Designing UK’s Good Practice Exchange for research culture

What is the issue?

Existing initiatives to improve research culture in the UK are diverse, characterised by differing motivations, priorities and expectations. To bridge the gap between discrete initiatives and promote wider knowledge sharing for research culture, the UK government’s R&D People and Culture Strategy proposed the creation of a Good Practice Exchange (GPEx). Policy and research developments since then have strengthened the potential value of GPEx as a platform to connect and consolidate research culture activities for the benefit of researchers and society.

Engagement activities with the research and innovation (R&I) community in 2022 and 2023 helped to define its broader scope and goals. The three core objectives of GPEx are to:

1. Build networks and collaboration among stakeholders
2. Support more and better evaluation of research culture initiatives
3. Strengthen strategic leadership across the research sector.

In its current form, the creation of GPEx requires a delivery model that will contribute to existing initiatives, encourage new collaborations on research culture and bring together people from across the full breadth of UK R&I disciplines and sectors.

How are we helping?

UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) has commissioned a consortium of RAND Europe, CultureBase, Vitae and UK Reproducibility Network to co-design a delivery model for GPEx with R&I sectors. Through an extensive engagement programme planned over this year, the project will bring together diverse R&I stakeholders to iteratively develop the sector’s expectations from and priorities for the exchange. In particular, we aim to develop a set of desired outcomes, impacts and activities that a future GPEx for research culture should seek to deliver. In addition, the project will also determine crucial parameters for operationalising the exchange, such as identifying its resourcing needs, proposing costing models and developing a theory of change.

The project will employ various pathways such as interviews, focus groups, survey and wider consultation to invite R&I stakeholders’ inputs in the design of GPEx.

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External collaborators

CultureBase Consulting
CRAC-Vitae
UK Reproducibility Network (UKRN)