinking, idea generation and innovative practice is a key area of focus. Giovanni Biglino, Bec Gee and team have been building upon their previous work ‘The Department of Imagination’ and are developing research culture and imagination labs for early- and mid-career researchers, supporting them to explore innovative and imaginative approaches to research and the benefits this can have for collaboration. The Exploratory Facility Fund, led by Olivia Gaitonde and Anne Westcott provides access to Science and Engineering TRAC facilities to researchers facing barriers (ECRs, those returning from research breaks and those exploring new research areas) to help bring new and innovative ideas to life that wouldn’t have otherwise been possible due to a financial gap.

Working in partnership and developing collaborative links is fundamental to sustaining a positive research culture. Anthony Manyara and team have been exploring a more equitable partnership with Global South research partners and are creating pragmatic interventions to address visa and passport inequities, as well as promoting equitable budget spends and allocations for Global South research projects.

Focused on community engagement and community researchers, Sabi Redwood, Mari-Rose Kennedy and team have been supporting these researchers to build a community of practice to aid in co-produced research. They are developing training and support for community-based researchers and university-based researchers to facilitate more equitable and effective collaboration during research projects. Ruth Badru and team have also focused their efforts on community research, with their work focused on engaging the community and promoting interdisciplinary collaboration, through the lens of understanding the impact of transport disparities on socio-economic opportunities. They are working with local authorities, transport providers and community organisations to co-produce actionable solutions that can be enacted in Bristol.

Find out more and get in touch

As demonstrated above, there is a varied programme of ongoing work comprising of many different projects that are working to enhance the research culture here at Bristol and within the HE sector. This work is led by passionate and talented colleagues and students and we are excited to share more of their work, including outputs when these are developed over the coming months.

You can find more detail on project aims, outputs and anticipated impact on our research culture sharepoint site. If you have any questions about the projects, please do get in touch via researchculture-projects@bristol.ac.uk so we can support and link you up with the relevant leads.

So Long, and Thanks for All the Researchfish…

Posted on by University of Bristol

By Marcus Munafò

Marcus is Associate Pro Vice-Chancellor of Research Culture at the University of Bristol and incoming Deputy Vice-Chancellor and Provost at the University of Bath. 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. 

 

According to MyERP, I officially started working at the University of Bristol on the 1st March 2005 – although I remember coming in a day early because 1st March was a Tuesday and what else was a young lecturer going to do with a Monday…? Not exactly the best role modelling by someone who would – many years later – devote much of his working week to improving research culture. 

And now, after almost exactly 20 years I will be leaving the University of Bristol. On the 1st May I’ll start a new adventure as Deputy Vice Chancellor and Provost at the University of Bath. It’s been an incredible two decades – I wrote grants (a few of which were funded!) and papers, built collaborations, made plenty of mistakes (and tried to learn from them), helped build a research group, and completed my fair share of Researchfish submissions… 

Most importantly, I made many friends. There are far too many to name them all, but my co-directors of the Tobacco and Alcohol Research Group (TARG) – Angela Attwood, Olivia Maynard and Ian Penton-Voak – have been the most important, simultaneously keeping my feet on the ground and keeping me sane. When we started to build TARG it was clear that it shouldn’t be critically dependent on one person. When I leave, it will barely miss a beat – the culture and structure we’ve developed will ensure that. 

Tobacco and Alcohol Research Group, University of Bristol

Which brings me to my role as APVC for Research Culture.

Back in 2019 I set up the informal Research Improvement Group, which brought together academic, technical and professional voices with an interest in reflecting on our research practices and identifying ways to improve these. This was partly in support of Bristol’s membership of the UK Reproducibility Network (which we currently host), but more broadly in response to growing sectoral interest in how academia can ensure the quality of the work it produces, and the health and vibrancy of the environment it creates to support that.

In 2021, our then PVC for Research and Innovation, Phil Taylor, was creating APVC roles to create a similar structure to the one that existed for education and give him more capacity to deliver against key agendas. One of these was research culture – and, given the natural proximity to my research improvement role, I applied. I formally began in the role in early 2022, and almost immediately we learned that we would receive an Enhancing Research Culture allocation from Research England (as did all English institutions that received REF funding).

That funding allowed us to constitute a research culture team, led by Yasmine Rhoseyn, with support from (variously – as people have moved in and out of roles) Sean Gilligan, Pat Humphries, Leah Jones, Gurjeet Kaur, Lumina Kemp and Eirini Triantafyllou. With that team in place, we got to work… Research Improvement Group became Research Culture Committee, eventually a formal sub-committee with delegated authorities in key areas such as open research, and we developed plans to spend our allocation.

Attendees gather at the Festival of Research Culture, 2024

Our early strategy had to be developed rapidly given that the funding had to be spent by the end of the University financial year in July. We identified some major areas of focus – such as open research and leadership – but a large proportion of the budget went into an open call to provide seedcorn funding for grassroots projects. We were struck by not just the number but also the quality of applications we received, and – as intended – this gave us a picture of what was already happening across the University.

Over the years we have continued this scheme, adding a separate call for continuation funding, helping to grow projects and support them either to completion or to the point where they can become self-sustaining. This also helped us to build a community that we bring together at an annual Festival of Research Culture. And this community was also central to the next phase of our activity – the development of a research culture vision and strategic plan to take us to 2030.

This vision and strategic plan is now in place, supported by an annual implementation plan that brings a tactical element – outlining what we will do this year that will move us in the right direction (and how we will know). It is the result of extensive development and consultation, and – I think – something we can collectively be proud of. The next step will be to bring this to life on the ground, by engaging the research and research-enabling community.

Front page of the Research Culture Vision and Strategy document

But why do we do this in the first place? Why does research culture matter? In my view, there are moral, pragmatic and selfish reasons. It is right to create an environment where people feel supported and are able to develop and thrive. But by creating that environment we will also create the conditions where people can do their best work. And in turn that environment will allow us to recruit and retain the best talent in a way that will ensure the long-term health of the University.

Bristol is rightly world-recognised for its teaching and research, but we should always be looking to reflect and improve. By maintaining a positive research culture, and an environment that supports this, we can become known for something else – the ways in which we support people at all career stages, across all career pathways, and from all backgrounds to excel in ways that are meaningful to them. In other words, we can be known not just for what research we do, but how we do it.