Simon Baker: 00:08
Hello, this is Team Science, a podcast brought to you by Nature Careers, in partnership with Nature Index. I’m Simon Baker, chief editor at Nature Index, which tracks research articles in leading science journals.
In this series, we explore behind the scenes of academia, and speak to the people who make it all possible, but do not necessarily get the credit.
This series is sponsored by Western Sydney University. And at the end of this episode, we’ll hear about how it is helping to champion team science.
In episode one, we enter the realm of research managers and administrators, and discover a fascinating survey that exposes a them and us culture in UK science.
Lorna Wilson: 00:55
So hi, my name is Lorna Wilson, and I'm Director of Research Development and Operations at Durham University. And I’m also chair-elect of the Association for Research managers and Administrators, which is ARMA.
ARMA is the professional association for colleagues that work in a variety of different organizations supporting the amazing research that happens.
And we are made up of research leaders, managers, administrators. Our roles all have very different and diverse titles. And you can also find us in a lot of different types of organizations.
So the vast majority of our members are in universities. But we also have members who work in independent research organizations, who work for research funders, who run their own consultancies. It’s really, really different.
And then even if we are all part of the same institution, or we do similar roles, the diversity of what we do is quite significant depending on the type of institution.
So if you just take a university, for example, you could have everything from quite a research-intensive Russell Group university with huge numbers of professional colleagues that support research. Right through to smaller, more specialist organizations where only maybe a very small number of people, or even one person is responsible for the research management within that institution.
So we have over 3000 members as part of ARMA. We span the UK. And we're actually part of a really large global network of professional associations that research managers are part of.
We have a whole host of different activities that we do. But ultimately, our purpose is all about driving professional recognition for research management, whilst also looking to influence development of what goes on in UK research policy, and supporting just a really vibrant and inclusive community of RMA professionals.
Ultimately, working as a research manager is all about being able to work with people. So you have to be able to build relationships, no matter what type of research role you’re in. You need to be able to work with colleagues, whether you’re in a post-award role where you are supporting an academic colleague with the delivery of their grants, or you’re working to support impact case studies as part of the REF exercise in terms of research assessment.
You have to be able to build relationships with people. And I think more and more, it’s becoming increasingly important, not just how you do that within your own organization, but particularly outside your organization.
So a lot of research projects we see are very collaborative. So you will have a number of different partners you need to work with, whether that’s universities, the funders themselves, or with non-academic partners, whether it’s industry, charity partners, etc.
So you really need to be able to build relationships. Diplomacy is absolutely everything. So we sometimes have a joke that some of us could go and work in the UN, given some of the diplomacy skills that we need in order to navigate some of our roles.
And that, you know, that matters, whether you’re in a leadership role, or in a more junior role. And it's really, really important.
I’m always slightly hesitant to use the word resilience because it is thrown about the place. But resilience is absolutely key to how we’re able to do our jobs well, mainly because we are so at the mercy of the external environment that we find ourselves.
We can wake up tomorrow and find out that the government’s decided to introduce a new policy that requires the university to really quickly respond to that and ensure that our academic colleagues are supported. Or if you’re working in a funder, that you’re, you know, calls, or you’ve got the policies in place yourself to respond to it.
And I think being resilient allows you to adapt to those, and also to what is quite a difficult environment. You know, it’s very competitive at times.
A lot, you know, when you’re bidding for funding, success rates are going down. And as much as academic colleagues feel that colleagues that work to support those also feel that as well because we make such big contributions onto those projects.
So I think those are the key skills, being able to work with people, diplomacy and resilience are ultimately what kind of, I think, allows us to do our jobs well.
And if I’m allowed to chuck one in there, that’s kind of the overarching consistent skill. I think most research, if not all research managers have, is passion to support the research in the first place.
That's why a lot of us are in these jobs. We have such transferable skillsets that we could do a number of different things, but it's the passion to support research that is taking place in the landscape that keeps us where we are. And therefore, I think it is fundamental to being able to do our roles.
Hilary Noone: 05:24
My name is Hilary Noone, I am ARMA’s research culture lead. I volunteer in this role. And I oversaw the ARMA research culture survey that was conducted in 2020.
