Research concordats and agreements review - Phase 2

Last updated on Wednesday 17 May 2023 at 10:01am

Commissioned by Universities UK, UK Research and Innovation and the Wellcome Trust, the second phase of the Concordats and Agreements Review (CAR), brought together the initiative owners and the research and innovation (R&I) community to look for potential future alignments to increase influence, capacity, and efficiency across the landscape.

This second phase responded to the call from both initiative owners and the R&I community to explore potential alignments to help reduce workload and coordinate reporting, while also complementing the work of the Independent Review of Research Bureaucracy.

What are concordats and agreements?

Concordats and agreements are a significant part of the landscape of frameworks and practices that contribute to research cultures and environments in which UK research takes place. These initiatives have grown organically, in response to challenges and opportunities, and cover a range of issues to support researchers and their activities.

What did CAR Phase 2 review look at?

Phase 2 involved facilitating conversations between the initiative owners and the R&I community to explore opportunities to increase impact and reduce unnecessary bureaucracy across the landscape.

The final publication contains an action plan which has been jointly designed and developed through these facilitated conversations. These will be co-owned and implemented by the initiative owners. Examples of these actions include aligning reporting and consolidation of data requests across the initiatives.

Download the Phase 2:

Who undertook the CAR Phase 2 work?

Consultants, Oxentia Ltd, were jointly commissioned by Universities UK, Wellcome and UKRI to undertake the Phase 2 work.
We established an External Advisory Group for this work.

Which concordats does this project engage with?

The project focused on initiatives that require research organisations to report on compliance, implementation etc. and/or that require research organisations to develop an action plan. The initiatives engaged in the project include:

Concordat to Support Research Integrity
Concordat on Open Research Data
Concordat to Support the Career Development of Researchers
Technician Commitment
Concordat on Openness on Animal Research
Concordat for Engaging the Public with Research
Concordat for the Advancement of Knowledge Exchange in Higher Education
Guidance for Safeguarding in International Development Research
San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA)
Leiden Manifesto on Research Metrics
Athena Swan Charter
Race Equality Charter

What did the CAR Phase 1 review look at?

CAR phase 1, for the first time ever, mapped and explored the collective role these varied initiatives have had in shaping research culture and environments across the UK. This was published in March 2022. This report represents an important and significant step forward for sector-wide collaboration and understanding on an important aspect of research culture in the UK.

You can download the Phase 1:

What were the CAR Phase 1 key findings?

Key findings from Phase 1 included:

It’s a complex landscape with limited homogeneous experience of both the concordats and agreements across institution types or roles. This means different institutions and people experience the concordats in different ways.
It’s difficult to evidence the direct impact of the initiatives on research culture as they have been embedded into organisations’ strategies and processes. Because of the diversity within the initiatives and how they were implemented, pinpointing their direct impact on research culture is difficult.
The report explicitly acknowledges that the initiatives do have an impact and role to play. For example, facilitating discussion on sensitive subjects and engaging senior leaders.
The impact of the initiatives comes as much from how organisations put them into effect as it does the initiative requirements themselves. The organic development of the initiatives as a collective is matched with equally organic implementation across organisations.
No obvious overlap between aims was found, but collectively they can create administrative burden. Tracking both initiative and institutional progress for each initiative can also be administratively challenging.
There’s a clear call from both initiative owners and implementers to explore potential alignments to help reduce burden and coordinate reporting.

Acknowledgments

Over the course of the project, many colleagues have provided support and guidance. These include, but are not limited to:

Dan Wake
Diego Baptista
Frances Downey
Hilary Noone
Jade Ouimet Fortin
Kirsty Grainger
Neil Jacobs
Pete Henly
Shomari Lewis-Wilson
Tripti Rana Magar