University of Suffolk, as a modern, global university, will develop its distinctive, impactful and innovative research to become world leading in its specialist fields by 2030.
Building on our success from REF2021 with almost 70% of our outputs being classed as ‘world-leading’ or ‘internationally excellent’, we are developing an intentionally inclusive research culture. This strategy outlines our commitment to ensuring an inclusive approach to research and equal career opportunities in line with our submission to Athena Swan, the Concordat to Support the Career Development of Researchers and our commitment to the Concordat for Research Integrity.
Our Vision states: “We believe that a strong, highperforming university requires a rich research culture generating high-quality outputs and intellectual capital. As a new university, we need to put in place a significant development programme to achieve this goal. By 2030 we will develop a sustainable research portfolio based on our core academic strength that is impactful, practical and innovative.”
As proud holders of the HR Excellence in Research Award from the European Commission since 2017, we have adopted one of the key principles of the award — that excellent research requires a supportive and inclusive research culture — to underpin our 2023-2030 Research Excellence Strategy. This recognises that a proactive and collaborative approach is required between all stakeholders, to create and develop positive environments and cultures in which all researchers can flourish and achieve their full potential. Our research environment is founded on a culture of integrity, good governance, rewarding best practice and comprehensive support for the development of our researchers.
Our substantial investment in our professoriate and research infrastructure underpins our priorities for effectively responding to societal challenges and transforming research to foster a strong, sustainable research and scholarly culture. We have grown a vibrant multi-disciplinary Postgraduate (PGR) community and we will be making an application Research Degree Awarding Powers (RDAPs) by 2025. Our income diversification from research has increased to exceed £1M per annum and, with the introduction of the Suffolk Academic Model in 2022, we increased the number of academic staff with significant responsibility for research (SRR) to 40% and intend to have 70% of our academic workforce having SRR by 2030.
Reflecting the key disciplines in which we have established an international reputation for Higher Education provision and our research trajectory to date, we will underpin our distinctive research portfolio in:
Health and Wellbeing (including research into Integrated Care delivery)
Social Justice and Crime
Creative Digital Technologies
Sustainable Energy
Excellence in Learning and Teaching
Culture and Heritage
Our three key strategies – Learning and Teaching, Research Excellence and Knowledge Exchange – combine to underpin our vision and our institutional strategy for transformation.
This strategy for research excellence is based on 4 OVERLAPPING DRIVERS (table of four drivers and three sections):
1. An inclusive research culture will ensure the majority of our staff are engaged in excellent, highly impactful research and producing outputs of 3* (internationally excellent) and 4 * (world leading)
2. Working collaboratively with a wide variety of external stakeholders to plan for and evidence our research impact
3. Invest in our priority research areas to have a strong future REF submission in at least 6 Units of Assessment (UoAs)
4. Achieving RDAPs and increasing and diversifying our global PGR community
1. Our inclusive research culture will ensure the majority of our staff are engaged in excellent research, we will:
Evidence our growing critical mass of research active staff, our viable sustainable research community and how our research culture and environment which supports researchers and excellent research. By 2030 our approach to Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) will be consistently recognised and rewarded through retaining our HR Excellence in Research Award and by gaining Silver in the Athena Swan award.
Embed research alongside our learning and teaching strategy will act as a catalyst in driving forward our approach to developing high-quality, research-informed learning and teaching. Our students will learn in a dynamic, thriving research culture that underpins every subject area, and which adopts an evidence-based pedagogical approach to learning and improving the student experience.
Ensure that our submission to the Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF) emphasises the importance of our research culture, enriching our learning environment with highly qualified, research-informed staff who are leading the field in their relevant discipline. Our approach values, not just discipline-based research, but also research on pedagogic practice to inform and evaluate effective learning, teaching and assessment.
2. Working collaboratively with stakeholders to plan for and evidence our research impact –we will:
Increase our established research relevant links and raise our research reputation through effective public engagement, knowledge exchange and dissemination underpinned by the principles outlined in the Concordat for Engaging the Public with Research.
Strengthen our position in the external research drivers through collaborations and frameworks for effective partnership working and our rigorous, ethical and applied research will generate impacts that will underpin and information sharing public engagement, co-creation and collaboration.
Identify priority local, regional and sector areas for research which reflect the Plan for Growth, the expectations of the New Anglia Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP) and statutory and non-statutory service providers developing a long-term, sustainable collaborative research profile.
Further develop our international reputation for excellent research in distinct arenas to become a connected, research-driven impactful university which endeavours to solve the pressing problems of our region but also in preventing problems on targeted issues relevant to national and international agendas in line with the UN Sustainable Development Goals.
3. Invest in our priority research areas to have a strong future REF submission in at least 6 UoAs through:
Supporting our priority areas for research which address national and regional societal challenges working with statutory and non-statutory service providers in developing our long-term, sustainable collaborative research profile.
Building on our success from REF2021, to further develop our distinctive research profile which draws on our strengths in an increasing competitive and challenging funding landscape to drive forward our research agenda.
Ensuring our compliance with the Concordat to Support Research Integrity, our research will be impactful and innovative reflecting the highest standards of ethical rigour and integrity. High quality publications based on robust ethical research are essential for developing our academic reputation and will be evident in our submission to the next REF.
4. Achieving RDAPs and increasing our global PGR community
We will successfully achieve research degree awarding powers (RDAPs) by 2026. We will ensure that a significant proportion of our staff meet the criteria required for an application for RDAPs and enhance physical, digital and virtual learning spaces to provide our students with access to state-of-the art facilities and a strong research foundation based on a dynamic, supportive learning environment.
Through our interdisciplinary Suffolk Doctoral College, we will support our widening participation agenda and grow our vibrant postgraduate community through international recruitment to increase our global postgraduate research provision and become the destination University for specialist subjects within our areas of distinctiveness.
We will ensure that supervision of our research students, and the teaching and development activities we undertake at doctoral level, are underpinned by academic staff with high levels of knowledge, understanding and experience of current research and advanced scholarship in their subjects of study.
The University of Suffolk Strategy for Research Excellence will: ensure that excellent research is integral to learning and teaching > engage the majority of staff with research and scholarship > effectively support student employability through a research informed curriculum > strengthen our growing research reputation > enhance the quality of our research outputs > increase funding through research activity > develop effective research partnerships and interdisciplinary collaborations in priority areas >
In order to align with societal challenges and develop our distinctive research in line with our curriculum portfolio, we will develop our research agenda in collaboratively with a number of sectors, ambitions, priorities and themes. We will develop strategic partnerships and effectively collaborate with key stakeholders to build a sustainable research reputation in an increasingly competitive market.
The University of Suffolk collects data for research governance, management and evaluation in separate arenas and an important aspect of the research strategy is to collate and share research data effectively to establish and monitor success indicators. A more comprehensive, transparent approach to research metrics as measures of
KPIs (including staff engagement; funding; publications, etc.) through an online end-toend research management programme will be introduced to monitor, measure and evidence our success in support of our application for RDAPs and the next REF.