This was inspired by the Wellcome Trust Reimagining Research Culture survey, which captured a lot of the research communities’ experience of the culture in which they were working.
And it was really about giving a voice and visibility to a lot of the experiences of research managers and administrators that often, like, shape and create the policies that would inform a particular research culture.
But really, there’s been so far, like hidden voices in the system. And this is about giving that visibility, and to be able to try and explore what ARMA could do, but also what the sector could do in terms of highlighting their skills and experience, and contributions to research and innovation culture.
So the survey overall had about 300 respondents. We had about 170 ARMA members, and a lot of them were based in higher education. And a lot of them had been in their roles for quite a long time.
So we were missing the early career voices in that. But they covered a whole range of roles, from finance, to library staff, to project management, governance and ethics.
And it really did highlight some of the experiences that people are having around the system, and also their aspirations for helping it change.
Hilary Noone: 07:24
So part of it was about, you know, a collective effort from the community, to really raise these voices.
And what was actually found in a lot of it was that there was people feeling that their skills and their experiences were under-appreciated, that they, there was a view in some areas that there was a “them versus us” between administrators or academics or these different roles that occupy, you know, higher education systems.
But largely that there was this view that some of the things that were being put in place might have been seen as bureaucratic or was that, you know, they didn't actually feel like they were being valued by their institutions.
But there was a lot of, like, positive comments that came out of it, where people were saying they felt, you know, valued by their local teams, which included academic and research managers and administrators.
But that maybe at an institutional level that they weren't actually seen as having anything to contribute, or that they were seen as not having something to contribute, because their role wouldn't be something you would put on a publication to acknowledge their contribution.
So there was quite interesting findings. But the biggest thing, I think for me wasn't necessarily the “them versus us.” Because I think sometimes that’s a narrative that is convenient, and is often maybe perpetuated by an archaic system, and a lot locally. And my own personal experience, as well is a lot of academics or researchers or technicians, nobody actually behaves that way, and often raises an eyebrow if someone says, “Oh, just get the admin to do it.” They go, “What?”
But really, what was came out of it was the shared experiences. So people who were both in the Wellcome Trust survey and in the ARMA culture survey, were having shared experiences of feeling absolutely burned out, under appreciated, and having experiences of bullying and harassment, and they all wanted to try and make that change.
So the obvious next step was about, you know, how do we address this? That if people are all having the same experience, shouldn’t those same people be part of the shared solution?
And so that then gave ARMA a springboard to be able to be active in this space and empower people to have a voice and an opinion on it.
Lorna Wilson: 10:03
Research culture has really gained momentum in recent years in the sector, which is an incredibly positive thing.
Some people will say it’s been around for a long time. And actually, when you see individual academic members of staff, or research groups or centres, who have a really positive culture, yes, they’ve, they’ve usually been driving that since the beginning of their careers, because that’s something that’s been a priority for them.
But when we’re talking about mainstream spotlighting of issues, research culture has really come into the spotlight in recent years, sadly, for the wrong reasons. You know, with a growing number of very high profile bullying and harassment cases, you know, research misconduct cases, things that we should be really concerned about.
And what is really difficult about research culture is there are harder ends of the spectrum than others. So you have those high-profile cases. But you also have a lot of social and kind of softer, I'm gonna call it softer behaviours, even though there’s not really a lot of soft about it, that go, really unmissed, which contribute to a more negative research culture for all of us.
And although there was a lot happening in the sector in terms of various surveys, so the Wellcome Trust led a latest survey on it, UKRI as a big funder were starting to look at it, the voice of research managers, you know, when widely unheard. We are contributing to those surveys, but we have a particular role to play in supporting and driving a positive research culture.
But if we are also not part of those discussions, you cannot possibly call it a positive research culture, because we are part of the research ecosystem, just like a number of other colleagues that aren't technically in research positions themselves. So that was when ARMA thought there was a real need for this.
And you know, Hillary’s passion and interest in this area, was great to have it drive driven forward, she had a lot of connections, and had a great understanding of what was already out there.
But I think what was so good about this survey was it allowed us to ask specific questions of the research management community to get an insight into that.
