 So, I think one of the first and most important questions to ask is why are we here today? Why have we convened this meeting and called colleagues together to discuss and launch the research engagement program and also to explore the meaning of research for academic libraries? Well, today's event and the wider research engagement program that we're launching today is really there and is designed to celebrate, share and support the role of academic libraries as research partners and leaders, as contributors to research in their own right. To celebrate the considerable skills, the knowledge and the expertise which is contained within academic libraries and the contribution that they can make to the research process. To share our collective experiences of doing so. What are some of the strengths that we have in terms of conducting research? What are some of the areas of challenge that we might have to overcome? And then really importantly, to support members of the academic library community to continue to develop their skills, their confidence and their expertise as research partners and leaders. So, we've got a really busy program over the next two hours. We'll hear from colleagues from the HRC, from RLUK and from ARMA. We'll also hear from colleagues working across the research library community in terms of what research means to them and why it's important for them and their institution to undertake research. And then towards the end of today's session, we'll explore the research catalyst cohort program, including an opportunity for colleagues to ask any questions and we'll give some more details about this in a moment. So today and this wider program really is there to celebrate, share and support. So before we begin, what is the research engagement program? What are we actually launching today? So the research engagement program for academic libraries is a collaborative program between Research Libraries UK, the HRC and ARMA, the Association of Research Managers and Administrators. The research engagement program consists of three elements. Firstly, it consists of events and symposia, the first of which is today. These are open events which draw together colleagues from across the academic and the information sectors to share and showcase their experience of research partners and leaders. Some will be quite large events and quite generic. Others will focus on certain areas of the research process, but they'll all be free to attend and openly available and advertised on the RLUK website. Secondly, the research engagement program will consist of case studies of emerging practice and library experiences of research leadership and collaboration. How can we contribute to the research process? What are some of the areas where we are leading? What are our experiences? Now the RLUK website already has a number of case studies published already and we would welcome and have issued a call for case studies from across the academic library community from colleagues who are willing to share their experiences. So please do go to the RLUK website and see for further details if you'd like to submit a case study to this program. And then finally the third element and the one that we'll talk a great deal about in the second half of today's session is the research catalyst cohort program. This is a step by step training program to support colleagues working across the academic library community to develop up their research capacity and confidence, supporting them, turning a research idea or research interest into a highly competitive research funding application. And we're delighted to be working in partnership with ARMA around the design and the delivery of this research catalyst cohort program. But we'll say a bit more about that in a moment. But why are we doing this? What's the motivation for this? And what's the reason why these three organizations have come together? Well, a number of you may be aware that last year, RLUK and the AHRC undertook a major scoping study of the role and the potential role of academic libraries as research partners and leaders. It was very ambitious and it was delivered across a tight time scale and resulted in the publication of a major report in late June, early July last year and a link to the report is on screen and also in chat. This piece of research engaged with hundreds of colleagues right across the academic library, the academic, the funder and research manager communities. And it highlighted and recommended that the AHRC, RLUK, AHRC and RLUK should work with like-minded stakeholders to support colleagues working across the academic library community to develop up their research capacity, confidence and expertise. And this program is a part of that and is a direct reflection of those recommendations and you can see the full report and the full recommendations online. I'm really thrilled to be speaking as RLUK, RLUK chair on this platform with representatives from our program partners, Alan Sudlow from the AHRC and Jennifer Sturdu from ARMA and we'll come to both of those very shortly. We are going to give some introductions from our institutional perspectives before we hear from our speakers spotlighting their experience of research in libraries and so actually if you've got questions then please do pop them in the chat but we might not come back to them until we've heard from all of our panel speakers in the second part of this part of the program today. So thanks everybody. I'm also hoping that you won't mind, even though I've firmly got my RLUK chair hat on, that I'm going to begin by talking a little bit about a couple of stories to my own life in libraries and to kind of bookend my relationship to the topic that we're exploring today because those kind of personal stories for me really speak to the value that I think is there in the significance of libraries in research and that framing of libraries as a search labs that is at the heart of this program. The first is a really early stage of my career when I worked at the Brotherton Library at Leeds University, a big shout out to anyone at Leeds University Libraries who are on the call here when I worked cataloguing 20th century literary manuscripts in the Brotherton in the special collections there and that work rolled really seamlessly into what was then an arts humanities research board funded PhD and took me more deeply of course into the research based on those literary papers that I've been archiving cataloging as a paid employer of the library and as I finished my PhD I circled back into the library working once more again on literary manuscripts for the same period but extending the knowledge because I gained so much during that kind of doctoral time that aided me to I hope you know put much more depth into those catalog records to aid the future researcher scholars who had come after me and even though each part of that time over a sort of five six year period I was wearing different hats I had different job titles I was paid in different ways as a library assistant and as a doctoral student in many ways those identities were completely merged for me each part of them were an ever deepening research and capturing of information and telling of stories for others to access and build on that made new knowledge and helped to codify that in ways that people would come back and do more with making new knowledge building on research and so at the very start of my working life there is this kind of virtuous circle understanding the relationship between research and libraries and the knowledge of that work that is often hidden is there as an intrinsic part of making research happen sometimes participating sometimes leading sometimes facilitating and then roll forward over two decades as I get greater and imagine me in my first days in my current role at Cambridge University Library and I'm walking through and having inductions my mind blowing with the you know the skill and quality of what I'm seeing to different staff and departments in the university library so here's me meeting someone in the conservation studio who is undertaking funded work from the Wellcome Trust to investigate how to stabilize incredibly fragile inks and paper that were used by prisoners in Second World War internment camps to record lives and that is at the risk of absolute you know falling away and she has had some some some funding to experiment and investigate how to stabilize that using skills as a scientist and as a heritage expert and then you walk forward through a digital content unit where frankly magic is happening and where experts in digital imaging and specialists in digital library and texting coding sitting alongside research colleagues in digital humanities and that work being a constant matrix of technical skill and research experiment around new questions that are raised to the possibility of the capabilities that technology and that space now today thanks the HRC is home to enhanced infrastructure to strengthen research and heritage science across libraries, archives and museums thanks to catco funding from the Archaeology Research Council and then you walk on through special collections where just to give you a flavor on any one day you might meet an expert specializing in description of Greek manuscripts understating genuinely research quality cataloging descriptions on which further research is placed or research staff applying their knowledge through one of our research units to the Ganesa one of the greatest Jewish medieval archives in the world so looking at their incredible language skills Marabaic to Hebrew from 10th century onwards and all the linguistic change and cultural change that or talk to colleagues in our medical library who are started as authors on clinical papers for quality of their systematic review and we could go on and I know this is replicated across many spaces that are that are represented here everywhere you walk and weave you get this really intrinsic understanding of the library as a lab and that's the heart of what we are looking at I think through this program the excitement the passion that I think it has ignited and that framing for me has become ever more urgent for our UK for our researchers for us in research libraries through the pandemic when so many of our scholars particularly in the arts humanities whether it's not exclusive to that weren't able to spend time in spaces or alongside the collections or the people in a in a direct sense who are such an important part of their research life and part of collaboration and and through that you know unexpectedly there's been this renewal of our understanding of the research life that passes through research libraries and archives and museums sometimes partnering sometimes led by sometimes facilitated by the great libraries of which so many of us here apart and so for me the development over the last 18 months working close through the HRC and particularly thanks to Tau here we have been able to help deepen our knowledge of the role of research libraries in the making and shaping and increasingly sharing of new knowledge and that is it's thrilling you know I love the connectivity across my own library life but seeing that kind of generated renewed and genuinely maturing through the careers of those around me both at Cambridge and much more broadly through our UK the research libraries in our membership and beyond so to get to this point today when we're partnering with Dhamma and so many of us do and have research offices in our own institutions I think that's really great as a combination of people in order to help strengthen those times to help increase recognition and the confidence crucially of our own staff and their development in the research process however