How to discuss research environment | Grant funding

How we assess research environment

We have developed some prompts that highlight the critical areas of the research environment we consider in our funding committees. These prompts help our committee members consistently assess applications, and can help you understand the full breadth of considerations that fall into research environment.

Not all prompts are appropriate and relevant for all applications; how they are asked at the interview will be shaped by your individual application. We appreciate that different fields, disciplines, and host institutions approach the research environment differently, so applicants should highlight why their chosen approach is right for them at their career stage.

Career development opportunities (individual and team)

How will you develop your career appropriately for this award?
Have you previously supported the careers of others or actively promoted positive and inclusive research cultures, and how will this influence your plans?
How will you use the grant to encourage relevant growth opportunities for team members across different career stages, roles, and trajectories?

Research practice

How do you refer to appropriate ethical frameworks relevant to the study area and ensure your approaches follow ethical guidelines and practices?
How will you engage relevant stakeholders/audiences to help inform the research aims and inclusive design?
How will your research outputs be made available and publicised to all, including policymakers, communities and industry, and in appropriate formats?

Leadership

What is your vision of a positive and inclusive research culture, and how will you develop this through your future work?
How will you leverage the required organisational support from your host institution to support your research?

Team composition and partnerships

Regarding your team's (proposed) composition, how will you ensure a balanced commitment to equity and diversity and the skills and expertise to address the research aims and methodological approaches?
How will you ensure your management promotes the inclusion of members in the research and outputs?
How will you ensure your values and approaches will enable you to be accountable to your team and/or partners?

How to show evidence of your research environment approach

We expect from all the people and projects we support that they foster positive research cultures and embody principles of openness, engagement, equity, and ethics.

Many of our funding scheme application forms include questions related to research environment, for example on research culture. However, you can show your approach to research environment throughout your whole application, including in your output management plan and the way you describe considerations around bioethics and engaged research.

When assessing applications, we consider the research environment approach shown throughout the whole application, not just specific questions. This is a key aspect of how applications are assessed, particularly in discovery research, where the applicants’ research environment approach contributes to 25% of the total assessment score.

This section offers advice and guidance on integrating these broader aspects of the research environment approach into a proposal for any of Wellcome's funding schemes.

These suggestions are not mandatory criteria, they just aim to help you frame research culture and environment in your funding applications.

We acknowledge that addressing the research environment comprehensively in every aspect of your application may not be feasible, as values, beliefs and processes can differ among individuals, institutions and contexts. As you craft your application, please consider the following considerations:

There is no formula to the perfect answer; assessment of research environment is not a punitive system. This is an opportunity to express something positive.
Reflection and learning are part of the opportunity. We expect answers to be personal to you, your teams, and your institutions.
We value a personal commitment to improving the research environment no matter the context of your research organisation.
The context of your research will be taken into consideration. We know that what could be ground-breaking in one discipline may seem less so in another.

Ideally, your research environment approach would be woven into the design of your research proposal and flow through your work.

For instance, you might highlight:

how your research is attentive to stakeholder needs and perspectives
the types of ethical questions or complexities your research will raise alongside any plans to navigate or interrogate them further
specific plans for how your team will openly share ideas, data, and findings
how the research team and management plans will be shaped to support good practices and positive research cultures related to the composition and diversity of teams and distribution of various types of opportunities amongst contributors

What might this look like? Here are specific examples of how you can incorporate aspects of the research environment approach into your application.

Research culture

Most of Wellcome's funding schemes include questions about research culture. These provide a significant opportunity for applicants to demonstrate how their proposed work will effectively promote a positive and inclusive research culture. A positive research culture goes beyond the physical infrastructure of the research location. We seek details about how researchers will deliver research with integrity and honesty, support each other, and ensure inclusive and healthy working environments where everyone can thrive.

Here are some tips to consider when filling in this section:

The best answers come from candidates who self-reflect and connect meaningfully to their values. It is not about seniority or necessarily about understanding being a minoritised person. Instead, tell us what a good working environment should look and feel like.
Avoid copying or paraphrasing institutional EDI (Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion) statements. We want to hear what you are committed to doing to foster a positive and inclusive culture throughout your project. Instead, describe how you plan to support specific aspects of research culture. These should be tailored to your project and might include things like:
- mentoring
- supporting collaboration
- leadership
- people management
- research integrity

Tailor these aspects to your project. Remember, these are just guidelines; not all will be relevant to every team or project. There is much more to research culture beyond these components, so feel free to include any additional pertinent information.

Open research

The output management plan is a crucial part of the application in which prospective grantees can demonstrate their commitment to open research. This plan should describe how research outputs will be generated, stored, used, and shared throughout the project. It should include:

the types of data that the research will generate
who will manage data, and where will be stored during and after the research project
how research outputs will be reusable by others
what is the cost to deliver on the plan

It is worth underscoring that the output management plan is about much more than written research publications and should cover all the research outputs generated by the project across the work lifecycle. These may include:

datasets generated by your research
original software created in the course of your research
new research tools or survey instruments
new materials you create – like antibodies, cell lines and reagents
Intellectual property (IP) such as patents, copyright, design rights and confidential know-how.

We also have more guidance on how to complete an outputs management plan.

Bioethics

The vision for bioethics at Wellcome revolves around three key pillars:

Having the requisite evidence and resources to navigate the inherent ethical complexities in health research and scientific innovation.
Fostering a community of diverse and innovative ethicists who can provide expertise and insights.
Integrating embedded, proactive, and responsive approaches to bioethics throughout the research lifecycle. This integration is crucial for promoting scientifically rigorous and ethically sound research.

While many of you may primarily focus on the embedded aspects of bioethics in your research approach, there are also opportunities for your proposed projects to generate new ethical evidence and resources or involve ethicists as team members. This can be achieved by drawing upon diverse expertise and engaging with the bioethics community.

So, what does it mean to have attention to bioethics woven throughout your applications? Here are some ways you can demonstrate how your proposed work addresses relevant ethical issues:

describe the ethical questions and complexities relevant to your research topic, methods, study populations, samples and data
mention the ethics frameworks or guidance that inform your approach to navigating these issues
detail activities, expertise or partnerships to address the relevant ethics issues or outline project governance structures that will provide necessary support and guidance
include ethics expertise within the central project team through multidisciplinary collaboration
formulate research questions that focus on both scientific and ethical inquiries

We understand that not all these points will be appropriate for every project. Still, they show how you can showcase your thoughtful consideration of ethics beyond a checkbox exercise, compliance with regulations and ethics review or oversight.

We want to hear how your work has considered and woven ethics into the work rather than a generic statement about obtaining the necessary ethics review.

Engaged research

Engaged research means working with stakeholders to include a range of voices and perspectives across the lifecycle of the research. Researchers and stakeholders can then work collaboratively to ensure the relevance of the research.

These stakeholders can include:

The public (for example, the general public, lay perspectives, under-served groups)
The community (for example, community groups, community advocates, patient and carer groups, and members living in geographic areas where research will be conducted)
Policymakers (for example, policy groups, advocacy groups, advisory committees or bodies)
Researchers (for example, people using similar methodologies in different fields, people researching the same topic but with different disciplinary or methodological orientations, critical networks, etc.)
Intermediaries – people who might be best placed to facilitate connections between your research and other stakeholder groups to foster greater understanding, participation and longer-term uptake and impact (for example, clinicians, cross-sector representatives)

In some cases, involving one or more groups might be necessary.

We have guidance available on how to use an engaged research approach.