And there were a number of key issues that were highlighted. But the really big one was that ultimately, we have a huge challenge in research management where there is not parity of esteem between research managers and academic colleagues. And there's this real kind of them and us culture is how it’s phrased, where the contributions of research managers often go, they are invisible, or they’re not recognized.
And that’s disappointing, and it’s hard to having quite a negative impact on colleagues. So the survey offers a really key insight into some of the challenges that are being faced and also helps to make some recommendations in terms of what we can do to try and address that.
Hilary Noone: 12:45
So I was and wasn’t surprised by some of the findings, because I have worked as a research manager and administrator myself for a good 15 years.
I've worked in lots of different teams and communities and disciplines and different types of research organizations.
And so I could see a lot of the experiences that people were talking about that were highlighted in the survey. And I could see the negatives and the positives, and I’ve had them experiences myself.
So the, you know, the experience of sitting in a room and been told, “Just get the admin to do it, or the admin services, that’s what they’re there for, to serve you.”
When, you know, your academic colleagues are sitting there feeling quite uncomfortable. But nobody feels able to challenge that narrative at the time, because of potential repercussions and so on.
But also in terms of the you know, the fact that some people had very positive experiences, and I myself did. And a lot of the work that I do around research and innovation culture, and inspired by this ARMA research culture work, is actually by chatting to academic colleagues over the years.
So because you’re not sitting on like, say their promotion panels or recruitment panels, they often share with you their, like, highest aspirations and their deepest fears.
And so you can have very, very honest conversations and exchange really great ideas and, and collaborate on a number of things. And they often sometimes then can help you advocate for you in certain areas.
So if you're raising a question in a meeting or a particular point, they will reinforce that for you so that, you know, the person with the credibility or the qualification or whatever, is deemed to be the person passing on the information. And this is something I think maybe I’m used to because of you know, being female, you're often not heard in these spaces.
But there were other findings in it, that you know that…everybody afraid of raising issues around bullying and harassment because of the repercussions, that that seemed to be quite a very large issue that was shared both across the Wellcome Trust and the ARMA survey.
And that indicates, as a sector, we need to do something about that, because of the repercussions on individual’s health and well being. As well as the you know, outputs and productivity, it can have have quite serious consequences.
Lorna Wilson: 15:32
The findings of the survey really rang true with myself. And I think over my career, I felt it more acutely at certain times than others, usually, depending on who I'm working with at the time, but also, you know, the seniority of my position, which is something you know, we get a lot of feedback from colleagues is particularly in more junior positions, that they are more prone, you know, not to be listened to, where their expertise isn’t valued.
I think the real kind of first instance that I specifically felt it was when, several years ago when I was a funding manager, and we were having a meeting with a number of colleagues from different universities, to talk about a big collaborative project that we were going to be doing together.
And we all went into the room to sit around the table. I was the only professional service colleague in the room, and I was also the only women in the room at the time.
And we started off with introductions where the colleague chairing the meeting kicked things off, we went round the table. And the colleague sitting to the right of me was a very lovely smiley professor from Brighton who introduced himself. He turned around to smile at me. And before I could open my mouth to introduce myself, the colleague to my left introduced himself. Obviously, feeling at the time, that I don’t know, that I was there to take the notes that I shouldn’t be introducing myself because I wasn't an academic colleague.
And he worked with me, he was from my own institution. And it was the first time that something so overtly had happened to me in that instance, and I felt awful. I’m not an entirely shy person, but I felt like I couldn't say anything, I felt embarrassed, because then I thought, “Well, maybe I shouldn’t be here.”
And at the time, the chair of the meeting stopped the colleague and came back to me to introduce myself.
But it was a really disappointing moment for me, because up until that point, particularly in my development role, I loved working with my academic colleagues. I had felt valued up until that point, and then then I experienced that. And it was disappointing for, you know, as I've said, and it really had an impact on me.
And from that point forward, I could then say, you know, there were several examples throughout the years where I could feel that.
And it's disappointing, because no matter what sector you work in, you should recognize the contribution of the people that you work with. And I think to feel that somebody’s sitting at that table isn’t valued or recognized enough to even basically introduce themselves, I just felt devastated.
And I think for a number of reasons I did feel it was particularly because I’m a professional service colleague, and this was an academic colleague, but also I felt it because of my gender as well.
