'Academic Spotlight' is a series on our social media channels and website which aims to highlight the achievements of our academic staff by asking them questions about their work.
I work closely with our Research Culture Manager, Andrew Moss, who is based in the Research and Innovation service (RIS). He and I have developed a series of projects which you can find out about here.
We have been re-writing this plan over the summer and we put a new Flourish document on this site soon. We are moving into a new phase with three main themes which will oversee our actions:
Leadership and behaviours: which focusses on embedding positive values and behaviours in our research culture and puts the onus on lead researchers to model those behaviours.
Research practices and structures: which covers research integrity, open scholarship, the need for time and good infrastructure support.
Recognition and development of staff: which ensures all staff are valued and recognised for their contribution and that we have clear sources of information for training and development.
This is a complex question and we in the Research Culture team took quite a bit of time at the start of the programme consulting with staff and postgraduate students at Durham to find out. Key points that people made were that a positive research culture should enable collaboration rather than competition and that this was something that reached across universities. We should be in the business of working together to advance knowledge. It will not surprise readers to know that another major issue was time. Research time needs to be chunky – we can’t write research grants or papers in the odd hour here and there. Colleagues were also keen to ensure that getting research done was easier administratively. One colleague said it should be like ‘running down hill’. A final major issue was behaviour. Good research culture means that people respect and value each other, no matter what grade or staff category you are in: academic, professional or technical. We have policies and statements about how we all work together but people are not always seeing good behaviour in their working lives.
There was a lot more. Research culture is a bit all-encompassing but we in the Research Culture team have to prioritise actions and try to ensure that we make a difference.
I’ll mention two key projects we are busy with right now but there are many more!
The Reimagining Governance Project
This is a Welcome funded project that seeks to understand whether our research governance structures support positive research culture or not. We are trying to understand whether these structures help staff and postgraduates at Durham feel enabled, engaged and involved in decision making about research. There are two major strands to the project. Strand 1 is an ethnography of research governance structures in departments and university research institutes. Strand 2 is an intervention: we are organising Shadow Committees comprised of a very diverse set of staff and students that will shadow three major research committees to provide an alternative views on how established committees work. We don’t know what the outcome will be but the use of shadow committees in the private sector has led to greater diversity in decision making and more innovative ideas being adopted so we hope the same will happen here!
A new strategy for Technical Staff
Andrew, myself and our colleague Dr Beth Upex, who is Director for Technical Skills at Durham, have compiled a new strategy for technical staff which we are beginning to implement. At the core of this strategy is fairer treatment of our technical colleagues, including better representation on committees, greater visibility and opportunities for progression. This is at an early stage but we are beginning to make a difference for these staff.
A more positive research culture benefits us all not least for students who I hope will find that their teachers will be more fulfilled and happier in their working lives. Our focus on improving behaviour across staff-student hierarchies will be important for students. Students have been central to important institutional cultural initiatives across Durham such as the First Generation Scholars groups and decolonising work especially in departments. Our students have an important part to play in the overarching culture within which research can flourish
Getting involved in first generation and decolonising work is really crucial and Andrew and I would like to hear more about what students are doing. We also have a student intern programme for undergraduates to get involved in our programmes of work. We have appointed our interns for this academic year but there will be places available next year – keep your eyes peeled!
To learn more about Flourish@Durham, click here.
/prod01/prodbucket01/media/durham-university/departments-/anthropology/Home_Page_Banner_Skeleton.jpg)