Why we’re ‘Hacking the ARC’

By Dr Ken Skeldon, Research Engagement Manager and leads for the ARC’s Engagement Workstream.

A dynamic first year!

The University of Glasgow’s Advanced Research Centre, or ARC for short, recently celebrated its first birthday. We had cake, games, and balloons of course. But we also used the occasion to reflect on a busy 12 months and chat with colleagues, both familiar and unfamiliar with the building, to think on what the future might bring.

Everything that happens in the ARC is about supporting and advancing research. Perhaps the ARC’s biggest defining feature is the sheer variety of ways that this happens. To give a flavour, the ARC’s first year saw some amazing milestones: Over 550 researchers and research professional staff completed their move into the building; 450 researchers connected with 6,700 public and schools at our launch festival; 20,000 people attended over 600 multi-sectoral events; 85 courses took place in the researcher development suite, and we congratulated the first cohort of ARC based PhD graduates.

While this offers a great backdrop for a birthday celebration, it also gives food for thought around how best to benefit from such a rich diversity of activity happening in one place. For example, how do we identify common ground across multiple initiatives to amplify value, how do we encourage more people to engage with the ARC’s offer including those who’ve never been in the building and how might we encourage meaningful connections across different disciplines. All sit at the heart of the ARC’s mission and so it makes sense to focus on how best to realise them in the year ahead.

Sharing ownership on the ARC’s next chapter

While the ARC has clearly made its mark, it has also meant a lot of change for a lot of people. New surroundings and different working environments are obvious examples, but so too are the expectations, sometimes assumed, to share resources, collaborate across subject boundaries and engage partners from outside the academic sphere. And while we like to think of the ARC as an accessible, public-facing place, we’re very mindful that its setting, scale and presence can deter many from engaging.

With these thoughts in mind, together with a year of experience and learning under our collective belt, we know there is room for improvement, and we also know the ARC team won’t have all the answers. In fact, we think the best suggestions will come from our wider community and so we’ve created the HACK the ARC initiative to give oxygen to grassroots new ideas to make the ARC an even better place to work, visit and enjoy.

HACK the ARC is like a living suggestions box, offering funding and support to turn ideas into testable proof-of-concept activities. We want to help interventions that gather evidence of change along the way and in our first round, we’re particularly interested in two priority areas.

Hacking the ‘Porosity of the ARC’

The ARC was always designed to be a resource for the whole University and wider community, and indeed over half the ARC’s Level 2 engagement events do originate from people not resident in the building. Nonetheless we think more can be done to build bridges between the ARC and the wider University community, and with groups external to the University. We’re therefore seeking ideas that increase the porosity of the building, mindful of who they target and how a change can be measured.

Hacking the ARC’s ‘Spaces in Between’

Much was anticipated around the design of spaces and facilities throughout the ARC to encourage mixing of staff and students from different teams and disciplines. Agile working neighbourhoods; drop-in collaboration zones; social spaces; communal landings and access routes; lines of sight – all of these were intended to instil a sense of community. We do hear positive examples of new connections being made but think there is significant potential to do more. This could be through design elements, programming interventions or other creative ways of using the ARC’s physical and/or digital assets.

Who, when and how much?

We’re inviting any member of staff or postgraduate researcher across the University of Glasgow to be part of HACK the ARC and will soon be launching our light-touch application process. We anticipate funding up to 6 projects of around £2,000 each, expecting activities to take place over a suitable timeframe within the first three quarters of 2024. It may well be that ‘Spaces in Between’ might tempt colleagues who work regularly in the building to put forward ideas, while the ‘Porosity’ concept will inspire a broader range of colleagues to come up with ideas. The project is endorsed and supported by the ARC Delivery Group and open to all UofG staff and postgraduate researchers. Ideas from teams, especially spanning disciplines or job roles are particularly welcomed! However, we’re not being prescriptive and encourage anyone with a good idea to get in touch and/or consider applying. We will also look at how to mainstream interventions that demonstrate real positive change, to ensure a lasting impact. HACK the ARC is just one initiative in the ARC’s next chapter, and we can’t wait to see what ideas come in!

email ARCEngage@glasgow.ac.uk to find out more.