I did, I did think, that if I'd been a male colleague probably would have been allowed, allowed as I say, to introduce myself. And I was very grateful for the chair stepping out. And because I wasn’t gonna be able to intervene myself. I felt very awkward.
So I was always grateful that that he took that on and stepped in. And I think that's so important. As you know, there are some really great colleagues out there that really want to collaborate, and they see professional service colleagues as their collaborators as their equals as their partners.
I have a number of them that I work with at Durham and at other universities. And they are the great examples that we need. Everyone, everyone should be behaving like that. And they don’t do it out of the goodness of their heart, they do it because they recognize that when they operate in that way, they get far more out of professional services as a support function. But also, you know, it’s more enjoyable, you work in a more positive environment.
And I cannot think that’s the most disappointing part of the negative stories that we hear about research culture is that it is having a detrimental impact on our research ecosystem, which is why that, as well as it being should be the decent thing in terms of how we operate anyway, that is why it’s so important that we that we help to see a change.
In terms of the negative impact that this type of culture has on science, you can see it in a number of ways.
So the expertise and the skillsets that research managers have, and the different rules that we sit in, you know, not using that skills and expertise means that you have less fundable proposals, for example, which means that academics waste more of their time on submitting those proposals, because we've had lots of instances where a funding application is submitted, we know it’s not going to be funded, but the academic has wanted to submit it.
And it’s a waste of time. Not just the academics but also the funder’s time, the peer reviewer’s time, and the time of the research managers that have supported it. And time is the most important resource that colleagues have working in academia. That’s what I’m told all the time.
So I think, you know, this negative culture, if we can make a shift to more positive culture, those expertise and the skills coming from the different research managers in the different areas of RMA can come into it, you’ll see more competitive funding proposals, and you’ll see, you know, better projects, at the end of the day.
Some of the colleagues that work in these roles are experts around you know, areas such as public policy, the impact of research etc. You know, they can really help to craft activities, that mean, the research is going to have an even more of an impact than it would have had without their inputs.
So it’s these things which maybe are not as discreet as people realize in terms of, “Surely it doesn’t really matter in terms of how it impacts on the science.” But it definitely does. And I think when you look at the global landscape for research, and the kind of race, if you want to put it that way, that we're all lead into these global superpowers, when it comes to research, small things make a big difference.
So I think if we make that shift around having a more positive culture, where the skills and expertise and contributions of research managers can be recognized more, you will see better science all round, I think.
So ARMA are trying to address the findings in the survey in a number of different ways. So ultimately, a really key point of what we’re looking to take forward is about the visibility and the contributions of research managers.
And ARMA is doing that as an organization through, for example, being invited to feed into key activities that are happening in the landscape. So if I give a couple of examples, there was the Tickell review around research bureaucracy, which is impacting on funders and universities and organizations alike.
And it’s all about opportunities for reducing the bureaucracy so that everybody has more time to spend on the science. And ARMA was invited to be part of that working group.
And I think being invited to be part of that working group was a sign about raising the visibility of the contribution that ARMA and our community make. And that's happening across the board. So more and more, we’re being invited and to speak with funders around key changes that are looking to make, and they find that speaking to us in our community, can help to get ahead of some of the challenges that they might face.
So I think fundamentally, that bigger point, raising the visibility of the contribution that research managers can make, since the survey took place, particularly the last couple of years, we’ve really seen an increase in engagement from really big, powerful stakeholders wanting to bring in ARMA to those discussions. And I think that's a really big positive.
We're also looking to develop and are delivering already a number of different activities. So some of the findings were about: How do we support colleagues working in research management that are on short term contracts?
We run a series of events around career development. So everything from “How do you recognize your own transferable skills?” That’s one that I, namecheck, run, if anyone’s interested. Right through to how do people you know, approach interviewing successfully? And how can you look at, you know, submitting your application to a job and be more successful.
And then we’re also running a number of events to support the wider research culture agenda. Because I think in a number of different ways, we’ve been looking to take it forward to the new work discussing at the moment, running the survey again, to see about how we take you know, take that next step in terms of that positive change.
