In defence of indicators for Research Culture

UK politics are never boring - not even when it comes to research policy (which - let’s face it - can appear quite sedate for non-research-geeks).
In this episode, we explore the recent spat after UKRI announced that in the next REF - Research Culture would count for 25% of an institution's score which was closely followed by a tender to develop indicators to help them measure culture.
That didn’t go down well with a lot of universities, and on top of all that, UKRI dissolved their EDI committee based on governmental critique. That didn’t go down well with the research community.
But we liked the idea - so we decided to do an episode on why indicators in research culture are a good idea - and particularly why we should have indicators on EDI topics - and what they could look like. Unsurprisingly, we think universities should be held accountable in this field.
We also go into some of the concerns about indicators - and address the questions and comments we had on LinkedIn for this episode.
Finally, we argue that this is not just a UK thing. The term “research culture” is travelling to other countries, so we should all be aware of the possibilities and challenges - and have indicators on the topic.

In our conversation, we reference:
Two blogposts by Lizzie Gadd, Stephen Curry and James Wilsdon:
https://www.researchprofessional.com/0/rr/news/political-science-blog/2023/6/A-clap-for-the-Frap.html
https://www.researchprofessional.com/0/rr/news/political-science-blog/2023/10/Plans-for-REF-2028-should-be-debated--not-throttled.html

Articles by Research Professional (Paywall):
https://www.researchprofessional.com/0/rr/news/uk/research-councils/2023/6/REF-2028-changes-send--strong-message--on-equality.html
https://www.researchprofessional.com/0/rr/news/uk/research-councils/2023/10/Concerns-grow-in-universities-over-REF-research-culture-metrics.html

Article by Erin Cech:
https://www.science.org/doi/full/10.1126/sciadv.abo1558

The INORMS More Than Our Ranks initiative:
https://figshare.com/articles/poster/_b_NWB2023_More_Than_Our_Rank_a_preliminary_analysis_of_signatories_narratives_b_/24278587

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