ESRC Strategy

Developing the Strategic Plan

Strategic Approach: Academic and Non academic engagement ▶ ▶ ▶ ▶ Royal Charter: “advance knowledge… meet the needs of users and beneficiaries, thereby contributing to the economic competitiveness of Our United Kingdom, the effectiveness of public services… and quality of life” Consultation: 151 responses, 15 non-academic “Strategic Lunches”: events that fit into the working day and benefit attendees as well as ESRC Attendees: Business (24), Third (22), Public (18)

Responses to the written consultation (1) ▶ ▶ ▶ ▶ Support for direction of travel Considerable variation in knowledge of the ESRC’s work Perception of a concentration agenda Little guidance on what areas of work can be reduced

Responses to the written consultation (2) ▶ ▶ ▶ ▶ ▶ ▶ Protecting or increasing responsive mode Value of PhD funding Support for early career researchers Enhancing access to the data infrastructure Opportunities for smaller grants More/fewer partnerships with non-academic stakeholders

Messages from Strategic Lunches (1)

▶ Independent, blue-skies research activity valued, but: – There is a lot of research and data: we need help navigating – Research and data are good: please translate it into evidence – Agility and timing are vital: we don’t know tomorrow’s challenges but we need to move fast when they appear, and often the time available matters more than exact accuracy – Outputs: need to be challenge-focused not project-based – Skills: need to be about communicating, partnering, entrepreneurship not just academic excellence

Messages from Strategic Lunches (2)

▶ ▶ ESRC brings value beyond money : – Convenors : able to bring diverse groups together – Independent advisors: credible across social science breadth – Bridges : between challenges and between wider partners – Enablers : supporting context of KE as well as funding of research and related activities – Innovators : able to bring people together in new ways Attendees are keen to do more with/for us and valued the opportunity to meet for open discussion

Maintaining direction of travel… increasing momentum ▶ Excellent social science that has an impact – Larger more ambitious projects – More emphasis on cross-disciplinary research & capability to address key policy issues – Greater awareness of the importance of an international perspective – Need for leadership skills not just academic excellence

…increasing momentum

▶ Exploiting excellent data resources – Building a robust and reliable infrastructure – Working strategically on data linkage – Supporting innovative methodological work – Providing explicit support for analysis of high quality data – Training and capacity building for ‘Big Data’ challenges (QStep and DTPs)

Resilience through austerity

▶ ▶ ▶ ▶ ▶ Collaborative working (in the UK and beyond) – ESRC as part of a funding eco-system – greater harmonisation across RCUK Full exploitation of existing resources Valuing and maintaining our unique assets (e.g. longitudinal studies) Investing in the next generation Cross-disciplinary work to answer major societal issues

Change from the past?

▶ ▶ ▶ ▶ ▶ Greater emphasis on value of synthetic research (e.g. ‘What Works’ Centres) Fewer and more focussed strategic priorities – greater agility Clearer commitment to maintaining and enhancing ‘responsive mode’ Building capability in cross-disciplinary research, data analytics, and leadership Leadership and brokerage role to motivate researchers to engage with key societal challenges

Priorities for Funding #1

NB Identifying priorities section in Strategic Plan ▶ ▶ ▶ Input from Stakeholders, including Learned Societies Challenge of likely continued austerity context Practicalities from Strategic Plan to Delivery Plan in format for next government

Priorities for Funding #2

▶ ▶ ▶ Commitment to an integrative framework of research, synthesising evidence, data, capability, knowledge exchange and partnership The need to have priorities which are clearly defined, limited in number and regularly refreshed NB no steer from these to standard responsive grants

Priorities for Funding #3

▶ ▶ ▶ Expectation priorities will frequently be interdisciplinary – within and beyond social science – and international in their reach Likelihood of shared priorities across the Research Councils and with InnovateUK Need for agility in seizing scientific and/or impact opportunities

Priorities for Funding #4

Priorities will be varied in structure scale and duration Examples:  Cities : includes £3m research call (closes 5/2!); £1.7m JPI urban call; Newton call 2 with China (call due in March); ‘urban living’ subject to CSR but pilot later this year with InnovateUK and sister RCs; urban transformations synthesis  Big Data: includes ADRN; Big Data Centres (Business and Local Government) and subject to current capital debates International Interdisciplinary Centre for Real Time Analytics (social media etc); DTP/CDT steer likely

Cross Disciplinarity

ESRC last full Delivery Plan 2010-2015 Living With Environmental Change £38.6m

Energy £12.7m

Ageing: Lifelong Health and Wellbeing £39.4m

Digital Economy Global Uncertainties Global Food Security £10.9m

£34.7m

£8.1m

Nurse Review (extract from terms of reference) “Are the right arrangements in place to ensure optimal funding for research that crosses disciplinary boundaries?”

