Research Culture – Assessing Research and Researchers Responsibly

Professor Rob Anderson, Chair of the Responsible Metrics Champions Group

Key research culture themes: Assessment and Recognition; Responsible Research 

1) Please can you explain what responsible metrics are and how this topic relates to research culture?

Responsible metrics – and responsible research assessment more broadly – are about making sure our research is assessed in a fair way. It is about ensuring expert judgement is used, rather than proxy indicators – which were often developed for another purpose or only give a very limited perspective – with a view to levelling the playing field, so all quality research, delivered in various outputs, is valued.

Repsonsible metrics forms a core part of research culture as staff promotion, funding and employment decisions based on narrow or inappropriate measures can make or break research careers. 

2) Which elements of responsible metrics/responsible research assessment most relate to research culture and how? 

These topics are intrinsically intertwined with Open Research, Research Integrity and Equality, Diversity and Inclusivity (EDI). For example, Open Research enables greater transparency and reproducibility of research in various outputs, providing reviewers of research with more information to understand its value; research integrity encourages openness, accountability, fairness throughout the research process; whilst EDI is about ensuring research talent shines regardless of historic biases – biases which also prevail through some of the ‘go to’ traditional metrics or signalers of quality, such as the h-index or certain journal titles. 

3) How does responsible metrics help to create a more positive research culture? 

Expert judgement should be the primary form of assessment as opposed to numerical indicators, such as the number citations a publication has, for example. If research colleagues feel their research is understood and valued, there is a halo effect created – from improving openness, collegiality and collaboration – to retaining the best staff. At the same time, it fosters a more diverse and multi-dimensional understanding of research quality and impacts. In short, it helps create a research environment where everyone feels valued. 

4) Can you provide any examples, evidence or feedback from those who have positively benefitted from responsible metrics? 

The Responsible Metrics Champions group tend to focus on what we can do to shift culture and practice in a more positive direction, so we don’t have concrete examples of good practice, but we’ve love some positive quotes about how others feel their research was judged in a responsible way to demonstrate why this is so important! Please do contact us if you can provide this.

We are considering, influencing and communicating current policy and practice, particularly surrounding recruitment and promotion, to help educate everyone as the commitment we all have as a signatory to the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment.  For example, we have produced a Reviewers Guide (see further information and guidance section) to help ensure that those involved in promoting and recruiting are using the most appropriate information on which to base decisions. 

We are also encouraging colleagues to report any instances where they feel metrics have been used irresponsibly, so we can consider processes – and escalate where necessary – an appropriate response.  

5) How can colleagues play their part / where can people find out more?  

The Responsible Metrics Champions Group reports to the Research and Impact Executive Committee and meet roughly every other month to discuss topics related to responsible metrics and how we can ensure we shift our culture in this direction. Champions then help promote and communicate the responsible use of metrics within their own departments to help change our culture. We are a friendly informal group who welcome new members – from PGRs to experienced researchers – so please drop us a line below if interested or if you have any questions. 

We’ve produced a webpage where you can understand more about responsible metrics through our animations. We have also started to run workshops which are open to both research staff and PGRs. 

For more information please contact: