Research Integrity Annual Narrative Statement: February 2024

The University’s latest Annual Narrative Statement around its work in the area of research integrity will shortly be published on the University’s public Research Governance website, where earlier iterations of the Statements can also be found.

The Statements are made publicly available in order to provide information to all involved in research around the work the University carries out to support and strengthen research integrity, also known as, research good practice, as well as the contact points for any concerns around potential research misconduct. This is in line with the University’s responsibilities as articulated in the Universities UK (UUK) Concordat to Support Research Integrity.

The latest Statement covers the period March 2023-February 2024, and builds extensively on earlier iterations, due to the large amount of activity surrounding work in developing, enhancing and sustaining research good practice. The University has also continued to build on its robust policies, processes, systems and guidance which facilitate research and support researchers in meeting the highest standards.

Some of the highlights found in the Statement are:

• three (post-doctoral) Westminster Fellows were recruited to engage in equality, diversity and inclusion research, with support by Research England research culture funding;
• the Trusted Research agenda is now firmly on the radar with the University, and the University ran targeted sessions for researchers and those supporting and managing research in September 2023;
• the University retained its HR Excellence in Research Award, underpinned by our Action Plan and supporting our commitment to the Concordat to Support the Career Development of Researchers;
• cohort two of the Researcher Development Awards scheme will finish their final year at the end of July 2024;
• the scholarly communications and open research team delivered a range of training workshops to researchers and doctoral researchers, including for the first time a Transitioning from PhD to ECR workshop for doctoral researchers and an Open Research for Teaching and Learning workshop for all colleagues;
• the University of Westminster Press (UWP) continues to enable publishing best practice and influence sector-wide best practice, with active involvement in the setting up of the Open Institutional Publishing Association (OIPA);
• the scholarly communications and open access team team continue to lead (in collaboration with academic colleagues at the University and our collaboration institutions) sector-wide work to recognise and embed non-text/ non-traditional research outputs across open standards and systems, presenting their findings at international conferences: the National Information Standards Organization (NISO) Plus 2023 conference (Feb 2023), Open Repositories conference (June 2023 in Cape Town), and at a Jisc/ARMA workshop on institutional research management workflows (April 2023);
• the University’s Open Access Policy was revised in 2023, informed by sector-wide developments in relation to rights retention, articulating connections with sustainability, equality, diversity and inclusion (including the recognition of a diverse range of outputs including practice research outputs), and highlighting best practice in relation to licensing for re-use and ORCID;
• the Research and Knowledge Exchange Steering Committee approved a new Public and Community Engagement Strategy on 31 October 2023;
• the University’s Making a Difference: Research and Knowledge Exchange Strategy: 2022-29 was approved by Academic Council on 21 June 2023 and puts openness and transparency at its core, aligning with the University of Westminster strategy values of progressive, compassionate and responsible which underpin our mission;
• and the University’s Introduction to Research Ethics training module, designed to increase awareness and build on the capability of researchers to recognise and mitigate any ethical implications or governance issues related to research and KE, is due to be released in February 2024 to all University and College level Research and Knowledge Exchange Ethics Committees (UREC and CRECs) members, as well as ad-hoc ethics reviewers.

For further information, please contact the Research Ethics and Integrity Officer, Huzma Kelly, via research-knowledge-exchange-office@westminster.ac.uk