Research Ethics: a Brief History

I'm so, so sorry about this.

Giving appropriate and thorough consideration to the ethical implications of your research is now an essential part of the process of developing projects and applying for grants.

However, how did we get here? How did we arrive at this comprehensive framework of scrutiny? The Research Ethics and Governance Officer at Kent, Nicole Palmer, has been working in the area for almost a decade now, and offered up this broad overview of key points in the progress to the present. It's not comprehensive, but does provide an indication of both the historic moments since the war that triggered action, and the legislation, policy and guidelines that have resulted.

For more detail of a range of professional ethics codes, have a look at this list compiled by the Research Ethics Handbook. For staff at the University of Kent who wish to talk through their research and the issues involved, drop Nicole a line.

CSR: Main Points for Research & Innovation

CSR: How do things look for R&I?

George Osborne announced the government’s plans for spending over the next five years in today’s Comprehensive Spending Review (CSR). Whilst these are still to be confirmed via Hansard, my colleague Jill Hurst made a note of the main points relating to research and innovation spending. Thanks to Jill for making these notes, but do please treat with caution until formally verified.

The overall theme was ‘Reform and Rebuild’, and four main areas were identified:

Internal Funding for Research

The Pro-Vice-Chancellor Research & Innovation is currently consulting staff on the draft Research and Innovation Strategy. In supporting the aims of the Strategy he has four internal funding schemes to help academics develop networks, prepare large and complex grant applications, engage the public with their research and meet the costs of gold Open Access publishing.

An overview of the schemes is given below, with links for more information. If you have any questions about these schemes don't hesitate to get in touch.

Seven Brains, One Body

The Nurse Review presented its report yesterday, and a key recommendation was the creation of  'Research UK', which would have overall responsibility for the Research Councils. One way the new structure could be described was 'seven brains, one body,' Sir Paul said.

Now read on.
__________

Scene 1: A laboratory in a castle. A storm is blowing outside. Lightning flashes and lights up a crazy-haired scientist at work, making adjustments to a large, complicated and antiquated piece of machinery. In front of him is a corpse clearly pieced together with rudimentary stitching. 

Sir Paul Frankenstein (for it is he): Ah-ha! Finally my dream is about to be realised! They said I couldn't do it but they were wrong! I have created the Single Accounting Officer! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!

Tips on Using Twitter in Academia

Dr Rebekah Higgitt

Yesterday I took part in a presentation with Rebekah Higgitt on 'using social media to promote your research'. I gave an overview, and touched on some of the issues I'd picked up from Nadine Muller and Andy Miah. Rebekah followed up by focussing on Twitter, and I thought it would be worth noting some of the points she made as a long term user.

Hard Lessons in the Digital Humanities

Eric Poehler at Kent last week

Digital humanities. Most of us have heard the term, but very few are aware of what it actually means or how it's created. A bit like spreadable butter or that milk they sell in opaque white cartons that stays fresh for decades. It's familiar, but at the same time not.

Luckily, the digital humanities pioneer, Eric Poehler of the University of Massachusetts Amherst, came to the University last week to talk about some of the 'hard lessons' in the fledgling discipline. Even before he got on to the lessons themselves, he was having to try and nail down the term. 'Is it singular or plural?' he asked. 'Should we use it to describe a mindset or methodology, or to label any humanities endeavour that uses technology?' As ever with DH, the answer was not straightforward, and emerged during the course of his talk.

Government Follows up REF and TEF with AEF and FTEF

Jo 'Edmund' Johnson: Sleep Excellence Framework 'to follow'

Following news of the new Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF), the Government has announced that it intends to introduce an Administration Excellence Framework (AEF) and a Free Time Excellence Framework (FTEF).

'Research and Teaching are only a part of an academic's life' explained Jo 'Edmund' Johnson, Minister of State for Universities, Science and Excessive Assessment. 'We want to get a full understanding, and star rating, for absolutely every single part of it: every moment of every day.'

Early Career Researcher Network: 2015-16 Programme Announced

Making links, forming networks

The ECR Network exists to offer mutual support to academics at the beginning of their careers. The sessions below will run in the Spring Term, and complement the Grants Factory workshops and Graduate School research development training programme. There will also be an opportunity to meet others informally and share the highs and lows of getting started in academia; more details on this soon.

I’ll send more detail about these events closer to the time, but do make a note in your diary if you plan to come along. To whet your appetite I've included links below to notes I took when any of these sessions have been run previously. 

The Rise of the Para-Academic

David Mills and a room of para-academics

The annual conference of the Association of Research Managers and Administrators took place in Brighton at the beginning of June. The event, and the association itself, has mushroomed in recent years. I’ve written before about this exponential growth. At the turn of the millennium ARMA’s forerunner, RAGnet, had 350 members; fifteen years later the Brighton conference, which was attended by only a fraction of ARMA's membership, had 750 delegates.

Part of me is proud of this, and part of me is shocked. Who are all these people? Seeing the delegate list was a moment of existential angst. Why do we exist? Who are we? What are we? The sociologist Laurie Taylor recently wrote in the Times Higher Education about this new ‘tribe’: "Managers and administrators who once had a mute background presence are now a noisy part of the daily life of every scholar. Their ranks continue to swell even though the UK is already one of the very few countries in the world where non-academic staff already outnumber academics."