they touch that this feels exactly what our UK should be doing recognizing as our scholars have done a few years how intrinsically important libraries are to research and how the knowledge we have and the matrix of skills we can be in our spaces and virtually are to be nurtured to be developed to be recognized and that makes me truly excited to be launching today as our UK chair the research engagement program and to have this opportunity to do so with my partners our partner sorry in the HRC and ARMA so they too can share their insights from their own organizational perspectives about why this program matters and with that I'm going to hand over to Alan who's going to talk on behalf of the HRC Alan. Thank you so much Jess and thank you for what was clearly a passionate piece from the heart so I really appreciate it hello for those of you don't know me I officially started in my role at AHRC on Monday so prior to that I was had a research development at the British Library I was at the library for 14 years and so I've been really pleased to be asked to speak at this event because it's obviously very close to my heart and the sorts of things that Jess has just outlined and my previous role as head of research development for the library and today's event really echoed in that report it's exactly in tune with my own experiences and the awareness of the sector needs from this time onwards I think really I think it's really encapsulises those very well and I was fortunate enough to work with my team colleagues across the library and partners including RLUK to build up a portfolio of externally funded research and to support the British Library's core purposes when I was in that role and some partners and colleagues are on the call today and I suppose I wanted to reflect on this in two ways and then talk about specifically in regards to my current role now at AHRC but just two points really and a big part of our research endeavour was to build up a meaning portfolio of research practice that really fed into the library's core purposes so it wasn't something different it really integrated into what we were doing as a library which I think Jess has already sort of reflected on all the way and that was also linked to gaining and maintaining our status as an independent research organisation or an IRO that was just really one element of the journey a real really central component of it was raising research practice awareness engagement and confidence with staff across all levels of the library and that absolutely speaks to the aims I think of this research engagement programme so turning to the other hat as it were AHRC was delighted to partner with RLUK on this programme and I believe that we recently worked with RLUK to support professional practice fellowships for colleagues from research and academic libraries across the UK to develop their own research leadership skills and colleagues have told me that the breadth and excellence response to the core have enabled us to from 10 fellowships to place colleagues across the sector and with their research and a wider professionally professional and disciplinary framework and I really do hope this will quit the fellows with the research skills knowledge and confidence to transform their professional practice through the research and also actually pass on their learning to others across the sector I think that's a really important thing for us to all be doing together on this and highly complimentary to those fellowship programme is what we're here for today the broader research engagement programme which is a very important piece of that jigsaw I'm so pleased that the AHRC is collaborating with RLUK on this and Alma I think the ideal partner to bring in that unique insight and professional professional support in terms of how we can take this forward from what I've read this looks like a unique training programme for library professionals in all aspects of research funding development and the whole life cycle is at work so I think that's fantastic and not only I think is this a great approach to continue to build confidence and capacity across the library sector but I also speak explicitly to the UKRI vision of a research ecosystem that does not just mean the traditional academic roots it really is about all that expertise and talent beyond traditional academic posts that exist right throughout our library system I think this also chimed with the technicians commitment and through AHRC we want to better understand what that means to a community of professionals across the alternate humanities who like myself when I was in RLUK and many of my colleagues in the library would not identify as technicians but would indeed be considered as highly skilled professionals who are very much part of that greater research practice. Our work with RLUK is so important in this context and I'm really pleased that we now have the professional insight and involvement on AHRMA and I think as I said earlier I think this is a perfect combination of this programme so that's my very short intro and with that I'll hand over to Jennifer Chair of AHRMA. Thank you Allan and thanks to Jess, good morning everybody. So yeah I'm Jennifer Sturgeo Chair of AHRMA UK and also for the day job director of the Research and Innovation Service at Northumbria and since we're on a bit of a theme I also started my research management career at Leeds so I've spent lots of time in the in the brother term and was involved in supporting applications to the Welcome Trust for special collections funded research that took place there as well so lots of lots in common with the panel today it seems. So I thought I'd tell you a little bit about AHRMA as an organisation because I recognise that not everyone on the call may have come across us or worked closely with us in the past. So as the membership organisation for research managers and administrators we have approximately 3,000 members across the UK. They're mainly in universities and some independent research organisations also some in funders the NHS and other aligned organisations. AHRMA membership is individual it's not an institutional membership so you can join as an individual regardless of what kind of organisation you might work with. If your role involves supporting research or managing research in any in any which way then you're welcome as part of our community effectively. The types of things that we that we do with the services that we provide to our members first of all start with community so we provide that opportunity for people to speak across institutions and across organisations about things that affect us at a sector level or things that affect them in their kind of day to day job but on an ongoing basis. In particular to share practice across our special interest groups and the events that we've run aligned to those. We're very much about community and also very much about raising the voice of research managers within the sector. I think in the past library colleagues may recognise this to an extent as well but there's been a feeling that amongst research managers that professional staff are not necessarily always kind of recognised and valued in universities in the way that we should be. And I've had colleagues quote things to me along the lines of feeling like second-class citizens in the university and so on. And AHRMA are very keen as I know UKRI are as well with work that's been happening recently to really change that perception to raise the voice of research managers to ensure we've got a parity of esteem between professional and academic colleagues. And to take that huge expertise across the research management community and actually use that to to support the sector more broadly through influencing policy working with funders and other organisations to ensure that processes that are set up and the ways that things are done in different organisations across the sector actually are effective on the ground when it comes to actually undertaking research in universities. You know this is the community of the people who actually interact with all those policies, procedures, even systems and whatever else when it comes to the coal face but there's a huge wealth of you know really valuable and useful information and expertise there that can be provided and that's a increasingly I think being appreciated by funders, government departments and others in the sector which you know which is excellent because that's something that's really important to us. We also have a huge range of types of people and types of role within AHRMA so research management will span from anything from research development at the very early stage of developing ideas and thinking about fit to fund the calls and thinking about how to have research funded to cost projects managing and delivering research, supporting the research excellence framework, supporting impact, support to scholarly comms which is an area where we obviously work very closely with library colleagues and all the way through into IP and commercialisation and dissemination type activities as well. And not all of our members, not all research managers are kind of purely research managers for their for their job. They will do other jobs as well so we have a huge range of what we think of as kind of blended professionals so that might be people who are part research manager but also partly a researcher or partly on some other sort of contract in the university. Partly working in a research office, partly working in the library for example. Certainly I know we've got some AHRMA members at the library at the summary of my university and so it is a kind of blended complex and for me really exciting kind of community of professionals that have a lot of different things to bring. I mentioned scholarly comms, there are obviously lots of other areas where AHRMA members and research officers already work very closely with the library colleagues. Another examples that spring immediately to mind as well as some of the funded research examples that we've already talked about are training and support for researchers and support around bibliometrics and open access and open research, the whole open science agenda. So we're communities that are working very closely together anyway and it seemed like a really kind of obvious and sensible fit to AHRMA to work with our LUK AHRC on this project so we're really happy to be involved in the collaboration. I think research is ultimately when it comes down to it a people business, it thrives on collaboration and research management in that regard is is no different so yeah I think this is a really exciting program we're really happy to be involved. Thank you so much Alan and Jennifer I'm now wondering why we haven't done an event with AHRMA before, we have so much in common it's really wonderful to hear both of you speak across the different kind of backgrounds of institutions that the organizations that you come from and Jenny as you say just just the number of kind of interactions between different communities but running through I hope what all of us have said is this really strong sense that you know recognition, building confidence, we're all in the business of making great research and great impact for a search of society and so making sure that people have got the skills, the confidence and the backing to do that as part of the kind of the overall process and making a new knowledge is what we're here to do and I think we are even since when we did the scoping study for the HRC that that I see that already maturing and Alan's quite right to mention the the practice fellowships the HRC Placid Fellowships because I think those are such a good sign that it's been such a good intervention to give people