Simon Baker: 23:34
Thanks for listening to this episode of the Team Science podcast. I’m Simon Baker, chief editor at Nature Index, the producer was Dom Byrne. Next up, we'll hear how Western Sydney University the sponsor of this series, is helping to champion team science.
Caris Bizzaca 23:58
I am Caris Bizzaca, and welcome to this podcast series from Western Sydney University. Over this six-episode series, I'll be introducing you to some incredible research taking place from a million dollar fungi project that's helping combat climate change, to surveys into maternity care treatment, to creating electric vehicles for women in rural African communities, and more. These projects are just a handful of those that entered the 2022 and 2023 Research Impact Competition, run by Western Sydney University in Australia.
There's also something else they have in common. They each speak to a sustainable development goal or SDG, a list of 17 goals created by the United Nations, which tackle global issues including poverty, hunger, climate change, gender inequality, and access to education.
So how do we identify problems and then the pathway forward? Well through research, and this research is happening at universities across the globe who are graded in the annual Times Higher Education impact rankings on their commitment to the SDGs. This is significant because out of 1,700 universities in the world, Western Sydney University ranked number one overall for the past two years. And if we drill down into the SDGs it excelled in, it came first for the goals, gender equality, partnership for the goals and responsible consumption and production.
For more information about sustainable development goals, you can visit sdgs.un.org and keep listening as the researchers across this series will talk to how their projects contribute to positive change. Before we dive in, I also want to take a moment to acknowledge the custodians of the lands where Western Sydney University campuses are located and pay respect to the peoples of the Dharug, Tharawal, Eora, and Wiradjuri nations. I pay my respect to elders past and present. Always was, always will be. Now let's hear from some of the researchers from Western Sydney University's research impact competition.
Dr. Jonathan Plett 26:04:
My area of interest is in understanding how plants interact with fungi and bacteria that are in the soil and how beneficial fungi and bacteria in the soil help plants grow better.
Caris Bizzaca 26:18:
That was Dr. Jonathan Plett from the Hawkesbury Institute for the Environment, who was the winner of the Research Impact Competition in 2022. The prize was awarded for his work on a type of fungi that is helping combat climate change and already has $1 million in backing from the forestry industry.
Dr. Jonathan Plett 26:37:
The specific beneficial fungus that I work with is from a class called mycorrhizal fungi, and these are symbiotic fungi that are really cool in the fact that they are able to grow into a plant root and integrate into that plant root. And essentially what they do is they're little miners, they mine soil for nutrients and then they transport that back to the tree and they exchange those nutrients for carbon.
Caris Bizzaca 27:07:
But how does this connect to the forestry industry? Well, the pine industry in Australia started back in the 1800s, but it was only able to establish when not just the seeds were brought over from California and Mexico, but the soil as well. So even back then, foresters knew there was a link between the fungi and the soil and how it helped the trees to grow. Fast-forward 150 years and we have an issue. The forestry industry doesn't know how to domesticate these fungi. And Dr. Plett's research has shown that current nursery practices are actually acting to decrease these fungi on tree roots or completely eradicate them.
Dr. Jonathan Plett 27:43:
We're still growing pine here. Pine grows well. But we are running into some problems where pine is not as productive as we would like it to be, pine is not as healthy as we would like it to be. And so, pine foresters are going back to basics and saying, "Okay, well, is there something going wrong within the soil and within the fungi they're supposed to be helping our trees?" So that's the genesis of this whole project.
Caris Bizzaca 28:09:
This idea to collaborate with the forestry industry to reintegrate fungi into their practices first began with a pilot experiment conducted with Forestry Corporation New South Wales.
Dr. Jonathan Plett 28:20
Forestry Corp New South Wales came to us first off to even just begin investigating this idea that we could boost or improve the presence of these mycorrhizal fungi.
Caris Bizzaca 28:33:
Dr. Plett's team designed an experiment where they added mycorrhizal fungi to the potting mix for pine seedlings and varied the amount of fertilizer. The results were huge. The seedlings with beneficial fungi needed 70% less fertilizer and zero fungicides, which is a win-win situation for both the environment and the forestry business.
Dr. Jonathan Plett 28:54:
That's fantastic from an environmental standpoint that we're not getting excess fertilizer and nutrients going into local rivers and then causing algal blooms and things like that. But it's also great for the industry because that means that they get to save quite a bit of money in the fact that they don't have to apply as much fertilizer.
