By Dr Rachel Herries, Research Culture Manager
In June 2026, we launched the University of Glasgow’s second Research Culture Action Plan. It felt like a major plot point. Now it’s live, what next? In this blog post I share how we’ve framed our action plan and how we are going from plan to action.
Behind the scenes
The review and refresh of the Research Culture Action Plan gave us the opportunity to take stock of where we are in our research culture journey, where we want to go and how we want to get there. Our ‘Research Culture What Next?’ community consultation ensured we heard from and were informed by our research community. We reflected on progress from three key perspectives and in doing so recognised that our starting point coming in to 2026 was encapsulated in the following statements:
- Strategic: Research culture is noted as an integral part of the University’s Research Strategy.
- Process: We have launched a community of culture leaders driving diverse elements of research culture enhancement.
- Community: We have formed key partnerships and sparked community conversations.
We know that through our research culture work we want to make a step change, a difference. After all, this is not a ‘nice to have’ but something that we and our sector recognises as important to the advancement of research and innovation (Herries, 2025). The step change we are aiming for in 2026-2029 is:
- Strategic: Research Culture is established as an integral and embedded condition for delivery of the University’s Research Strategy.
- Process: A community of culture leads take cohesive accountability for delivering, monitoring and demonstrating impact on research culture.
- Community: We work in trusted partnerships to enable research successes, through culture work. Our whole community is engaged and active.
The Opening Sequence
The context, value and importance of our research culture work is evident to us. Like many in the sector we are living, breathing, championing and actively choosing this as our stomping ground. It would be naive of us to assume that this is how everyone feels or understands this work.
We have intentionally led with ‘a research culture framework’ to provide a visual of how our research culture activity sits in the wider strategic context.
- Frame 1 – Our research culture activity is one of the interconnected elements that contributes to the strategic mission of UofG. Our work is steered by the Research Strategy’s guiding principles: we value research quality over quantity, how we do our research matters, and we succeed through the success and resolve of our people and teams.
- Frame 2 – Good Research Practice and Inclusive Research Practice are the lenses that frame our work, emphasising how culture work enables research quality, and recognises that people are at the heart of our successes.
- Frame 3 – Glasgow’s five Research Culture Priorities – Research Integrity and Ethics, Open Research, Research Recognition, Collegiality and Teams and Career Development – are the anchors that shape all research culture activities.
- Frame 4 – Alignment with current and emerging sector frameworks is an essential thread that ensures that through our work we support collective sector-wide change.
The Main Feature
We have built our action plan around seven cross-priority workstreams to recognise the interweaving nature of the research culture priorities.
With our step change aims in mind, each workstream considers (i) strategic alignment and development, (ii) growth and connection with our community and (iii) engagement with and contribution to sector activity. With 15 plus actions under each workstream, totalling > 125, the action plan isn’t a quick read. By structuring and framing the action plan like this we make it accessible beyond those who wrote it (us!).
Starring Roles
The Research Culture and Researcher Development team in collaboration with the Research Governance and Integrity Team and Research Information Management Team co-lead research culture activity at Glasgow. A recognised area of growth for us is how we take a whole ecosystem approach to our research culture activity. How we engage, champion and activate our community. We act in a rich and diverse research ecosystem, what individuals and teams need to thrive within their research environment, or to make an incremental change often already exists within our collective research community.
Three ways we are building partnerships and spotlighting our community leads and influencers are:
- Culture In Action – our new initiative will share an insight into each workstream. This initiative will support our community to resonate with the different areas of the action plan and for us to hear and learn from community activity.
- InFrame Culture Catalyst Fund – The 26 CCF projects have taken innovative and collaborative approaches to improve research culture. The CCF leads are a community with a wealth of knowledge and perspectives on being influencers of culture change. We look forward to what is next for these projects, the outputs that have resulted from them and our partnership with those that have led them.
- UofG All Schools Research Culture and Environment Away Day – We welcomed all Heads of Schools, Deans of Research and Deans of Graduate Studies, College Research Office Leads, and experts from Research Services to a research culture focused away day bringing together a cross section of key people responsible for UofG’s research culture. The day focused on sharing and exploring culture priorities, building partnerships and strengthening cross-university working. We continue to foster these partnerships with our Schools and Colleges to support research culture activity.
To Be Continued
Our new Action Plan is equivalent to the newest addition in a long running movie franchise, just released and in the early days of being socialised. Looking at the bigger picture, our UofG research culture ‘movie franchise’ has seen multiple releases and box office success. We are excited to have reached this milestone and have a plan to frame and steer our activity. We are mindful that we must continue to listen, reflect and adapt. We operate in a complex ecosystem that continues to change in parallel to systemic challenges. This setting offers both opportunities to harness and challenges to navigate. We believe that progress and change is contingent on working collectively to advance the theory and practice of research culture enhancement locally, nationally and globally.