a message that this is not all words this is actually about action and doing things which this program is also in terms of developing giving that development opportunity to to a cohort of which will be 18 as we go through it as well as what's available to everybody. So we are right on time this never happens we're right on time for this bit and I am responsible for chairing our next section so with a huge thank you to Alan and to Jennifer I'm now going to move to a spotlight on presentations and discussions about the meaning of research through research libraries with case studies and a panel discussion and if you've got questions that you want to pose for Jennifer or for Alan then please do put them in the chat and if we've got time we'll come back to them through through the end of this panel section too it's in really intent to be informal and a conversation and as Jennifer says you know we're in the people business all of us so let's feel that we can talk and use this time to the best for all of us. So I'm really delighted to have the opportunity to hear now short presentations from four colleagues within the RLUK community but more broadly from the research library community all with an incredible knowledge of research and collections in their own institutions and much more broadly and they're going to be talking aspects about what's important about why your library conducts research in its own right and what contribution that makes the overall goals of the organizations in which they sit and to the goals around research in general and we're going to hear from each of them about five or six five six seven minutes and then we'll come back to plenary to to have that kind of conversation kicking off with a few questions to reach them first so use the chat to put in your questions and we're going to hear first from Judy Berg who's head of collections at the University of Durham and Judy I think that when you're ready I'll then just introduce John following up so over to you. Share my screen okay can everybody see that okay. We can Judy it's all there. Okay perfect thank you let's just there we go. So I'm presenting mainly on behalf of Craig Barclay who's our head of Museums Galleries and Exhibitions but I'll have some personal comments as well and unfortunately he's not able to be here today but I'm very pleased to kind of present the case study on his behalf and just to give you a quick bit of context there's lots of different collection areas within library collections at Durham. We all have different experiences of research it differs between our collection areas but we all undertake research to a certain extent and I think that museums particularly are very heavily engaged in research they're very often requested to be co-eyes in research to the extent that it almost squeezes out their curatorial work sometimes and we've actually had to recruit a new person in museums to help the curatorial work and we aspire to that level of involvement within archives and special collections and I echo your comments Jess about the magic of digital and heritage science and the contribution that the Capco funding has made to that there's some really exciting developments that we're taking advantage of in that area which is hugely exciting. So the case studies involving staff at the Oriental Museum relate to the Marshall Collection. He was a director general of Archaeological Survey of India and there's a huge set of photographs taken in the first half of the last century which I'm sure you can imagine are a fantastic research resource. The University acquired the collection in the 1950s and it's been central to lots of research projects since then just to give him an idea of the kind of material that there is in his collection and how interesting it is. So there's two ways in which museum staff have been involved in significant research projects relating to this collection. The first is walking with the Buddha a major research project in Nepal. We have within Durham the UNESCO chair of World Heritage sites in the Department of the Archaeology and he researches all around the world and clearly given the Oriental Museum's collections they're involved in co-creating and joining in a lot of his research and staff and collections were essential to this walking the Buddha project and as part of the research dissemination for the project there was an exhibition in Nepal which was co-created and co-developed and the venue for the exhibition was in Taiwan and it was as I said it co-curated heavily involving Oriental Museum staff there were curation workshops in Durham and in Taiwan this was back in the days when we could travel and do this kind of thing and the museum in the exhibition included early Buddhist sculpture from the Oriental Museum and lots of images from the Martial Collection and the exhibition attracted almost a million visitors so in terms of research impact a fantastic case study they also were involved in the editorial team of a multi-lingual exhibition catalogue and contributed to academic conferences that accompanied that catalogue and the research dissemination. The second project involving the Martial Collection related to the World Heritage Site of Taxila in Pakistan this was a collaboration between the Oriental Museum again Department of Archaeology and the Department of Archaeology in Pakistan and again it was dual language English and Urdu and it was supported by other research institutes within Durham and also funded partly by AHRC and this project arose in the wake of a Durham Residential Research Library Fellowship we have a scheme where we fund researchers from the UK and around the world to come to Durham to use our collections for between a month and three months with the idea that that develops national and international research collaborations which it definitely did in this case it's a very good example and museum staff were involved right at the beginning of planning that that fellow's research and they co-developed both a physical and a digital exhibition and a key strand of the project was understanding the the conservation challenges of World Heritage Sites and obviously Durham has a it's we have our own World Heritage Site so this research in terms of conservation globally of conservation of World Heritage Sites is very important to us and you can understand the importance of the Martial Collection in in helping this research just to give you a couple of examples of images taken about a hundred years apart so you can see the impact of the collection on the research and there's another one so some thoughts from Craig and from myself about what research means to us as individuals and institutions and communities of practice and particularly I think for the museum staff at Durham it's a huge opportunity to engage in and to contribute to international research that's really cutting edge it's an important facet of our professional lives and again a really thing I like to stress particularly for the museum's team they are heavily involved in teaching as well they they teach entire modules and assessment and the idea of research led teaching I think should extend to curatorial professionals and library professionals as well as academics and it's part of that parity of esteem as well we've talked about before and and the idea of the curators is another discipline it enhances the profile of the institution that's obvious from what I've said I think and it also allows the museum staff to support other institutions that might not have that specialist curatorial knowledge and skills and it underpins everything that we do it enables understanding of the collections and I think particularly it's at the heart of the concept of designated collections that we have at Durham and our stewardship of them I hope I've done that within my time bit of a race through beautifully done Judy thank you so much and much as I'd like to stop and ask you questions immediately we're going to move on so we can hear from everyone and I'm delighted to introduce next up John Hodson who is the Associate Director of Curatorial Practices at the University of Manchester Library and John I'm going to hand straight over to you thanks Jess hopefully you can see my slides I was asked first of all to consider what conducting research brings to me personally my institution and communities of practice so for myself I studied for a PhD part time between 2012 and 2017 I was investigating the Bibliotechal Indiziana this is the Library of the Isles of Crawford a great manuscript collectors in the 19th century and their collection is now at the Rylons so the motivation for undertaking a PhD didn't really derive from any desire to move into an academic role or indeed an ambition to advance my career within libraries and archives it was rather the intrinsic interest in the subject itself however it will be disingenuous to suggest that I was totally unaware of the professional benefits that a PhD has within academic libraries so on a practical basis the research directly supported my curatorial role as it was then it enhanced my understanding of the manuscripts and their provenance helped me to support researchers on the collection obtaining a PhD also enhanced my own self-esteem and confidence and it increased my educational and cultural capital so for better or for worse I was accorded greater respect from academics for having a PhD I basically joined their club since 2017 I've tried to remain research active and I've published a couple of articles in high-ranked academic journals rather than in professional or library history journals but an expanding day job has prevented me from developing my research further and ultimately publishing a monograph in my case I can't speak for everyone but in my case being a senior library manager just hasn't been conducive to remaining research active I simply haven't got the time and headspace but maybe other people don't have that same challenge for by institution the University of Manchester library conducting research has been an intrinsic part of what we do in 2013 we set up the John Rylans Research Institute to catalyze research on our special collections and inject new life into them and last year we took a further step in formally merging the August John Rylans Library and the Institute to produce this rather long-winded John Rylans Research Institute and Library or Rylans for short one of our key objectives is to blur the distinctions between library staff and researchers we're encouraging the former to become more research active and inculcating curatorial practices and mentalities amongst our research colleagues so examples of the first include several library staff undertaking PhDs currently library staff acting as co-Is in research projects but not as yet PIs as at Cambridge and Durham advanced imaging specialists and conservators working alongside researchers developing new techniques to interrogate materials in novel ways and an advanced brilliant public engagement with research team collaborating with researchers to develop novel impact case studies for their part academic researchers work alongside imaging specialists and conservators to investigate the collections using cutting-edge scientific techniques they curate exhibitions they create TI transcriptions and advanced metadata we also employ academics to catalog specialist materials as at Cambridge such as the Hebrew, Persian and Latin manuscripts where specialist skills are required now arguably major libraries have always done this but the difference now certainly at Manchester is that there is a deliberate effort to foster knowledge exchange and develop a community of practice between these specialists and other library staff from a position of parity