Thank you for shaping the conversation on research culture
We’re grateful to everyone who took the time to complete the I-REACCH research culture survey earlier this year. Your input is helping us shape our thinking and approach.
Although the response rate was lower than hoped, we heard from colleagues (staff and PGR students) across all four colleges and from professional services staff who support research, giving us a broad view of current experiences. This debrief shares a couple of early insights that we hope will prompt reflection and conversation across our research community.
What does research culture mean to you?
One of the first questions we asked was how you would define research culture. The word cloud brings together your most frequent responses. Words like collaboration, supportiveness, fairness, inclusivity, openness and integrity featured strongly – but there were also some interesting variations between different parts of the University. We’ll be exploring these further in the next stage of the analysis.
What is prioritised – and what should be?
We also asked you to reflect on which aspects of research culture are currently prioritised at the University, and which should be.
The findings suggest that while areas such as collaboration, EDI, freedom and integrity are largely seen as being appropriately prioritised, creativity and innovation may feel underemphasised compared to what researchers would like to see. This is something we’ll continue to explore in more depth
Looking ahead
We’ll run a follow-up survey next year to track how research culture is changing. Thank you again for your input – it’s shaping what happens next. Please look out for future updates and ways to get involved.