Our Research Culture Action Plan
We are delighted to share our Research Culture Action Plan which sets out three years of action against our long-term aims.
Our Plan defines our strategic aims, and commitment, to developing a Research Culture which will help shape the future of research at Bath.
Research Culture explained
Research, and achieving real world impacts, sits at the very heart of what we do and who we are as a University.
The culture in which we pursue our research shapes the extent to which we can achieve our best, most innovative work.
Research Culture is determined by the attitudes, behaviours, expectations, norms and values that influence how research is conducted, and people’s experience of the environment where research takes place.
Excellent research culture enables excellent research. It also defines excellent research.
At Bath, we aim to put our people firmly at the heart of our research and innovation. We value the contributions of everyone involved in research across the University. Collectively we are delivering research that improves lives and is changing the world we live in for the better.
Defining our Research Culture
Defining our strategic plans for our Research Culture has been a huge undertaking. We previously ran a consultation to determine the behaviours and actions that mattered most to colleagues at Bath and used these to create six foundational pillars of research culture.
Earlier this year we ran a further consultation programme, with input from over 200 colleagues. This process helped us understand what success would look like and how we can make improvements to continue to change our culture for the better. From the feedback we received, we have been able to define the critical actions that were deemed priorities by our community to ensure we meet our goals.
Our strategy
The six pillars of our Research Culture strategy demonstrate our long-term aims for Bath’s Research Culture and the areas where we’re looking to make progress. They are:
Collegiality
Creating an environment in which colleagues support each other to succeed.
Aims:
- we have a thriving and connected research environment where the exchange of ideas and resources is commonplace
- we adopt a ‘culture of care’ as a policy and practice (including via workloads, clarity on conduct, mutual respect between managers/ supervisors and those they manage, and greater psychological safety for people to share their ideas/ feedback)
- we take radical approaches to inclusion and offer practical and proactive support to minoritized communities
- citizenship and generous leadership are valued
- decision makers, and decision-making processes, are accessible, transparent and visible to research-related staff and research students at all levels
- there is parity of esteem and respect for all job families
Career Development
Supporting colleagues to achieve their chosen career paths.
Aims:
- everyone with a current research-related post (or who aspires to a research-related post) is supported equitably to identify and pursue their chosen career goals in line with a clear business need or institutional research strategy
- we significantly reduce identified pay gaps across key groups e.g. the gender pay gap, the ethnicity pay gap and the disability pay gap
- we reduce precarity
Research Recognition
Recognising and celebrating the widest range of inputs to our excellent research.
Aims:
- recognised and rewarded people
- resilient, ‘can do’ learning culture
Research Ethics and Integrity
Supporting research that is conducted to the highest standards of academic rigour.
Aims:
- our research is trusted as it upholds the highest ethical standards and we are recognised as thought leaders in this field
- research ethics and integrity is everyone's responsibility
- we focus on practice, not process
- consistent advice and support are available
- there is clarity on, and improved literacy around research ethics, integrity, RRI and academic freedom, freedom of speech and how they relate to one another
- we develop simple guidance, training, processes and policies that support and foster high quality and innovative research design
- we safeguard all those engaged in research that has the potential to cause for physical or psychological harm, and accountability for this is clear
Research Design
Supporting excellent, flexible and appropriate research design.
Aims:
- diversity of knowledge in the research process is highly valued
- we have a mature capability for engaged and collaborative research and are recognised as a trusted and respectful collaborator
- we have a mature capability for Responsible Research and Innovation and embed it in processes
- improved research design contributes heavily to our commitment to Net Zero Carbon by 2040 in Scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions
Open Research
Supporting transparency, rigour, and reproducibility of research and valuing different research output types.
Aims:
- all staff and research students are aware of, comfortable with, and using a range of Open Research practices where appropriate for their discipline
- open Research practices improve transparency, integrity and trust in our research, and greater academic and societal impact
- we develop leadership in Open Research, and are perceived as an exemplar of good practice and reward
Research Culture action plan
Our action plan is the first step to achieving the 21 collective critical priorities we aim to achieve in the next three years, as well as a number additional of quick wins.
As a community, we will all have a part to play in delivering on these actions over the coming months and years. Already, colleagues across the University are making rapid progress on this plan:
- the returning carers scheme has been extended from academic staff to all staff
- new career frameworks for technical services staff are in development by HR, and the method will be applied to research enabling roles from next year
- a reserved area of the Claverton Rooms has been reopened for staff and doctoral students, supporting collegiality
In addition, this academic year we will:
- launch a new Academy for Early Career Research staff development
- Publish new Guidelines for Authorship and Acknowledgement to improve integrity and recognition on research outputs.
- review our approach to research assessment, to responsibly recognise a broader range of contributions to (and outcomes of) excellent research, and update promotions, recruitment and other assessment processes accordingly
- conduct a workload review to identify colleagues consistently over-committed and identify means of support
Read our action plan in fulland find out what this means for you in your role and for us as a community.
We will continue to reflect on the additional learnings from our consultation summary to further develop our priorities over time. If you would like to learn more about the consultation process and how we got to this point, please visit our SharePoint hub.
How you can support and get involved
We welcome your feedback and invite you to keep challenging, sharing ideas and perspectives – as with a diversity of ideas and contributions, we can enhance research culture for everyone.
For more information on the consultations, visit our SharePoint Hub