and mutual respect the John Wines Research Institute and Library has also brought many material benefits so we've been very successful in grant capture as a result of a partnership in the last academic year though a new or ongoing research grants and contracts were six million brought in by Institute staff and University of Manchester research researchers who had received pilot or early career awards from the Institute these awards came from the AHRC, the ESRC, Leverhume and Welcome and as elsewhere we also received practical support as library staff from those brilliant research managers that Jennifer represents, grant writers, experts in full economic costing. The other question I'm considering is why is it important, it should be self-evident of course and I think it's a false question why is it important that my library conducts research in its own right and the library and the research institute are just inextricably interwoven the Rylans is a genuine community of scholars and library specialists where these distinctions are blurred but in the spirit of event I'll endeavor to answer the question so library staff are experts in many fields but I think the intersection between professional practice and the creation of new knowledge is a really exciting zone to inhabit so obvious examples from special collections I've listed out the history and ethics of collecting the history of libraries and other sites of knowledge formation, inclusive curation practices as we've heard from Durham and the development of advanced imaging and conservation technologies and methodologies, investigations in material science and that whole nebulous world of digital humanities and this is before we consider the wider library with experts in many fields including bibliometrics, data analysis, programming, AI etc so we have leaders in all of these fields who are actively publishing and promulgating their work and it's clear that the creation of new knowledge in these fields is increasingly being recognized as legitimate research in its own right not before time until recently cataloging hasn't really been considered as a research activity in itself merely as a facilitator of research so we haven't been able to include it in funding bids except in very circumscribed ways of course we need to develop a robust definition of what constitutes research like cataloging there has to be quality thresholds similar to the criteria used to assess the quality of research for example so in summary the benefits to the library are manifold enhanced status of the library and its staff closer integration with our academic colleagues certainly improved morale and self-esteem amongst our staff and having those relationships developing those relationships with academic colleagues much greater focus on the collections improvements in cataloging and resource discovery I could go on but ultimately the benefit is the creation of new knowledge I will stop there thank you so much John right on time and I love that kind of observation about the the intersection between professional practice and the making of new knowledge and the particular space that creates for innovation if you create confidence for people to give off their different experiences within that within that space so thank you so much I'm now going to bring in Owen Roberts who is director of collections and public programs and deputy deputy chief executive and librarian at the National Library of Wales Owen it's great to have you with us there we are well and it's a lovely morning here in Aberystwyth I will do my best to keep to time the other two speakers have done very well so the bar has been set I'd like to thank Araucay for the opportunity to speak at this event it's been a very very stimulating event so far the formidable question that was postulated with what does research mean within an LW and that's a question that possibly could take more than five minutes to answer but I'll start off with a little bit of context I won't read out this slide but the main point I'm making in terms of the National Library the National Library of Wales is more than books it's more than published collections and we have extensive collections in multiple formats and that as a result it is a place where you have content when you have skills and you have connections and that's ultimately what makes a library and all the other research libraries I think represented here a vital part of research and cultural infrastructure we don't have IRO status and that contains to be a challenge in terms of how we integrate into the research system but I think when you look at the overall contribution I think it's very positive that the report talks about sort of collection holding institutions specifically so what I'm going to do in these few minutes is just present you with maybe just a little bit of a strategic context and then finish off with a really really really granular examples so that we get to look at it from both ends of the telescope if you like so from a sort of strategic context we just launched our new strategic plan back in November and our planning is done in the context of the well-being of the Future Generations Act so we have our vision which is an institutional vision but what we're working towards is set out in the sort of broader context of the act that we have a duty to sort of satisfy and to be able to contribute to and they contribute specifically to those well-being goals that you see in colorful rainbow colored pictures and once you see that we're mapping the strategic well-being objectives of the organization to those that gives us sort of a line of sight if you like towards why we're undertaking the work that we're doing now research is mentioned you'll notice on the fourth objective but obviously as been already been remarked research is something that pervades every aspect of the work of our organizations and if you look across the sort of those four sort of strategic well-being objectives we've already heard around how we cultivate and care for the nation's memory that's inherent in the how we lay the foundation for knowledge economy and the role of engaging with sort of the creative sector has a specific part to play and we're not going to be able to be at the heart of national life unless we have the research behind it and then below those sort of organizational objectives we do have specific research priorities which just make help us maybe to refine a little bit more of how we prioritize different partnerships and so we have an element around interpreting and reinterpreting collections and that obviously has a very important focus and the eye focus and especially over the last two years as we see how how we how we develop our work in that area then in the middle you have the impact and the development of digital collections in the context of new technologies this again is reflected widely across the community from digital scholarship network to the digital shift agenda so that's something that's very very pertinent and then we have the third which is around methodologies and professional practice and again this just emphasizes really the importance of the multi-layered and that's really really deep foundations that underlies a lot of this research work and the special the different specialisms that you need to be able to assemble to to deliver and to deliver on the impact that you're looking for so that's sort of an organizational view just developing that a little bit forward I think that the word impact has already been mentioned and one of the things that we've been doing in this sort of planning framework is looking at how we work impact into into the planning and at an organizational level we have these key sort of outcomes that we're looking for in all the activity that we undertake and I won't go through all of them in the time that I have but obviously when we're taking and looking at our research activity what we're looking is how we can maximize each of these goals or outcomes within within that programme and then I said that I would finish with a really really specific and a really granular example but I think it was I was pondering and thinking what am I going to pick there's so many things I was going on on the walk with Jess at the beginning of the programme through my own organisation and thinking about the different departments the different contributions that are made from preservation from curatorial from from the digital aspects and I tried to pick something that was quite specifically that really wouldn't have been possible without without what we have so effectively what we have is the combination of different projects they they happen to be digitization projects but that's just an example on the bottom bottom left hand side you have the Welsh Book of Remembrance which is an item that was digitized and it contains 40 000 names it was digitized by an LW there was a project to use 150 volunteers to transcribe the the names of the fallen from Wales who served in the First World War then we have the Cardiganshire military tribunal records which are down at the bottom these are also digitized as part of another project again there was a volunteer input and then at the top right hand side we have the Welsh newspapers online they're all projects they're all collections that have come from different different eras or different sort of eras in terms of digitization but together they tell a story and the story I want to finish with it's a it's a poignant story but it just shows that we have this individual John Emerace Ladd who's in the Welsh Book of Remembrance and what we found as we were passing the data we found the records for his appeal against conscription and we were able to link that together and then link that all the way up to the reports when his appeal was dismissed in the newspaper collection so that's a really really granular but this all revealing that story wouldn't have been possible without those unique combinations of skills of research and of endeavor and sweat and hard work and that's where I wanted to finish really and emphasize the point that research libraries are really the our living infrastructures and they combine many things it's our own content it's about skills and it's about connections and I'm going to leave it there and apologies I think I've marginally gone over my time it was all good it was all good Owen and we wouldn't have missed a second so so please don't think twice about that and I really enjoyed that framing from the overall strategic to you know these are the individual lives that were surfacing and making real for I mean the world but also for the Welsh community and the pride and nationhood that is there so thank you so much for that I'm now going to come to our last speaker in this in this session and then we will have time I've got a couple of questions for the panel members but we'll also be picking up in others that come through the chat and I'd like to therefore turn to Fiona Courage who is the associate director for at the library at the University of Sussex and also the director of mass observation Kai Fiona thank you very much Jess and thank you to the previous three speakers because I think you've kind of framed beautifully what I'm going to end with which is very much a personal reflection I think which incorporates much of what you have been showcasing in terms of the activity that goes on in your institutions and I think as the fit somebody who's worked with the mass observation archive for 20 years now over 20 years I'm going to give you a micro observation I think about research and research at Sussex so briefly Sussex is a much smaller institution I think in terms of it's the the size of the library the size of the the research