Considerations in Planning

▶ ▶ ▶ ▶ ▶ ▶ Visibility Societal challenges Agility Leverage and partnership, especially InnovateUK Excellence with impact Social science contributions e.g. behaviours around AMR; social science big data in digital excellence more generally

Postgraduate Training

Our key areas of activity

▶ Fostering research and innovation ▶ Creating and maximising data infrastructure for research ▶

Building capability

▶ Facilitating partnerships and realising impact

Building Capability

▶ ▶ ▶ ▶ ▶ Support the development of highly capable and innovative researchers for a wide range of careers Expand support for early career researchers through existing funding routes Develop capability for social science leadership Support the development of analytical capabilities required to forge links and networks internationally Enable postgraduate students and early career researchers to forge links and networks internationally

The DTC Network 2010-16 ▶ ▶ ▶ ▶ ▶ 21 DTCs - 9 consortia, 600 students per annum Covers the full disciplinary range of the social sciences and areas of interdisciplinary research Key principles: Excellence, flexibility, interdisciplinarity and collaboration Steers in priority areas; Econ, LBAS, Mgmt, QM, Interdis 20% Collaboration target

Postgraduate Training Beyond 2017

▶ Call for next phase of the DTC Network is scheduled for Sept 2015, with decisions Sept 2016 ▶ ▶ Approach for next phase – evidence based ▪ Independent Evaluation of the DTC Network ▪ ▪ ▪ ▪ Responses to the Strategic Consultation Other Research Council approaches DTC Monitoring information Commissioned reports 6 th February, Town Meeting, Birmingham

Themes from Evidence Streams

▶ ▶

Support for the existing approach

– Very supportive of existing approach – Preference for consolidating existing approach

Openness of the Network

– The boundaries between HEI’s part of DTC network and those who aren’t are too impermeable – potentially excluding ‘pockets of excellence’ – Diversity of student population ▶

Responsiveness

– Is the current mechanism sufficiently flexible to allow us to respond quickly and with agility to new and emerging research issues and skills gaps?

Themes from Evidence Streams

▶

Interdisciplinarity

– DTC Network made significant progress in developing interdisciplinary training within the social sciences but more needs to be done across RC boundaries ▶

Collaboration

– – Leverage of co-funding significant achievement of the network, need to increase private sector collaboration Need to build capacity to develop collaborations

More Information

▶ ▶ ▶ Postgraduate Training Strategy will be launched on our website on Monday 9 th February.

Independent Evaluation Report also available on our website.

http://www.esrc.ac.uk/funding-and guidance/postgraduates/dtc/

Demographic Review Update

▶ ▶ ▶ ▶ Update to 2006 Demographic Review of the Social Sciences ESRC Working Group chaired by Professor Chris Taylor, University of Cardiff, ESRC TSC Not a replica as HE landscape changed and not all data available in same format Mixture of existing data (HESA, ESRC, REF), desk based reviews and survey’s of Learned Societies and Heads of Departments

Interim findings

▶ ▶ ▶ ▶ Level of continuity with 2006 review high despite changes in the higher education landscape; Disciplines continue to be important but there is an increasing amount of interdisciplinarity; Overall the community is more international than in 2005; In general the social science community looks healthier, however, there remain areas with continuing problems.

Next Steps

▶ ▶ ▶ Finalising analysis Meeting with REF Subpanel Chairs early March Publish late March.

Demand Management and Peer Review Efficiency Jeremy Neathey

Demand Management: Key aims

▶ ▶ ▶ ▶ ▶ ▶ To focus on the submission of a fewer number of high quality applications with a genuine chance of securing funding Which will: reduce the amount of redundant effort by the social science community on the preparation and submission of unsuccessful applications. scale back the ever-growing peer review burden placed on academics by increasing application volumes.

reduce the number of applications which require processing by administrative staff both in HEIs and the ESRC.

promote sector wide efficiencies Strategy based on a HEI self regulation model

Submissions : a downward trend

Quality: an upward trend

Success Rates: falling back

What lies ahead? Research Grants

Research Grants – falling success rates

Peer Review Efficiency - more to do

A poor performer

Disciplinary response rates

Peer Review College

Peer Review Quality

▶ Generally ’Good’ but not excellent ▶ High decline rates = second or third choices ▶ Higher declines from more senior academics ▶ Scope to strengthen quality of peer review

Diagnosis: a mixed picture (1)

▶ ▶ ▶ ▶ Fewer, better quality applications BUT not now being translated into improving success rates BECAUSE Still significant ‘tail’ of very poor quality applications (25%) which are being submitted Average application costs have increased from £312K in 2008/09 to £446K in 2013/14 – an increase of 42% In a tight fiscal climate, ESRC budget has not been able to keep pace with demand

Diagnosis: a mixed picture (2)

▶ ▶ ▶ ▶ ▶ Peer review requirements have fallen by 41% as volume has reduced BUT Peer review response rates also declining meaning: high overheads in the processing of applications slower decision times

OVERALL continued scope to make further sector wide efficiency issues

What next?

▶ ▶ ▶ ▶ ▶ General messaging around the need to regulate volume with a focus on squeezing out poor quality ‘tail’ targeted follow up with ‘poor’ performing HEIs (high volume, poor quality, low success rates) Refreshment and restructuring of the ESRC Peer Review College (PRC) to extend value Sharing of peer review data and performance with HEIs, alongside the demand management releases Active promotion of PRC by Learned Societies

ESRC 50

th

Anniversary

▶ ▶ To mark our 50th we are running a range of exciting activities Over 180 politicians and business leaders joined us at our launch event on the 14 January at the HOC, with the Minister for Universities, Science and Cities the Rt Hon Greg Clark MP

Activities include:

▶ ▶ ▶ ▶ ▶ ▶ ▶ ▶ 50 th website, timeline and 50 achievements 50 years in pictures Changing World – young people's photographic exhibition Writing competition for ESRC students 2015 Celebrating Impact Prize 50 Years of Population Change - with the British Society of Population Studies and the British Academy ESRC Festival of Social Science 50 th finale event – how ESRC has made a difference