Since 2021-22, the College has secured over £3m from Research England's Enhancing Research Culture funding to invest in developing our research culture. These funds can be used in any of the areas covered by the government’s 2021 R&D People and Culture Strategy to pilot new initiatives, increase the scale of already-proven activities and continue activities already supported via this funding stream.
At the College, this funding is managed by the Vice-Provost (Research and Enterprise) Office and the Funding Strategy team (Research Office), and it has been used to support projects both cross-College and Department-led, as well as the salaries of core members of staff in charge of managing the grant.
Funded projects were selected according to their fit within the remit of the Enhancing Research Culture grant, as well as the College’s strategic priorities regarding research culture. Areas for investment include:
- Improving access to and participation in research, including postgraduate research study, for people from currently underrepresented groups;
- Furthering open research practices;
- Improving research conduct and reproducibility;
- Tackling bullying and harassment;
- Improving research leadership skills across all career stages;
- Creating routes for collaboration and exchange with businesses, third sector organisations and government;
- Securing and supporting the careers of researchers and associated professions;
- Diversifying recruitment, reward and recognition approaches at all career stages;
- Delivering new approaches to public dialogue and community-led research.
At the start of the funding, the priority for the College was to pump prime scoping projects; as the funding has continued, the focus has shifted to providing ongoing support to those projects that have showed the most potential from the initial pump priming to allow them to embed within the College.
Research England projects
Year 1: 2021-22
| Lead (Department) | Title | Overview |
|---|---|---|
|
Prof Michael Bearpark (Dept of Chemistry/Research Computing Service) |
Increasing awareness and use of FAIR data through creating a metadata-rich college data repository | Implemented a novel research data repository application that is technically sustainable and supports evolving best practices around the use of rich metadata to describe datasets. |
|
Vicky Brightman (Office of the Provost - Public Engagement) |
Delivering new approaches to public dialogue and community-led research | Enhancing Research Culture through public engagement, by: - Empowering youth leaders to engage young people with STEM; - Offering diverse, local young people a chance to collaborate with artists and researchers on installations at the College's Festivals; - Piloting engagement projects on the Transition to Zero Pollution (TZP) academic vision. |
| Dr Liz Elvidge (Postdoc and Fellows Development Centre) | PFDC scoping projects on Enhancing Research Culture | - Tackling bullying and harassment; - Improving research leadership skills; - Facilitating collaboration with businesses, organisations, and government; - Securing and supporting the careers of researchers; - Diversifying recruitment, reward and recognition approaches. |
| Imperial College Union | Postgraduate Research (PGR) experience project | Understanding the PGR student experience around supervision, community support, and wellbeing. |
| Susan Littleson (HR) | Reducing bullying and harassment | This project aimed to study and reduce bullying and harassment at the College, by reviewing resources and interviewing staff, and then running workshops to define next steps. |
| Prof Sara Rankin (National Heart & Lung Institute) | Encouraging more Black UK students into postgraduate research in STEM | An award-winning programme of activities aiming to increase the progression of Black students to postgraduate studies, and to increase the sense of belonging of these students at the College. |
| Dr Andrew Richards (Research Computing Service) | OMERO Plus Complete image data repository | Piloted a centrally-managed OMERO instance within the remit of Research Computing Services for all researchers at the College, by purchasing a commercially supported version of “OMERO plus”. Support for imaging communities across Imperial to meet their obligations with respect to data sharing and enabling reproducibility. |
Year 2: 2022-23
| Lead (Department) |
Title | Overview |
|---|---|---|
| Vicky Brightman (Office of the Provost - Public Engagement) | Engaging local underserved young people with research(ers) | Through the Young Producers Programme, local 18-24-year-olds worked with an artist and College researchers to create an art-science installation for young people at the Great Exhibition Road Festival. |
| Craig Bryce (Faculty of National Sciences) & Yangna Li (Faculty of Engineering) | REF data mapping project | Considering the efficiency of data collection in the context of REF (Research Excellence Framework). |
| Dr Jeremy Cohen (Dept of Computing/Research Computing Service) | Enhancing research software culture | Raised awareness of software development best practices, and developed a new Research Software Directory. |
| Dr Victoria Crossley, Chris Meadows, Dr Magdalena Jara & Laura Lane (Graduate School) | Mental health and wellbeing training for doctoral supervisors | Trained facilitators to deliver a new workshop for PhD supervisors on managing mental health and wellbeing concerns amongst their students. |
| Dr Liz Elvidge (Postdoc and Fellows Development Centre) | PFDC scoping projects on Enhancing Research Culture | - Fostering collaborations between, and reducing isolation amongst, postdocs; - Facilitating peer support amongst Fellows for professional development towards research independence; - Enabling transitions to entrepreneurship; - Increasing awareness of career support available to postdocs and fellows; - The PFDC team went on an event to debate Research Culture at the College, benchmarking it against other institutions. |
| Allison Hunter & Ailish Harikae (Technician’s Network) | London and South East Technician Commitment staff event | Hosted a large conference as part of the annual Technicians' Festival, open to staff from other institutions for the first time, with a high-profile external speaker and externally facilitated career development sessions for the technical community. |
| Prof Hector Keun (lead), Katie Stripe, Dr Joana dos Santos & Dr Jeffrey Vernon (Dept of Surgery and Cancer; on behalf of Faculty of Medicine) | Widening non-Russell Group (NRG) participation in Postgraduate (PG) Medicine programmes | - Reporting on barriers to PG application from NRG students; - Delivering a communications plan, workshop series, and mentoring framework for pre-applicants; - Producing recruitment guidance based on inclusive practice; - Designing an inclusive learning & research framework for PG. |
| Prof Roger Kneebone & Dr Giulia Frezza (Dept of Surgery and Cancer) | Serendipity programme | A series of events which encourage serendipitous encounter, aiming to disrupt disciplinary barriers and support creative discussions. |
| Laura Lane, Syeda Razzak & Dr Caroline Hargreaves (Graduate School) | Expand Activate mentoring | Mentoring scheme open to PhD students of Black heritage and to recipients of Presidential Scholarships, aiming to improve student experiences, support career development, and create a sense of belonging. |
| Prof Stephen Curry (Associate Provost EDI) & Communications Division | Shifting The Lens | Celebrating staff and students from minority ethnic backgrounds at Imperial, and exploring how the College can create a more supportive, diverse, and inclusive environment. |
| Susan Littleson (HR) | Behavioural Insights Work | Identifying barriers to the reporting of bullying and harassment and designing and implementing interventions to encourage reporting. |
| Lisa Phillips (ABLE Network) | ABLE: researchers living with disability | TBC |
| Prof Sara Rankin (National Heart & Lung Institute) | Encouraging more Black UK students into postgraduate research in STEM | An award-winning programme of activities aiming to increase the progression of Black students to postgraduate studies, and to increase the sense of belonging of these students at the College. |
| Prof Mary Ryan (Office of the Provost) | Stemettes and Global Challenge Institutes joint event – London Festival | Seven of the College's Global Challenge Institutes worked alongside Stemettes and their partners, translating Imperial’s work into age-appropriate, engaging activities. |
| Dr Mike Tennant (Centre for Environmental Policy; on behalf of Faculty of Natural Sciences) | Non-traditional backgrounds into STEM careers | Enabling people from “non-traditional” backgrounds to participate in STEM careers, by: - Identifying gaps in the College's provision of Widening Participation and EDI initiatives; - Proposing ways of closing the identified gaps. |
| Dr Joseph van Batenburg-Sherwood (Dept of Bioengineering; on behalf of Faculty of Engineering) | Excellence in UK Black Engineering event | Increasing the visibility of Black engineers in UK research institutions, and developing connections within the College. |
