Nurse Review of Research Councils
From BioImagingUKWiki
Contents |
Background
The full Call for Evidence (PDF) outlines the goal of this consultation. Various entities have been asked to respond, including BioImagingUK.
Q1 Strategic decision making
Views are invited on how funding decisions are made; how society and government can engage with science funding decisions; how good decision making can be encouraged at different levels; and how Research Councils can make the best decisions to ensure research drives economic growth and promotes health, quality of life and environmental sustainability.
Answer:
RCUK-funded research continues to deliver world-class outputs— high-impact publications and demonstrable societal and economic impacts. These outputs are final, individual measures of a much larger ecosystem of funders, universities, institutes, industrial entities, scientists, students, and publishers.
There is a natural and understandable desire to maximise the efficiency and impact of all activities of the scientific enterprise for the good of the society. Regarding RCUK's activities it is worth defining the methods for making the best decisions that will have the largest impact. Currently this goal is achieved using two devices:
- a full range of consultations, advisory boards and other community sampling is used by all RCs to identify strategic priorities and opportunities. For example, the BioImagingUK Network uses a "bottom-up", community-based approach to define strategic priorities for biological and medical imaging in the UK. We gather ideas and feedback from our community of scientists, coalesce them into documents (like this one) and publish them on a public wiki. In addition, many of BioImagingUK’s participants actively participate on advisory and/or review panels for BBSRC, MRC and EPSRC.
- Competitive peer-review of all research proposals and all other funding requests is used to deliver the quality and output achieved by the UK scientific enterprise to date.
In BioImagingUK’s experience, engagement with RCs has worked especially well. By collecting community feedback and strategic priorities and presenting them in a coherent voice, we have found BBSRC, MRC and EPSRC especially willing to listen to and engage with community defined priorities.
From BioImagingUK’s perspective, the decision making processes in RCUK can be largely be described as “ain’t broke”, and is thus not in need of “fixing”. More generously, the willingness of the RCs to engage with and support BioImagingUK is great example of functioning, positive decision-making process.
However, a fundamental question that the whole UK scientific community needs to consider is correct place for the priority on social and economic impact in the full portfolio of UK science. Currently, every individual RCUK grant must justify itself within this context at peer and panel review and these statements are used for defining funding priority. The portfolio of UK science must deliver social and economic impact, but requiring every individual project to meet this requirement risks depleting the repertoire of basic, question-driven exploration that delivers discoveries that are the foundation of more applied and directed work. There is not a known, fixed, proportion of basic, question-driven science that provides a sufficient number discoveries to fuel the UK's social and economic needs. However, proposals could use an alternate designation-- "this is basic research"-- to identify themselves and if held up to the normal, correct requirement for scientific excellence, this class of work might successfully be funded.
Q2: Collaborations and partnerships
Views are invited on the effectiveness of the Research Councils’ interactions with each other and with external organisations, as well as the Research Councils’ role in supporting collaborations and partnerships between institutions and between disciplines, and the links between Research Council funded activities and other academic, industrial, European and global R&D activities.
Q3: Balance of the funding portfolio
Views are invited on the Research Councils’ role in delivering an appropriately balanced portfolio of investments in science in the UK, taking into account factors such as government priorities/grand challenges, discovery and applied research, and geographical distribution.
Q4: Effective ways of working
Views are invited on how the Research Councils can operate most effectively within the wider science and innovation system, recognising what works well and identifying opportunities for improvements. You may wish to consider issues such as the strategic leadership provided by the Research Councils, how Research Councils engage with their communities, and the operation of the peer review system.
Please do read the full Consultation doc for more details. Emails to the BioImagingUK Mailing list to participate. Draft answers will appear here, using the same format and process used for 2014 BIS Consultation.
