Prof. Candy Rowe

Presentation Abstract

Evaluating research culture - a UK university perspective

Building a more positive research culture requires knowing where you are now and where you want to get to, developing and delivering actions aimed at improving the culture, and checking that they’re having the desired effect. Evaluation of research culture is clearly central to this endeavour, but can be tricky to do, particularly in a large institution. At Newcastle University, we’ve defined what a positive research culture is based on what attributes our community say are important and that they value. This set of attributes has framed our initial survey, shaped our planning and priority projects, and now informs our methods for evaluation. My talk will reflect on some of the approaches we are taking, and why - from developing high level key performance indicators to deep dives on specific activities to help track change that might be hard to otherwise see. I’ll discuss some of the approaches we’re experimenting with, what we’re learning along the way, and what impact REF 2029 might have on how our work