Useful links

Research management and assessment

Statement of Expectations for Doctoral Training. In January 2024, UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) and partner funding organisations including the Wellcome Trust published the Statement of Expectations for Doctoral Training. This document sets out how Wellcome expects the research organisations that they fund to deliver doctoral training and states explicit expectations in three areas i.e. support and student experience, research skills and methods, and professional and career development.

The Metric Tide. The report takes a fresh look at the use of indicators in research management and assessment. Find the results of the review here.

Research assessment exercises are necessary — but we need to learn to do them better. On the theme of rewards and incentives, Australia decided to overhaul its system, read about it here.

Project TARA. Tools to Advance Research Assessment (TARA) is a project to facilitate the development of new policies and practices for academic career assessment. Read more about the project here.

The Leiden Manifesto. A major initiative in the attempt to change the metrics underlying the reward and incentive system. Read about it here, watch an explanatory video or visit their website. As a follow up, many of the same authors, joined by others, have produced a very interesting report on Narrative CVs.

Publishing

Peer review without gatekeeping: eLife changes its publication model. Since early 2023, eLife eliminated the accept/reject decisions after peer review, read the article here.

Micropublications, Open Collaboration, and reducing intellectual waste in science. The speaker discusses the barriers to and ways to achieve the true aim of research- to discover and advance knowledge. Watch the video.

Research Integrity – the madness of short methods. The dangers of publishing with a limited methods section, asking how we can reverse this trend. Read the article here.

Careers

PhD training is no longer fit for purpose — it needs reform now. “If researchers are to meet society’s expectations, their training and mentoring must escape the nineteenth century.” Nature editorial, 18 January 2023

Researcher Development Concordat. Read here about the concordat developed to support the career development of researchers.

Disrupting dominant discourses of the Other: examining experiences of contract researchers in the academy. There can be numerous ways in which institutional discourses and practices marginalise casual academics and conceal the challenges they face, read about it here.

EMBL Careers: A life science careers blog for early career researchers. Access all blogposts here.

Case studies: the career pathways of doctoral graduates. Access all stories here.

Funding

Systemic bias in Wellcome funding. Wellcome’s funding data on under-representation from March 2021 confirmed a systemic bias against women, BAME and disabled communities at a structural level. To achieve more equitable funding, Wellcome partnered with Science Practice and created the Equitable Funding Practice Library project. Read the full article here and access the Library here.

UKRI. The UK Research and Innovation is a non-departmental public body of the Government of the United Kingdom that directs research and innovation funding, funded through the science budget of the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology. Find out more here.

Equality, Diversity and Inclusion

How UK science is failing Black researchers — in nine stark charts. Data show that the representation of scientists from marginalized ethnicities dwindles at each stage of UK academia, see the charts here.

UKRI’s equality, diversity and inclusion strategy: research and innovation by everyone, for everyone. The UKRI published it’s updated EDI strategy in March 2023, have a read here.

Research Excellence Framework

REF. The Research Excellence Framework is the UK’s system for assessing the quality of research in UK higher education institutions. It first took place in 2014 and 2021. The next exercise is planned for 2029. Read more about it here.

All of the REF – not just 25% of it – must drive a better research culture. Read the blogpost here.

REF 2028: How do you measure culture? Read the opinion piece here.

We need to decide what good research looks like. A report questioning the impact of publishing on research culture. Access the report here, or read this opinion piece written by one of the report’s authors.