Research Culture – Creating a collegiate approach to internal monitoring and re-thinking ‘failed’ research grants for future success

Prof Emma Loosley Leeming, Professor of Middle Eastern and Caucasian Christianities, Co-DoRI for Classics, Anicient History, Religion and Theology (CAHRT)

Research culture themes: Inclusively working together; Career development and wellbeing   

Please can you summarise what CAHRT is doing to foster a positive and thriving research culture ? 

Due to anxieties around the internal monitoring exercise, it was decided to include all staff in CAHRT from ECRs upwards in reviewing potential REF outputs. The co-DoRIs assigned items submitted for review equally on a pro-rata basis across their discipline colleagues for double-blind marking, with the DoRIs adjudicating in the relatively rare situations where there was a significant difference between the two reports. This proved to make the whole exercise more collegiate and we are considering how to incorporate this process in future alongside bench-marking provided by external advisors. 

We are also trying to foster a cross-disciplinary research community by bringing the research seminars of the two disciplines into the same slot each week (Wednesday morning/lunchtime) and alternating speakers between the two disciplines, with a number of slots each year reserved for speakers whose research spans both the CAH and the RT part of CAHRT (Classics, Ancient History, Religion and Theology). Building on this a conference on Food and Wine is planned for later in the academic year drawing upon the research interests of staff and student across both sides of the department. 

Which activities do you feel have been most successful to date and why? 

A department writing retreat for staff and PGR students was a great success, which we hope to repeat in the future.  

One of the biggest positive responses we have received from colleagues was in relation to a short session as part of a CAHRT research away day where we shared experiences of failure, specifically failure in grant applications. This was a way of demonstrating that even those people who are perceived to be good at grant capture have had to persevere and that colleagues should not throw away unsuccessful bids, but rather refine and re-purpose them as they learn more about why they have been unsuccessful. I shared how it took three attempts to win funding to continue a project that began with an AHRC Networking Grant and, in the end, the project gained as the successful scheme awarded us £100,000 rather than the £50,000 offered by the scheme in the first attempt. 

What tips would you have for other departments seeking to carry out similar initiative(s)? 

It helps sometimes to get away to a different environment and encourage colleagues to share stories of disappointments – we share success stories regularly and this can foster a sense that everyone is doing well and make failure feel quite lonely when, in reality, we have all been there and it is a normal part of academic life. 

Can you provide any examples, evidence or feedback from those who have positively benefitted from any of these activities? 

It has encouraged colleagues to think more creatively with regards to applications and we now have a wider spread of funding bodies being approached – as a department we have had some success across various schemes recently. We are also learning to talk more across disciplines and this means that we are increasingly in demand as partners for larger cross-faculty applications.

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

If you look at our profiles and think that we could help in a new bid come and ask us – you would be surprised how many contemporary issues we are all working on at the moment but our disciplines are often not linked to practical and applied projects – which couldn’t be further from the truth!

Feature image: Bringing a Bronze Age woman back to life, Emily Hauser, Images of Research Competition 2024

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