Valuing Voices for Equitable and Responsible Research

Author:  Roisin Blackburn

Organisation:  The University of York

The Valuing Voices for Equitable and Responsible Research project, a global collaboration between the University of York and Mahidol University in Thailand, seeks to address the inequities often experienced in research projects. The project seeks to address core areas like responsible research and innovation which is increasingly being asked about in grant applications. Our project’s core objective is to deliver a practical online tool that enhances research processes from funding and planning to delivery and reflection. This tool is underpinned by principles informed by community engagement through workshops, interviews, surveys, and observations with a global audience of researchers and research-enablers. The tool guides researchers through five principles which addresses considerations such as team equity, reflection and learning, and environmental sustainability. Using results-based planning, the tool ensures researchers and research-enablers are considering practical methods to improve the equity and responsibility of their research design and methods, to improve the research culture for the whole community.

Following an evaluation and testing phase in which we refined our ten principles to five, we will be launching our initial online tool in May 2025. This tool is designed to support researchers and research-enablers in embedding these principles from the outset of their projects, by engaging with gold-standard resources and results-based planning for their project, which will, in turn, support them in writing their grant applications. We are now entering our pilot stage and are actively seeking global researchers and research-enablers to trial the tool so we can ensure that it is useful to the global research community.