Introduction
From Professor Chris Pearce: Vice-Principal (Research and Knowledge Exchange)
The University’s Research Strategy 2020-2025, published in October 2020, set out a blueprint for our values-led approach to research. The strategy was formulated in consultation with colleagues from across the University’s research community during 2019 and early 2020, in the context of a fast-changing research, development and innovation landscape.
Little did we know at the outset of this process that we would finalise and publish our strategy in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic – a crisis that strained our communities and permanently changed our working lives in countless ways. It became evident that to achieve our research ambitions, and to respond to local and global challenges, we needed an adaptive environment that empowered our researchers to generate bold new ideas, think ambitiously, work collaboratively, and develop their skills and careers. As I reflect on the early days of the strategy, and work that has come since then, I firmly believe that our chosen priorities – Collaboration, Creativity, and Careers – have been the correct ones.
Although the start of this strategic cycle was marked by significant disruption, the resilience, commitment and ingenuity of our research community have enabled us to make substantial progress. Our success has come in many forms and is the result of exceptional work by colleagues in Colleges, Schools, Centres and Units, supported by dedicated teams in University Services. For example, we have made significant headway in strengthening our training and development offering through diverse programmes that focus on enhancing and supporting research leadership across all career stages. The reshaping of, and investment in, our Research Services Directorate under five distinct portfolios means we are better equipped to respond to the evolving needs of our researchers, partners and funders. Our physical research environment has been enhanced by the incredible campus developments, not least the opening of the Advanced Research Centre in June 2022. Furthermore, our success in the Research Excellence Framework 2021 exercise has reaffirmed our position as a world-changing university which produces research of global and national importance.
The future will inevitably bring new challenges and opportunities, and it will need all our skills: those of our research staff and students, of our technicians, and of our professional services staff. In order for our research to continue to make a difference to knowledge and to people’s lives, we will keep reinforcing our core research principles: that we succeed as a university when individuals succeed in their careers, that how we do our research is as important what is done, and that we value the quality of what we do over its quantity.
This report offers a snapshot of the initiatives driven by the Research Strategy 2020-2025. It is not meant to be exhaustive – instead, it illustrates the scale and breadth of innovative and impactful activities taking place across the University. I am immensely proud of the progress we have made so far, and I am grateful to our outstanding colleagues who have helped put the strategy into action. With a year remaining in the strategic cycle, our work is not done, but we are on a strong footing to build on our success with confidence and ambition.
