Dr. Tanita Casci is Head of Research Policy, and Dr. Elizabeth Adams is Workstream Lead – Research Culture, at the University of Glasgow. The trigger for this conversation was an LSE blog article they wrote about rewarding contributions to research culture. In this conversation they talk about their journey in trying to promote a supportive collegial research culture that is aligned around core institutional values that reflect what matters to the people in the research units. They discuss various initiatives that are part of this, such as promotion criteria that reward collegiality, formal recognition of everyone’s contributions to research, from PIs, researchers, students and to technicians, and better supporting early career researchers. They make a compelling case for the importance of culture for good research, and role model what universities can do to proactively enable this.

“The university succeeds when the individual succeeds.“

“You can do better bigger things working together across disciplines and sectors.” 

“It is expected that you will be collegiate in your teaching and your research and your knowledge exchange and all the different things that you do and that you will support others and by doing so research will be better for everyone.“

“Culture is the vehicle to better research.”

“Of all the things you could be doing, what is the very small number of things that you are going to align all your communications, activities and investment to?”

Overview (times approximate): 

[Full Transcript also available here for download]

2:00 Introductions: Tanita and Elizabeth introduce themselves

4:20 Defining quality: formative reviews to understand what quality means to different disciplines and what is needed to help people succeed

9:40 Recognising different types of contributions

12:50 Aligned initiatives: Showcasing good practice, setting collegiality expectations, and supporting, rewarding and celebrating what they value

17:00 Early career support to develop positive research cultures

18:25 Culture as the vehicle to better research

20:40 Understanding the values to inform strategy

24:05 Role of sector drivers

25:10 Practical strategies, challenges, and navigating a good pace for change

30:05 Reinterpreting good research practice for different disciplines

33:20 Roles of governance structures and local leadership, and giving PIs tools and support

39:20 Looking at it as a long-term learning game – nothing is born perfect

41:20 Importance of communication & clarity re focus and definition

45:30 What they are proudest of – support for fieldwork, and including collegiality in the promotions criteria, and putting outputs on a par with impact

51:00 End

Related Links

Tanita Casci – Glasgow Uni profile,  LinkedIn profile

Elizabeth Adams – Glasgow Uni profile

University of Glasgow Research Strategy 2020-25: Collaboration | Creativity | Careers and Research Culture initiatives

Sector initiatives:

DORA “The Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA) recognizes the need to improve the ways in which researchers and the outputs of scholarly research are evaluated.”

Nuffield Council on Bioethics 2015 Report

Concordat The Concordat to Support the Career Development of Researchers – Sept 2019

Research Excellence Framework – “the system for assessing the quality of research in UK higher education institutions.”

Athena Swan Charter – “a framework which is used across the globe to support and transform gender equality within higher education (HE) and research”

Articles:

Adams, E. & Casci, T. (2020) Rewarding contributions to research culture is part of building a better university. LSE Blog.

Casci, T & Adams, E. Research culture: Setting the right tone eLife 2020;9:e55543. DOI: https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.55543

Casci, T & Adams, E. (2019) Reimagining research culture. F1000 Research blog