Birkbeck awarded over £825,000 by the Wellcome Trust to develop its research culture
The funding will be used to provide tailored support for groups recognised as being disadvantaged in higher education, to further their research and careers in health and health-related subjects.
Birkbeck has been awarded a total of £825,140 over two years by the Wellcome Trust’s Institutional Fund for Research Culture (IFRC). The funding will be used to build a diverse health research workforce who will collaborate on nurturing and sustaining an inclusive, ethical and creative research environment that supports the research and mental health/well-being of colleagues across their academic careers.
Professor Julian Swann, Pro Vice-Chancellor for Research and Professor of History, commented: “This is excellent news for Birkbeck and it underlines our reputation as a research-intensive university as well as reinforcing our mission as a diverse and inclusive academic community.”
The proposed activities will build on the successes of Birkbeck’s Institutional Strategic Support Fund (ISSF) programme and provide tailored support for people being the first in their family to go to university, people of colour, and other groups recognised as being disadvantaged in higher education, to further their research and careers in health and health-related subjects.
A suite of pilot projects have been developed, to support the development of a diverse, inclusive, ethical and creative research culture across the university, through projects such as developing a diverse academic workforce from the bottom up; improving recruitment and retention of a diverse academic workforce; and the coproduction of knowledge in health research with people with lived experience of health inequalities.
The application was developed by Professor Julian Swann; Professor Karen Wells, Professor of International Development and Childhood, and Director of the Birkbeck Institute for Social Research; Liz Francis, Deputy Director of Research (Operations); and Sarah Lee; Deputy Director of Research (Strategy). The responses to the research culture survey circulated to all academic colleagues last year contributed to the design of the proposal.
The Wellcome Trust invited 43 institutions from the UK and the Republic of Ireland to apply for grants funding to take on ambitious projects that advance research cultures and research environments that are equitable, diverse and supportive. The invited organisations had to have held at least ten Wellcome grants in the last five years to be eligible.