that we undertake and the size of the collections although I will say maybe the quality of the collections because we do have at least one designated collection that we hold which is mass observation and therefore I think the approach is probably slightly different what I want to do is just reflect over the last 20 25 years that I've been at Sussex in terms of what research has meant for us as a library and I'm taking the library as the institution when I'm talking here rather than Sussex as as a university and in the copious notes that I've got and I've got lots of paper because I'm a librarian who's worked with archives for years in the copious notes I've got here the one word that kept coming through was evolution and as I thought about these questions I thought what I've been seeing is a complete evolution in terms of how is we as librarians interact with researchers but also with research and when I started off working in special collections in 2000 I was very much my role was as a supporter it was as a facilitator it was as somebody who brought the boxes out for the researchers to look through and what I've seen over the years is an evolution in which the recognition has been well you know about these collections don't you and then it's actually about interpreting those collections and that the value of our interpretation is worthwhile so this led me on a slightly similar journey to John in that I decided I wanted to do a doctorate in my case it was because I wanted to understand what it was my academic colleagues were talking about when they talked in research language and actually what it did was completely revolutionized the way that I approached research and working with them and as a result I think had enabled me to lead in research in ways that I hadn't done before in research projects as an equal partner now I'm not suggesting that all of my colleagues have to go off and do doctorates in order to get that but what it has enabled me to do is to be much clearer when I am supporting them in research work that they may want to be able to do or that they will participate in and it's not just about me it's about as a whole workforce and how this recognition is going across the board without staff particularly with the rise in digital humanities and at Sussex the Sussex Humanities Lab was set up about five or six years ago with the library as an integral part of it and it was really important to them that we were not simply service providers that we weren't just about infrastructure we were actually part of that research in there and I think that's where the evolution has continued because what I have seen is the projects that we've participated on have sort of although they're still collections based they're actually beginning to become more more social sciencey than humanities I guess and I'm seeing much more involvement in user experience for example the anthropology of libraries the development of spaces the psychological behaviour of students within those spaces and suddenly we are working with researchers on that because we want to know about it so the sort of the dynamics I think of our interaction with research has evolved from us you know sort of supporting research to us needing research in order to provide those services and develop and evolve those services as well I think I've said the word evolution enough I haven't covered many of the notes that I have written many of the copious notes but I am aware of the time as well and it would be really good to leave some time for discussion so I'm going to call it there. That's very very generous of you Fiona but a lovely kind of weaving through your own kind of research relationships your research institution and your research life and I've really taken the way actually almost everyone this morning has spoken in a way that has touched on their own relationship as an individual to the processes and involvement in research and how strongly therefore the the motivations for us between the missions of the organizations in which we inhabit the mission of research and our own kind of personal kind of sense of kind of career satisfaction and recognition are touched on by the topics which we're speaking on and that's a that's a very good place to be if you can line up those different energies to kind of great outcomes so thank you to everyone including on the first panel for Marma and HRC as well for this for this. We now have a few minutes for questions about 10 minutes and then everyone gets a break so for five minutes before we sort of turn into the next section. We've got a couple of questions that are coming in now but I'd like to start with a general one if I may to our speakers to our four speakers and that's really it's a question of kind of definition really that you've all touched on in different ways around do you see a difference I'm happy whoever wants to come in on this in how the term research is applied within academic libraries and how it is used and applied by members of the I guess more strictly defined academic community I guess we're looking for some of those judgments around it's about value and definition and I don't know if anyone any of our speakers wants to put their hand up and and fine and actually that does pick up on a question from Alex Franklin which is about different examples of research library research language to some extent anyone willing to go first I can see that Judy's unmuted but that might be Judy are you willing to come in yeah it's a discussion I had with Craig thinking about that question and and one of the things that that we considered is is that research in libraries and museums and archives sometimes just kind of makes that leap straight to impact so it's not necessarily scholarly research as you might define it and it's not doesn't necessarily lead to a conference paper or a scholarly article or citation but it quite often leapfrogs to the next stage of impact that it increasingly research is is encouraged to define its impact on society and professional practice and because it's embedded in professional practice it just has that different focus and possibly different audiences but it's still very much that you know developing knowledge I tend to come in but I'm going to come straight to Fiona who's got a hand up sorry I feel that I should also as Alex has asked and kind of building on what you say there Judy I think that the the impact is really interesting because the the research language that I discovered when I was working as a researcher was very much on what your research question is and I remember in my cohort of other doctoral students going with my very practical research question and they just didn't get it they didn't get well you know how do you put that into a methodological framework of understanding and I was thinking you know but I just want a solution I want a solution to this problem so from that point of view this sort of being able to interpret those research languages so that when you work with researchers to enable them to get what they need out of it as well it's really really important I think that's fascinating and I'm minded that we work with all the disciplines that appear in our universities and we might have a different conversation about the kind of research questions we're asking if we're talking with a social scientist or with an engineer or those who work in an applied space to those who work in a more abstract space and it isn't just a translation is it between library and the academic community, academic community is multiple and diverse and the language shifts depending on the different sub-community, sub-discipline research group you're speaking in. I'm just going to see John if we'll come in thank you John that's great. Just a very quick comment to add to that I think one of the things that libraries are very good at is facilitating interdisciplinarity and rather than simply allowing giving space for researchers from STEM subjects and the humanities to have those conversations we should be actually at the heart of those conversations and actively bringing those people together. I think that that that whole interdisciplinarity is an area where I think we can really take advantage because we just it's our natural way of working. I love that John that the active continual translation and collaboration are actually fundamental values or behaviours at the heart of what our professional practice is Owen. I totally agree and it's about how the library and in many guises can give that different or additional perspective to what's being studied and what's under discussion I think and it's that multiplicity of perspectives that really sort of strengthens the whole process and the outcomes that you get. Thank you so much and I'm going to go now to some of the questions which are in the chat and there's one that was stimulated by Owen's presentation and one by Judy's, but anyone can come into these and I'm going to sort of praise the one that was stimulated by Owen your presentation about the archive connectivity of the Welsh and military archives towards the end of your presentation. I think the question is how far you saw that as a kind of aspect of that as citizen science and maybe the broader question that comes from that is to what extent on each of you seeing or shaping deliberately that kind of emergence or evolution to use the word that's come up a lot of modes of research participation consciously through how you're shaping kind of research programmes and I wonder if I come to Owen first given that's where the question began. Yeah there we are, thanks for the question Liam. I think the terminology around these kinds of projects are really really interesting because obviously we have a crowdsourcing system that allows us to do work which is a massive participation project and we have a volunteer programme which sits inside the organisation and where you have people physically coming to the building to work on collections and it's really interesting how how you label things maybe gives people different opinions as to what it entails and how they engage with it and as to the point around volunteering citizen science crowdsourcing what we found and what I realised quite quickly was that really it's a continuum of engagement and I've talked about this before where you have you know in our volunteer project for example you will have a really specific task something a handful of people working on a collection and right on the other end of the spectrum then you have sort of that sort of citizen science your your proper sort of crowdsourcing you know where you have thousands and tens of thousands of people contributing and then in the middle there you and what we're increasingly finding is that you have this sort of digital volunteering space in the middle as well which you could probably talk about citizen science and I suppose it runs in parallel with that whole discussions around you know digital and physical and that sort of hybrid nature of the world that we're working in but what you find that a lot of the work that we're doing is moving towards that sort of digital volunteering where you're getting quite often getting people in a room to work on things that they have interesting conversations around those but they're using and they're handling their digital skills so so there's lots of interesting things going on I think in this space around sort of digital engagement and and that sort of continuum and how that sort of feeds in to then to different audiences as well there's a really long answer to to real simple question that's a great answer it's a great answer thank you Owen and I can see Judy has unmuted is that just and you'd like to come in Judy you'd be very welcome to on this point no