Keele Research Strategy Refresh
Research is central to Keele’s mission. Our research performance, as exemplified in our world-leading Primary care Research, is a key contributor to our reputation and remains at the heart of our future plans. Our ambition is to continue to deliver, and expand the range of world leading, innovative interdisciplinary research that transforms understanding and brings real world benefit to society, communities and individuals.
Our research reputation is built upon our disciplinary strengths, which span the arts & humanities, social sciences, natural sciences, health and care. These are strengths in which we will continue to invest and build. Beyond this, and a key feature of Keele’s research, is our significant and distinctive reputation for interdisciplinary research as showcased through our flagship University Research Institutes.
Keele’s research mission is reinforced by a reputation for high-quality research-led teaching. Keele’s distinctive contribution to the UK and international higher education landscape is as a leading research University, which also offers high-quality education and training of future researchers, generating high-levels of student satisfaction and employability.
Delivering the Research Strategy successfully will mean continuing to improve research performance across the whole University. This is vital to our wider mission and ambition to attract leading researchers at all career levels and high-quality student applicants; and, thereby, increasing our impact and reputation nationally and internationally. The success of the strategy will depend on the continued strong performance and commitment of Keele’s researchers. These expectations are encapsulated in the University’s Academic Role Expectations.
The Research Strategy is built on seven focal pillars:
Strategic Pillars
- Research Excellence: We will conduct research of the highest quality that has the potentialto be world leading and transformational
- Innovation: We will place innovation at the heart of what we do, maximising the economic,and societal benefits of our research
- Collaboration & Partnership: We will build and maintain strong and sustainablepartnerships with collaborators from academia, business, industry, healthcare, the cultural,civic, public and third sectors; this will be supported by our commitment to publicinvolvement in and engagement with research
- Excellence with Impact: We will ensure our research has an impact beyond academiathrough effective collaboration, co-production, partnership working and knowledgeexchange
- Reach and Significance: We will develop, deliver, disseminate and support implementation of our high quality research, ensuring impact at local, national and global scale
- Integrity: We will continue to embed a culture of research integrity, with robust governance processes to ensure the standards of the UK Concordat to Support Research Integrity are not only met but exceeded
- Inclusion: We will maintain our strong institutional commitment to inclusion, continually promoting equality and diversity among our students and staff across all career stages
Objectives
How we will achieve our strategy
In order to realise the place of research in an ambitious institutional mission, all research leaders will work closely with key strategic drivers: in particular, the FSP, OneKeele, the programme for curriculum reform, as well as well as key institutional delivery vehicles such as the Keele Doctoral Academy, the Institute of Liberal Arts & Sciences, the Keele Institute for Innovation & Teaching Excellence and the emerging Digital Strategy. Investment in high-quality research careers will be achieved through reformed Faculty and School planning processes, as well as by the Vitae Researcher Career Development framework. In parallel we will develop our Integrity agenda through continued investment in leadership and network building, as well as continuing national engagement with the UK Reproducibility Network. Equality and diversity will be central to the entire mission through the People Strategy, Athena Swan and REC.
Our focus on research excellence will continue to be overseen by the rolling Research Excellence audit that has been in place since 2017, including the audit and management of impact. At the same time, we will foster an effective culture of impact and equitable engagement through, for example, the annual Impact Festival and the continuing embedding of engaged research. Innovation will be supported by the research development functions of RaISE. The Partnership Team in RIE will continue to develop high-value partnerships as exemplified in our civic beacon Keele Deals.
University Research Committee will continue to play a coordinating and overseeing role in relation both to performance and delivery as it has done since 2018. Faculties will develop localised versions of the overarching strategy. Performance will be overseen by a variety of connected mechanisms including the dashboards developed by RIE, and the profiles for individual researchers. These will inform the horizon scanning and planning of Faculties, Schools, and the ID institutes – as exemplified in the planning and monitoring of GCRF. Communication and development frameworks, already in place, will be further developed, linking Faculty Deans for Research, Institute Directors, PVC R&E, who collectively will develop a shared sense of mission through the Research Leaders’ Network.
Click here to download the full Research Strategy
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