Improving our Research Culture is about ensuring that we acknowledge, choose and support the research related behaviours and actions we want to see in place and want to see transmitted and shared across the Institution.
The Research England Enhancing Research Culture (ERC) Fund, which provides funding to support universities to develop activities in response to the R&D People and Culture Strategy, is allowing us to build on our strong track record of initiatives in this area.
The University of Bath was awarded £400,000 from this ERC Fund for 2022/23. This is the second year that this allocation has been made and we hope to use this year’s allocation to build upon the activities we funded in 2021/22.
We had an Open Call for proposals to the fund in December and were delighted by the response, receiving nearly four times as many applications as we had funding for. This meant that we did have to make some difficult decisions, but we were also able to have conversations with colleagues to refine some proposals to maximise the spread of the funding.
We are thrilled to have been able to fund 35 projects across the University with projects being led by a wide range of colleagues from several academic departments and central professional services. The projects map onto the six pillars of research culture that we are using to direct our activities and the funded projects in 2022/23 include:
Funded projects
Career Development
- establishing a central fund to support academics who have taken a break for caring responsibilities to re-establish their research
- developing of a role-specific training for new members of staff in Research Enabler (RE) roles to improve staff satisfaction and retention
- supporting the Impact and KE Fellowship scheme
Collegiality
- building PGR communities through Faculty and Department level events
- developing skills for person-centred, resolution-based alternatives to disciplinary and dignity & respect procedures, using early resolution methods where appropriate
- developing a coaching network to provide professional development support to PGR students
Open Research
- engaging with the local UKRN Network, including work to look at how open research is recognised in promotion criteria
- training for staff and students in open-source software to enable greater reproducibility of research
Research Design
- piloting public and patient involvement and engagement activities to learn how to improve these from the public’s perspective
- working to understand what Responsible Research Innovation means at Bath, and how it can support the delivery of high quality and high impact research with sustainable, ethically acceptable and socially desirable outcomes
Research Ethics and Integrity
- supporting the annual international Research Ethics Conference to be hosted at Bath
- working to explore the potential for secondary trauma in the research process
Research Recognition
- supporting the Images of Research competition
- supporting an institutional-wide Doctoral Research Showcase
Research Culture Week 2023
We also plan to run a Research Culture week again this year, building on the success of our inaugural week in 2022, during week commencing 26 June 2023. This will be a great opportunity to showcase some of these projects and celebrate the range of research culture work and expertise at the University.
If you have an idea for an event that we could hold during this week please complete this short form.
For further information see our Research Culture homepage or contact Professor Julie Barnett, Associate Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Research.