I don't think I've got anything to add to that it was an excellent answer other than agreeing with it thank you so much Owen let me just explore the other one of the other questions that come up that was stimulated by what Judy put forward and that was really asking Judy if perhaps you might kick off I'm sure other panelists want to come in of what you see as the kind of the opportunity and challenges and perhaps the relationship between research and research their teaching which I know has been an increasing part of the I think I'm keeping using is it Fiona's word evolution of the role of libraries in research over the last 20 years plus Judy what do you think I think it's a really interesting dynamic between research and teaching and in terms of library staff and again the evolution on both counts and there is there seems certainly a Durham I think there is a difference between museums and and archives and special collections in this regard and I think in other universities there are some situations where museum curators are embedded within academic departments so their status and the expectations and their role is is very very different in Durham it's kind of a halfway house I think there's a lot of conservators in the archaeology department in particularly at Durham so there's a lot of synergies between the archaeology curriculum and also museums languages and cultures curriculum and the collections particularly in Oriental Museum and archaeology so they are really heavily embedded in teaching delivery design and delivery of teaching and an assessment of entire modules as I said to the extent to which that their curatorial work gets squeezed out that isn't the case so much with archives and special collections and I think there's there's research load teaching and there's almost teaching as a way into research collaboration so I'm very keen that and we're starting to do this to sort of engage much more with curriculum development to encourage the development of modules specifically relating to archives and special collections teaching and through that route you know encourage conversations about research programs and research development so it's there's a dynamic between the two areas and I think it is a challenge but I think approaching the two together in parallel and really thinking when I started my career the library staff were called academic related some other people will remember that term and it and it kind of seemed to fade into the background which I think was a great shame but thinking of ourselves as academic related staff and and having that as a mindset for curriculum and research development I think is is one way of approaching it. Thank you very much I'm going to take a comment from John and then I'm going to encourage people to carry on having that conversation in the chat so we are going to move to a break for five minutes in order to go into the next section John. Yeah there's been a total transformation in the last 20 years in how we've done teaching so we used to be regarded as the pretty or not so pretty assistants but dumb handlers of material and the academics with the experts is very much now about team teaching and we are accorded equal respect both for our subject expertise but also because of our technical skills working alongside academic colleagues and we are developing some really really exciting proposals for the next 18 months where the library will be at the very heart of MA teaching programs bringing those research skills to the student experience. Sorry thank you so much John I'm aware we're just warming up in the chat but I'm going to move with on slightly. I wonder if is Jennifer still with us from Armour? Yes she is Jennifer there's a comment in the chat which I wonder if I might just give the final word to you for this section because we're so pleased to be working with Armour for this program. It's a question that says great how Armour involved strikes with the members could be a great catalyst in connecting academics with research the Armour members could be great catalyst for connecting academics with research like professions and certainly there is that kind of you know all the question of you know there's lots of relationships that build up over time through teaching relationships and other things but actually that structurally doesn't necessarily mean that the right people are always meeting the right people they're meeting the same people again and again and so the kind of question is you know is there a role for Armour in helping with that kind of creating that interconnectivity and introductions? Yeah I mean I think there's potentially a role at two levels so at a more strategic level I was really pleased to receive an email from RLUK recently by Armour capacity about your new strategy and we were about to send you what about our new strategy and say let's sit down and have a conversation about where we need to do more together across these two new strategic plans but on a more practical level within organisations generally it's the research development teams in particular within research officers who have fingers in all the pies and know about all the different research that's going on all the different people and whose role it is to to connect people effectively and research development managers kind of automatically think about doing that with different groups of academics you know hey you engineers what if we put some social scientists or whatever else into your project but actually making the case to research development managers that they ought to be thinking about library colleagues as well when they're thinking about those connections potentially it probably could be actually a really effective way of starting to join people up so that's probably something else we can think about in terms of what could Armour communicate to our members about the types of areas and the types of research that library colleagues would be well placed to support with or to be actively involved in. Thank you so much Jennifer and thank you so much for each of our speakers to Judy to John to Owen and to Fiona I think that's been such a rich panel and and you'll see when you have a chance to kind of look up or look down at the chat there are questions or comments still coming in but I am going to be a good chair for this session and make sure you'll get a break before we move into the final of the final stretch and and but you know keep the questions coming and I think that we're used to now on Zoom aren't we answering things in that format and you know where there isn't time to answer them then just as Jennifer has kind of queued up some of this will provide us with kind of substance for areas which we might want to dig into a little bit more deeply as we frame the program overall. Thank you to Jess to Jennifer and to Alan and all our speakers for the first two parts of today's session really do appreciate the all the comments and the experiences that have been shared and they really frame I think what we'll be discussing in this section really well so in the next 35 minutes or so we'll be talking through the third element of the research engagement program which is the research catalyst cohort program and whether are a lot of programs in this maybe that's a reflection for future years is to vary the terminology but what we'll do is um I'll very briefly provide an overview quickly of some of the key program elements we've already talked about the context of where this has come from so I'll talk through some of the mechanics eligibility what the program will consist of and some of the key dates for the diary in terms of the application process and things to consider and then the majority of our time will be dedicated to questions and my two colleagues at Armour, Hamish and Eva will be joining me to offer any responses to questions if you have them. So in terms of just providing an overview of what this program is and I should say that these details are available on the REUK website so you can see those by following the links shared earlier in chat. The research catalyst cohort program is really here to provide a very tailored and bespoke training program to a cohort of academic library colleagues who are interested in turning an area of research interest, an area of research which relates to their professional practice or a research question that they have and to turn this into a highly competitive academic funding application. How can we as colleagues turn these areas of interest into actual applications into research funders? Now I should say that research funders include the AHRC and include the wider UKRI family but the program will be exploring more generally how to put applications into a wider range of academic funders which can include institutions like NevaHume for example, the British Academy and Welcome. So this will be around quite generically around putting in applications to research funders and won't just be about putting applications into the AHRC. It will be delivered on a train the trainer model which means that there's a real emphasis on you sharing the learning that you acquire through this program with your colleagues within your institution and within the wider sector and there are some examples given of how this might be done within the application guidance online and as we've mentioned a number of times we're delighted that this program has been delivered and developed in partnership with ARMA and it will be delivered by an expert team of colleagues and facilitators from across the ARMA community. It's going to be fully virtual, we thought this would be the easiest in terms of planning but also to help support accessibility and it will be delivered from April through to February 2023. So it's going to start pretty quickly after applications close that's just something worth flagging as you're going through the application process it will start quite soon afterwards in April of this year. The program will consist of between 45 and 50 contact hours. These will include workshops, seminars, development sprints but also mentor time and time with a mentor and an advisor. So it will be delivered in a variety of formats and much of this time will be delivered during working hours and sort of core time. So it's going to be really important that you get the support of your employer as a part of the application process and we'll touch on this in a moment. One thing that's really worth emphasising that this is aimed at a beginner audience. So it will be providing quite the basics of the research funding landscape and then moving through. So it doesn't assume any previous funding success, it doesn't require you to have submitted previous funding applications. This really is for those colleagues who are eager and are committed to developing up their research capacity and expertise from a low base from just starting on that journey. And then finally you can see here the key aims of the program are to develop cohort members knowledge of their funding landscape and how they can develop a funding application. Their skills around some of the key elements which will underpin a successful application around project management, developing full economic costings and internal advocacy within their institution. So what are some of those core skills to develop up a highly competitive funding application? But it's actually not just about how to learn skills, it's actually also about building up the confidence. It's becoming more confident in applying your own areas of research interest to an application and this is where things like mentoring become really important. And finally the other element we want to create a cohort of advocates of individuals who are willing to advocate on behalf of the