Stepping into the unknown at The Unnamed Research Culture Event

Jennie Hibbard, Technician Lead for the Technician Commitment and Lead Technician in the School of Biology, blogs about her participation at The Unnamed Research Culture Event.

I was recently invited to participate in an unnamed event (which now has the acronym TURCE — The Unnamed Research Culture Event).

It was described as a 2-day task focused event that asked the question “Do we need, and could we create, an ‘entity’ that empowers people to foster a healthy, positive research culture by promoting collaboration, equity and fairness?”.

Being a naturally curious individual, I signed up to this unnamed event with no expectations about what it would involve.

The event was hosted and coordinated by Emma Spary, Samantha Aspinall and Katie Jones on behalf of the Research Culture Community at the University.

I was part of a panel of ‘Provocation Speakers’ and gave a brief talk about my drivers for our work on the Technician Commitment and some of the challenges we had faced.

For anyone who knows me, you will know that I can happily talk about technicians for an unlimited period of time – trying to capture what I wanted to say in 10 minutes, was slightly trickier.

I agreed to talk, not quite appreciating the scale and reach of the event.

The other speakers were:
•   Prof. Yoselin Benitez Alfonso – founder of the Black in Plant Science network, School of Biology, Faculty of Biological Sciences
•   Dr. Nik Ogryzko – Senior Talent Programme Manager, UKRI talent team
•   Dr. Kay Guccione – Head of Research Culture and Researcher Development, University of Glasgow

We all spoke in our own capacity, from personal experience (not on behalf of our institutions). I shared how in 2014 we were a dispersed community with no means of communication, until Sarah Myers formed the Technicians Network and started the ball rolling to become a signatory to the Technician Commitment.

I talked about some of the challenges and barriers we had faced, and how we were able to overcome some of these, and concluded with where we are now.

The knowledge we have of our Technical Community, as a result of so many technicians engaging with our survey last year, and all of the other networking activity and knowledge exchange that they support, has been a huge leap forward.

Building our research culture

Most of the two days was spent in small groups discussing what sort of entity could support Research Culture and give us a mechanism to call out poor behaviour.

The people present both in-person and virtually were representatives from all areas of the research community from research institutions and supporting bodies across the country.

We also thought about who was not in the room (physically and virtually), and not being represented.

As a member of a community that has historically been unseen, this aspect was really important to me.

Findings

Following the event, the research culture team captured thoughts from 77 event participants. Full findings can be found on the Research Culture website but below is a brief summary:

•   Research cultures are built on collaboration rather than competition.
•   Existing networks are crucial to continue the conversation, engagement and collaboration but these are often targeted at specific groups or roles.
•   Values and behaviours are core to a strong healthy research culture.
•   We need a movement rather than the creation of another network.
•   A unified vision or mission statement could help us to identify problems and be a catalyst for change.
•   We cannot overcomplicate what we create, it must be clear and concise with accessible language if we want to build engagement and understanding.
•   There is an appetite to continue this work, possibly through the creation of an advisory group complemented by working or action groups.
•   We could create a repository pulling together existing tools guides and case studies but this would take additional resource and time.
•   A mission statement needs to be built around core components or pillars.
•   We will need to clearly articulate the benefits that a manifesto or mission statement would provide for individuals.