Caris Bizzaca 29:12:
It's one thing to show the impact on seedlings in a controlled nursery setting, but what about when these plants were moved to a plantation? That was key for the forestry industry. So Dr. Plett asked Forestry Group New South Wales to give them their worst possible field site and planted these young trees to see whether those that had beneficial fungi in the potting mix would still grow better.
Dr. Jonathan Plett 29:34:
We went back after a year, and our plants that we had given less fertilizer to as well as these beneficial fungi we're growing, in some cases, 30% or 50% faster than the standard nursery practices. So that was really the turning point.
Caris Bizzaca 29:51:
From there, the forestry industry really came on board. News of these results spread, and Dr. Plett was contacted by three other forestry companies. To these companies, if even a fraction of the results of that pilot experiment could be achieved again, they could save hundreds of thousands of dollars every year. Forestry companies from four states put together $1 million for the next phase of this research.
Dr. Jonathan Plett 30:14:
The next steps currently is to roll out the findings that we have with our nursery partners on larger scales. So when we started this with Forestry Corp New South Wales a number of years ago, the size of the experiment was in the hundreds of trees. We've just concluded a number of pilot experiments in other nurseries on the order of tens of thousands of trees. But we also want to be able to then take these fungal products and actually make them into a product that can be rolled out and sold to the different nurseries. So we want to actually have a scientifically proven mixture of fungi that we know will help these plantations establish and grow faster into the future.
Caris Bizzaca 31:03:
There are challenges though, research into fungi means dealing with a living organism.
Dr. Jonathan Plett 31:09:
It's not like a chemical fertilizer where you mine it from a site, you process it, and then it sits on your shelf for months or years with really no impact to its benefit. Versus a living organism like a fungus or bacteria, you put it out in 40 degree weather on a back of a ute, and yes, you intend to use it the next day, but it's dead by that time. And so, that's one of the things we have to overcome currently, is working to not only get a product that will work properly for industry, but also to work with industry to teach them that they're dealing with something alive now, and so they have to approach it slightly differently.
Caris Bizzaca 31:48:
The other challenge is about the variables that are introduced outside of the controlled nursery environment. Once these plants are in a plantation, there are different types of soil, there are different climates. One year might be really hot, another, cold.
Dr. Jonathan Plett 32:01:
And so, to come up with a robust mixture of fungi that will be able to support these trees is the second major challenge for us, to find a mixture of different fungi that will work across the different environments where they have to be placed.
Caris Bizzaca 32:17:
But the benefits when they do will be far-reaching. It will result in plants that have stronger immune systems, that take vast amounts of carbon from our atmosphere that are traded down to the fungi in exchange for nutrients and in turn don't need as much fertilizer or fungicides whose runoff has a detrimental impact on the local ecosystem. This research also holds the potential to help citizen science projects in Australia because mycorrhizal fungi isn't only found in pine trees. It's found in eucalyptus, which are endangered plants that only exist in Australia and are critical for the survival of different animals. And remember those sustainable development goals from earlier? Dr. Plett's work contributes specifically to Goal 15: Life on land.
Dr. Jonathan Plett 33:01:
Again, going back to that idea of how can we better manage our natural resources in a sustainable manner, so that idea of let's boost some of these beneficial aspects of our natural ecosystems, let's learn from these natural ecosystems, apply that within an industrial setting such that we can grow a phenomenal product without harming our environment.
Caris Bizzaca 33:27:
And the hope is that this research could be used not just in Australia, but around the world.
Dr. Jonathan Plett 33:33:
I never like to dream small. Pine is probably the top, if not one of the top, plantation forests worldwide. And so the issues we're running into here in Australia with our growing seasons and climate change, that's not unique to us. That's something around the world. So it is definitely something that I would love to be able to take much beyond Australia, to bring some of these good beneficial fungal mixtures to other areas and hopefully see the same benefits there.
Caris Bizzaca 34:09:
That was Dr. Jonathan Plett, the winner of the 2022 Research Impact Competition at Western Sydney University. Join us for the next episode to find out more about the research being undertaken at Western Sydney University in Australia and its real world impact both now and into the future.