| Dr Stephen Webster (Office of the Vice-Provost & Science Communication Unit) | The Good Science Project | Making Research Culture a matter of discussion for all College members, through organising discussion sessions (Friday Forums) and a large conference (Day of Doubt), open to all. |
Year 3: 2023-24
| Lead (Department) | Title | Overview |
|---|---|---|
| Dr Hamid Khan, Wayne Peters, Chris Banks (Library Services) & Dr Jeremy Cohen (Dept of Computing) | Beyond Open Research: Understanding What Matters for Quality and Reliability | Improving quality and reliability through systemic changes to the conduct and communication of research at Imperial. |
| Keith Boland (Research Office) | Research governance interactive toolkit | Development of an interactive institution-based research governance interactive toolkit. |
| Vicky Brightman (Office of the Provost - Public Engagement) | Engaging local underserved young people with research(ers) | Through the Young Producers Programme, local 18-24-year-olds work with an artist and College researchers to create an art-science installation for young people at the Great Exhibition Road Festival. |
| Dr Liz Elvidge (Postdoc and Fellows Development Centre) | PFDC Research Culture projects | - Training in UG/MSc student supervision for postdocs and fellows; - Grief of leaving Academia - development of resources; - European Talent Academy; - Postdoc networking retreat. |
| Dr Liz Elvidge (Postdoc and Fellows Development Centre) & Laura Lane (Graduate School) | Tangible Actions to address bullying and harassment of Early Career Researchers (PhD upwards) | Delivering a "research culture campaign", with the aims of: - Delivering tailored messaging to different groups about their part in creating a healthy research culture, with a focus on combating bullying and harassment; - Improving awareness and visibility of the existing support and resources to help issues around bullying and harassment. |
| Allison Hunter (Office of the Provost) & Teri Barham (POD) | Technicians’ Network - Regional Networking Event | Hosting a large conference as part of the annual Technicians' Festival. |
| Prof Hector Keun & Dr Jeffrey Vernon (on behalf of Faculty of Medicine) | Widening Access to Postgraduate Taught courses at Imperial College | This project aims to: - Define the main determinants of success of an application for PGT course study across all Faculties at Imperial; - Understand how and why staff make the recruitment decisions they do; - Test assumptions about links between applicants’ academic profiles and PGT student outcomes; - Identify additional barriers to entry for PGT study at Imperial from non-Russell group undergraduates. |
| Laura Lane (Graduate School) | Extension of the Activate Mentoring Programme | Mentoring scheme open to Minority Ethnic PhD students, to recipients of Presidential Scholarships, and to disabled PhD students, aiming to improve student experiences, support career development, and create a sense of belonging. |
| Laura Lane (Graduate School) | Developing EDI training for doctoral supervisors | Enhancing support for research supervisors by raising their awareness of the challenges faced by under-represented research students. |
| Dr Wayne Mitchell (on behalf of Imperial as One) | Imperial As One Media Academy | A programme open to Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic staff and postgraduate students at Imperial looking to learn how to increase and widen the impact of their research, translation and teaching through traditional and digital media, and policy engagement. |
| Dr Anna Napolitano (Office of the Provost) | Enhancing the Ethical and Scientific Impact of Research Involving Animals | Professionally generating a website for the 3Rs Hub, with the aim of: - Inspiring scientific excellence through application of 3Rs principles; - Educating future Imperial alumni in the ethical principles of using animals in science; - Promoting the support for animal research amongst external stakeholders. |
| Prof Sara Rankin | The Black Inclusivity Catalyst | An award-winning programme of activities aiming to increase the progression of Black students to postgraduate studies, and to increase the sense of belonging of these students at the College. |
| Anna Shierson (Office of the Provost) | REF data mapping project | Considering the efficiency of data collection in the context of REF (Research Excellence Framework). |
| Dr Stephen Webster (Office of the Vice-Provost & Science Communication Unit) | The Good Science Project | Making Research Culture a matter of discussion for all College members, through organising discussion sessions (Friday Forums) and other activities, open to all. |