academic and research library sector in terms of the role of themselves and their institutions as research partners and leaders. So these are the four elements that we really would like to develop for cohort members through this program. In terms of eligibility, once again this information is on the REUK website. It is open to any colleague working within an academic library who meets the scheme's criteria and I could say this can be any unit or department within an academic library. It could be archives, special collections, research data management, conservation, repository services, really any unit or department within an academic library structure. You do not need to work within an REUK member. This scheme is open to both REUK and non-REUK institutions. And in order to apply we ask that your institution, your research or academic library belongs to a recognised higher education institution, a HEI, is or belongs to an independent research organisation and there are links to what these are and definitions on the website or belongs to an REUK member. So these are the three sort of institutional affiliations required to be eligible for this scheme. Your academic library belongs to a UK HEI, an IR or an REUK member. The scheme will also, as I've alluded to, really require the commitment of your employer to release you to from portions of your role in order to attend its workshops and its training sessions which will be delivered largely if not wholly during the working day. So we request that as a part of the eligibility that you have an existing employment contract which lasts until the end of the programme or is firmly expected to last until this point for those colleagues whose contracts are to be renewed. And finally that you have the explicit support of your employer to undertake the programme including in work time. The success and the impact of your participation in this programme will depend in some part on your employer's willingness to support you in your research development and your support of your employer to apply the knowledge and the skills that you've learnt within your day-to-day role. So it really is important to have that institutional support so you can make the most out of participating in this programme. The scheme has a four-part application process. It has an application form and this is available on the REUK website via a smart survey. In the application form it's quite short. It isn't designed to be particularly onerous but through this you have to outline your areas of interest, the reasons why you're applying to the scheme, how it fits in with your role and your ambitions around research, and the perceived benefits that you see that the programme will have on your ability and confidence to undertake research. How will this programme help you? How will this enable you to develop these core skills and confidence? How does it compare with the other activities you've been undertaking? This is really your opportunity to say how this will benefit you. This element will be assessed by an assessment panel. The second is around statements of support which is required from your employer and this should confirm that they are willing to support your application and give you sufficient time to participate. And once again this will also be assessed. So these first two elements will be assessed as a part of the application process. The next two won't be but are included within the application process. Firstly is a training needs analysis and this will help ARMA to establish the core needs of the cohorts and to really ensure that the programme delivers on the cohorts needs and requirements that it actually meets the real needs of those participating. So this is really to establish a baseline of the community from the very outset in terms of skills and confidence but it won't be assessed as a part of the application process. And then finally in terms around accessibility and declaration. We really want this scheme, this programme to be as absolutely as accessible as possible. So knowing from the outset any applicant's accessibility needs we see is really important and as you would imagine of course this isn't assessed as a part of the application process but might help us refine some of the programme moving forward from the outset. So these are the four application elements, the application form on the REUK website and the statements of support from your employer which should be sent via email to an address given on the REUK website. And we'll put the link once again if it's not already in chat to the outline for the application process. Finally a few things to consider as a part of your application and these are the things that will be the applications will be assessed against. Firstly your commitment to developing your research skills, capacity and confidence and you expressing this clearly within your application form. The perceived transformative effects that undertaking this programme could have on your research ability skills and confidence. So how you see this is really benefiting you and what it might enable you to do that you can't currently. Your commitment to sharing your learning widely with your colleagues and with the wider library community following the completion of this programme and we should note that we expect you to do this dissemination and to share your learning really after you've completed the the programme not necessarily during. And REUK will provide and highlight a number of opportunities whether through conferences or blogs and other means through which you could share some of your learning. To have your employer support which I've already mentioned and also your willingness to be advocates for academic libraries as research partners and leaders. These are the five assessment criteria that applications will be judged against and will be really important for you to consider when you're writing your application. After all that the most important thing to stress is that the application deadline is two weeks to day. It's Friday the 11th of March at five o'clock. You can see full application guidance, the application form and further details on the REUK website at reuk.ac.uk forward slash research catalyst cohort. There's also an email address there if you have any questions or queries when you've been going through this. You can also download the application form as a PDF beforehand so you can see exactly what questions it asks before you start submitting the survey. So that is a brief overview of what's there. There's nothing there that I've just explained that isn't already available but we'll now stop for just just under 25 minutes for any questions that you have. If I can invite Hamish and Eva and Tao, my colleagues to be on screen as well and please do either raise your hands or put any questions in chats and I'll stop sharing my screen now. So I can see some questions have come through and I start going through these and if any colleagues want to add to it, please do Tao Eva or Hamish. So the first question is can you apply if you work in a front-of-house role at an academic library? Absolutely. As I mentioned, any unit or any department including front-of-house so there's no reason why you can't apply. So that's quite an easy one. So then the next question is from Elizabeth. The application form asks you to briefly detail your research interest. Will applicants be expected to have a ready-formed research topic or can this be further explored during the scheme? As suggested, this is really designed for those colleagues who are beginning their research journey. So I think having a sense of your research interest, your area that you wish to develop will be an important thing for you to consider but we're not expecting a fully formed research question. So no, that's the case and an area is really helpful but not having a fully formed question. And hopefully by the end you may have a fully formed question but this will help you on that journey. So in terms of the assessment panel, what steps will be taken to ensure an inclusive approach is taken to candidate selection? So the application assessment panel is made up of representatives not only from REUK, EHRC and ARMA but also colleagues from the wider research library community. So there is a variety of different opinions and backgrounds represented on the panel within and beyond REUK members and across professional practices as well. So a variety of opinions there. All of the applications will be judged on the criteria which have been published which you can see there and will be treated the same effectively based on those criteria. I think that's probably what I'd say. I'm not sure whether any of the colleagues would have any further comments on that part of the process. I think the assessment process is outlined there on the web page and of course we wouldn't want this to be absolutely inclusive and will be fair, a fair process. Diane asks, can you apply if you have done some research before but not on a funded research project? Yes. Once again it goes back to that point that this is a beginner program so we're very much focused on that. But no, you can have been involved in a research project before and there is an opportunity there for you to explain what experience you have within the application form and how this program will build on that experience. And I think that's one of the important things to cite is that transformative effect. So even if you have been involved in a program previously or in a research application or project previously, how will this program build on top of that experience and enable you to go to the next level? There's a great question around what would your views on applications who already have a PhD but in an unrelated field and undertaken some time ago? Likewise, this is open to you to apply to. I think the important thing you've once again is that transformative effects. So if your PhD was some time ago and on a very different field, this program still has a and your research interest is in a very different field now and there is that separation in terms of that your focus, then if you can justify and outline the transformative effect you expect this program to have on your research ability then absolutely. I think if you were looking to be a part of this program to further build on a sort of an area of deep research expertise that you've done your PhD on, the transformative effect probably wouldn't be quite as great. But I think absolutely that is open to you. If you've already got a PhD in an unrelated field and undertaken some time ago, I think that's absolutely fine. In terms of how many places there are as part of the cohort, there are 18 places available on the cohort and that's why we're undertaking this competitive process because we expect that there will be a high level of demand. But yes, there are 18 places available. And Teresa then asked the question, how many applications do you tend to get? Well, this is the first year, so we don't know. We're hoping for lots, we're hoping for lots of good and strong applications which really do align with their colleagues' areas of research interest and areas they want to develop. But we don't know how many applications we're going to get. We have suggested on the guidance that if your institution intends to submit multiple applications, you may want to have an internal application process to ensure that these are competitive, but it will be a competitive process. We should also say this is the first year, as we say, this is almost a pilot year, and I'm sure any learning that we have from this year can be applied to future years if this program continues. In terms of another question we said, do you prioritise applications from post-graduates and or