We need a strategic approach to Research and Innovation.
Both REF (Research Excellence Framework) and KEF (Knowledge Exchange Framework) are set to be the measurement of how the government defines the impact of our public engagement and how it awards funding.
While we are rightly proud of applied research – rooted so directly in real-world challenges in society, creating real impact on people’s lives, communities and on government policy – a strategy for Research and Innovation will set out a clear vision for this area with measurable objectives on what is important for the University.
Since I joined the University in mid-October 2021, I have had the pleasure of working with a wide range of academic and professional service colleagues to develop a new Research and Innovation Strategy for presentation to Academic board in March 2022. The strategy has five goals focussed on People, Postgraduate Researchers, Education & Students, Investment and Impact. I am pleased that we have already made progress on each goal.
People
For our People Goal, we aim to ensure we engage much more strongly with the national Concordat to Support the Career Development of Researchers. We have established a new Researcher Concordat Committee, which held its first meeting in January. Dr Victoria Carpenter the Head of Researcher Development is chair and I am very grateful to Professor Emily Munro, Dr Amanda Egbe, Dr Emma Wilkinson and Dr Sarah Wadd who have kindly volunteered their time to sit on the Committee. This will ensure we improve the support provided for early career researchers and staff on research only contracts.
Postgraduate Research
Our Postgraduate Researcher Goal aims to grow our doctoral community. A piece of very good news is that the university is going to invest £450,000 over three years so support a series of new PhD studentships. More information will follow in the next blog on how we will invest these funds.
Education and Students Goal
Our Education and Students Goal aims to ensure research and innovation play a role in transforming the student experience. We are now recruiting a new Entrepreneurship Officer to the Research and Innovation team to support our student business start-up advice programme, branded as “Be More Entrepreneurial”.
Investment and Impact
The Strategy’s Investment and Impact Goals received an early push forward when we were able to invest £94,000 of Research England funding on research that either addresses policy priorities or enables participatory research. We put out a call across the University for projects and received 27 applications. The projects funded and lead researchers are summarised in Table 1.
Table 1
|
Researchers |
Project title |
|
Sarah Wadd & Maureen Dutton |
Influencing policy makers to class Alcohol dependence as a disability |
|
Emily Munro Angel Chater & Jane Williams |
Actively engaging children and parents in social work decision-making and care planning |
|
Antigonos Sochos |
Transforming Luton-based services for the homeless |
|
Victoria Carpenter |
Creating a mediating discursive framework to enable government agencies and the public to negotiate effectively the disaster recovery period |
|
Fumiyo Nakatsuhara |
Validating a new nation-wide, tablet-delivered speaking test for primary and secondary school students in Uruguay. |
|
Lena Opfermann |
A tale of three cities: Housing activism and urban policy making in London, Berlin and Dublin. |
|
Andy Goodwyn |
Minority ethnic teachers and leaders: Creating space for race in UK schools. |
|
Elsie Whittington |
Involvement of children and young people impacted by child abuse and exploitation in decision-making in research, policy and practice. |
|
Faye Powell & Erica Cook |
Improving the psychological wellbeing of parents who experience a miscarriage. |
The Research and Innovation Service Team is now very much back working on campus and we hope to support more academic staff in achieving their research and innovation plans. I was very pleased to meet the team in person when we held an away day at Putteridge Bury last week to discuss how the team can collectively deliver the new Research and Innovation Strategy.
By telephone
During office hours
(Monday-Friday 08:30-17:00)
+44 (0)1234 400 400
Outside office hours
(Campus Watch)
+44 (0)1582 74 39 89
By Email
admission@beds.ac.uk
(admissions)
international@beds.ac.uk
(international)
erasmus@beds.ac.uk (exchanges)
Online Services
SiD Online (student support)
SiD Online (registration)
By post
University of Bedfordshire
University Square
Luton
Bedfordshire
UK, LU1 3JU