The Research Outcomes project is a cross-Council initiative to enable all of the Research Councils to capture quantitative and qualitative evidence of the research that they fund and to do so in a harmonised manner, collecting common information to a common format. This will help improve the evidence base to inform future strategy, demonstrating the economic and wider societal impact of past investment to Government and other stakeholders.
The work follows from the earlier Outputs & Outcomes Collection project, which in autumn 2008 delivered a streamlined and simplified grant final reporting process, followed up by work to establish the feasibility of replacing and augmenting the information gathering capability lost at that time with better quality data collected more systematically and at less burden to the academic community.
Councils have worked together over the past year to define consistent business requirements for the notification, collection, attribution and submission of data relating to research outputs, and to establish the feasibility of various approaches to achieve this objective. Following consultation with a number of research organisations, the Councils have agreed that data should be collected wherever possible from research organisations and universities, approaching individual researchers only where alternate sources are unavailable or impractical.
They are now consulting more widely with the research community to establish usability and interface requirements for a new system. Two focus groups have been set up for this purpose. One group is looking at the process by which data can be collected from research organisations and, where necessary, individual researchers, and advising on the practicality of providing the information requested by the Research Councils. The second group is focussing on how longer term impacts may best be demonstrated, providing advice on what evidence the project should be aiming to capture in support of this. Both groups involve representation from both large and small research organisations across the UK, as well as representatives from the REF project run by HEFCE, with the aim of aligning data requirements where it is practical to do so.
Project timeline (Select to expand)
The project aims to complete this phase of consultation early in the New year. Formal tendering will then take place to choose a supplier to develop and implement a systems solution. The project is expected to report back in the summer of 2010, once a supplier has been selected, with firmed up costs and timescales to deliver the project. Councils will then make a final decision whether or not to go ahead with implementation. If agreed, the project is expected to deliver a working system into pilot by summer 2011, with full roll out in late 2011.
Keeping in Touch
The project has an email address (researchoutcomes @ rcuk.ac.uk, removing the spaces) through which you can raise queries or concerns, or make suggestions. All enquiries will be logged and responded to.