professionals or are undergraduates welcome to apply? So this is very much aimed at colleagues who are working within and have a contractual relationship with an academic or research library and have a contract which goes beyond February 2023. We do not prioritise applications in terms of post-graduates, for example. There are very much for those colleagues who have professional contracts or working within an academic library. These could be members of the post-graduate community, but we're very much focused on those colleagues who are working and have that contractual relationship within a research or academic library. We put in the guidance explicitly that this program is fully open to colleagues on parts time or full time where we're not concerned about contracts, but there should be that contractual relationship and a desire to develop professionally and continue to develop professionally within academic and research libraries. In terms of another question from Simona, what would be your views on applicants who are currently PhD candidates? I think once again it goes back to the transformative effect of your participation in this program and your desire to develop your research ability and confidence in a career within academic libraries. I think it will depend in some areas in terms of where your PhD is focused and we wouldn't want this program to be an extension of your postgraduate training, for example. I'm not sure, Tao, do you have any reflections on that? Just unmuting. I think I would agree with what you just said, Matt, so I think if you are, that the primary consideration is whether or not you have a contractual agreement with the library or the unit that you're working with, because this is primarily for people who are interested in developing their professional practice and research within that context. Thanks Tao. I think that does cover it and I should say if any of these questions, when we respond for further questions in your minds, if there's not time to stay, please do email the address given on the scheme website as well. Will this be an annual program? Well, this is a pilot this year so we're certainly interested in continuing to develop up the skills and capacity and confidence of the academic library community and we will do a thorough evaluation of this year's program and make a judgment then towards the end whether we make this an annual one. But certainly we're open to exploring that through this year's cohort program but this is very much seen as a pilot year. And then Amelie asks, would this scheme be suitable for an individual wishing to develop a topic with a view to studying slash applying for a PhD or is the remit really more for the development of a funded research project that would be more collaborative? I think it is open to those colleagues who may have an interest in furthering their skills and qualifications through a PhD route. So the program itself, as I just highlighted and even Hamish wanted to maybe add to this in a moment, is very much there to provide that wide landscape view of opportunities to apply to academic funding. PhD funding, some of the learning may be relevant to PhD applications but it will not be addressing that specifically it is looking at that broad brush of what makes a good funding application. So this the scheme probably will be suitable for those individuals wishing to develop a topic for their future career and that may include a PhD but it won't be definitely won't be exclusively around that. And as you suggested in your question there will be a very collaborative element and collaborative funding application element to the to the program. Eva or Hamish or Tal would you have anything to add to that? I think you're right Matt. I think it's I think the key thing here if you are looking at a PhD is to show your ambition beyond the PhD, what you're planning to do next. I don't think this is a device for you securing your PhD. I think we're looking for you to share your ambition going forward, your passion for your subject and where that is going to take you. If a PhD comes along on the way I think that's great but I don't think that's the primary purpose of this program. I think it's much more to reach beyond the PhD and if it can be collaborative I think that's a great thing. We've had some really good examples in the session this morning about the role that the scholarly communications and collections can play as a collaborative agent if you like across the institution as a whole. But it probably doesn't need to be necessarily collaborative but I think you need to articulate the research quite clearly in terms of what you want to be doing. Thanks Hamish. So those are all the the questions in chats and then we sort of rattle through those with some with some speed. Are there any other questions that colleagues would like to put in chat or feel free to raise your hand as well. You can raise your hand and just ask verbally if you've got any questions or perspectives or reflections. Well, there is a lot of content online. We've been deliberately quite thorough in the guidance that is available. I'm not sure just if when we're waiting just a few moments for colleagues to have any few final questions whether Tau or Hamish or any reflection or either from other armor or AHRC around the ambitions of the program and what we're looking forward to in particular. I think you just used a key word here which is ambition and I think the word I used to use in the old days when I was talking to new researchers is passion and I think what what you very probably have is a passion for your subject is an ambition for your subject and I think my guidance is to think about that. Follow your dreams. There's an opportunity to follow your dreams here not because there's a source of funds that will fund all your dreams in one go and I suspect your dreams will be endless but I think if you know where you're going where you are heading for then think big and then you can chunk it back into chunks as it were so if you know where you're going that's a great thing and then it is very much easier to identify funding that enables you to take those steps along the way and I always used to have this conversation about knowing where you're going because if you know where you're going if you've got that dream you articulate it really well and I think that's one one hint I would give in terms of applying for grant funding is being able to communicate your dream communicate what you want to do and and when you see that if you're a funder when you see that kind of thing it really ignites you it really excites a funder because they think oh yes this person's got this new idea this this great idea and I've so often seen in the university setting people being restricted by a particular funding scheme and they start with the funding scheme and they're restricted by that and I would never do it that way I would always start with your dream and then take a journey along the way don't go for the biggest fish because you might not be successful but there's there might be some very nice stepping stone initial grants that take you on that journey and allow you to pursue your dream so I think today's session has been really inspirational actually our earlier speakers have talked all about the excitement of research and it is exciting it really is there's a real opportunity here for this scheme to encourage that and help people along their way um thanks thanks Haynish and anything to tell from the HRC at the site at all um I was going I wasn't going to I couldn't put it as well as Haynish has just put it in terms of of of of dream and passion I would add one more which is don't don't be too scared don't be put off um I think one of the things that and I don't even come from an academic background the basis of research management and sort of research policy but I think one of the things that I often hear is well we don't talk like that we're not sure where we are when people talk about methodologies and theoretical frameworks and literature reviews it's just terminology I think you know and it's terminology um that is applied to um specific aspects of academic work um which if you think about it well we drill down we'll we'll we'll very often equally apply to um your professional practice um in some capacity so I think it's um don't be afraid to ask questions and um don't be too worried if the first time you sort of enter a research seminar um or you read academic papers you don't this isn't me there's got nothing to do with me it's a separate it's a completely separate different um um world to which I I cannot gain entry because the purpose of this program is is is is to um help remove those barriers perceived um or all real so Tom I love that I love what you've just said because I think many people coming into research can feel a bit of an imposter you know they can be sitting in the room and there's people around them with professorial degrees with with the phd's and professorial it's that kind of thing and I think it if if colleagues are really enthused about doing what they want to do they should definitely definitely not be put off thinking that they're an imposter in the room but I do like what you said about if you're not successful the first time around I'm slightly paraphrasing you here but that is that is you know that does happen you might not be successful the first time around but that stage of applying and that process of applying for grant funding will develop your research to the next level without even realizing it because you will have thought through a great idea to a level of detail that if you're not successful you'll get some feedback back from the funder and many do give brilliant feedback which enables you to level up to the next level and already even even if you didn't apply even if you weren't successful with that grant your research will have progressed up a level which will make you more likely to get funding the next time around so never be put off by the fear of failure here it's it's managing that it's coping with that it's it's just a way it's part of the process almost yeah thank you Tal thank you Hamish so we've got don't be afraid we've got passion we've got ambition and evolution thanks to Fiona from earlier I've seen a really important question that's just come in from Becky well application it will applicants who are unsuccessful we see feedback we'll try and give some it really depends on numbers but we'll try and give give at least some acknowledgement and very brief feedback but it will probably be quite brief simply because of the demands that we're expecting but certainly we hope to and if you're not successful for this year and it does run in future years we certainly encourage future applications as well so thank you so much for everyone who has joined us today we really do appreciate all your time for sharing for your expertise and for your questions so thank you for being with us there is and there are lots of details online so in terms of the research catalyst cohort program deadline says two weeks a day at five o'clock on the 11th of March there's full guidance online there's also an email address you can email if you've got any specific questions and please do this is a real opportunity to as as Hamish and Tal said do not be afraid and to try things we will also have another event our next event as a part of the research engagement program the wider program is exploring the technician commitments and the application of the technician commitment to research and academic libraries as centres of technical and specialist expertise and that's on the 27th of April and further details can be found at the website below and you can also register through that link as well