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Welcome to the UKRI Engagement Hub.

Open Activities

  • Digital twins workshop - dietary and access requirements

    Please fill in this survey if you are attending the digital twins workshop on 18 September 2024 in person, so we can inform the venue about any dietary or access requirements ahead of of the event.

    Closes 16 September 2024

  • CBC Symposium Signup

    CBC Symposium Signup

    Closes 16 September 2024

  • EPSRC University Doctoral Landscape Awards 2025 - 2027 - Assurance Questions

    This online survey contains assuarance questions for the EPSRC University Doctoral Landscape Awards 2025-2027. Further details on how to respond to assuarance questions are mentioned in the guidance document attached in the e-mail sent with the allocation letter. EPSRC/UKRI GDPR...

    Closes 17 September 2024

  • EPSRC Engineering Healthier Environments: Micro Network and Micro Network Plus

    This is a mandatory intention to submit form for Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) funding opportunity Engineering Healthier Environments: Micro Network and Micro Network Plus.

    Closes 18 September 2024

  • RAL & Boulby 2024 Annual Apprentice Award Nominations

    At STFC, we are keen to recognise and celebrate the achievements of our Apprentices working across the breadth of operations at Rutherford Appleton Laboratory and Boulby. We are therefore seeking nominations for the following categories: Apprentice of the Year 2024 Outreach...

    Closes 20 September 2024

  • RAL & Boulby Apprentice Peer Support Award 2024

    At STFC we are keen to recognise and celebrate the achievements of our Apprentices working across the breadth of Rutherford Appleton Laboratory and Boulby. There are a number of award categories that Apprentices can be nominated for by Managers across the organisation, including Apprentice of...

    Closes 20 September 2024

  • DL & UK ATC Apprentice Peer Support Award 2024

    At STFC we are keen to recognise and celebrate the achievements of our Apprentices working across the breadth of Daresbury Laboratory and UK ATC. There are a number of award categories that Apprentices can be nominated for by Managers across the organisation, including Apprentice of the Year...

    Closes 20 September 2024

  • DL & UK ATC 2024 Annual Apprentice Award Nominations

    At STFC, we are keen to recognise and celebrate the achievements of our Apprentices working across the breadth of operations at Daresbury Laboratory and UK ATC. We are therefore seeking nominations for the following categories: Apprentice of the Year 2024 Outreach Award ...

    Closes 20 September 2024

  • BBSRC Forward Look for UK Bioscience 2024: Community Consultation

    In 2018, BBSRC published its first ever Forward Look for UK bioscience . Scoped and developed in collaboration with our community and stakeholders, the Forward Look has served as a crucial framework for BBSRC, guiding our strategic direction, actions and investments. It also...

    Closes 20 September 2024

Forthcoming Consultations

Closed Activities

  • Condition of the Estate Survey

    Condition of the Estate (COTE) Survey At Research England, we are undertaking a piece of work to better understand the current state of research infrastructure (buildings and capital equipment) across the English higher education sector. This work, termed the Condition of the Estate (COTE),...

    Closed 13 September 2024

  • Web helpdesk rebrand 2024

    Thank you for taking the time to complete this survey. We want to remind our colleagues that the Web helpdesk is not an IT desk but a team of web experts who provide advice and guidance, design and draft user-centered content. We work in collaboration with subject matter experts across the...

    Closed 13 September 2024

  • UKRO Subscriber Roundtables - Sign Up Form (extended)

    We would like to invite subscribers to attend a virtual roundtable discussion in September which will provide an additional opportunity for us to update you on developments with UKRO, and for us to discuss the future of the UKRO service with you. This will help us to better understand your needs...

    Closed 10 September 2024

  • ESRC Research Talent Advisory Group Member Application Form

    ESRC is establishing a Research Talent Advisory Group (RTAG) to play a key role in delivering its mission to sustain a world-class, diverse and inclusive research base that supports talent across the entire research career. The group will provide expert input and advice that will:...

    Closed 9 September 2024

  • UKRI Fellowships – Learning and development provision survey.

    As part of UKRI’s transition to collective talent funding , we are reviewing the post-award support provision for UKRI funded fellows. To help us shape this activity, we are seeking input from people who have either held a UKRI fellowship within the last 5 years or are learning and development...

    Closed 9 September 2024

We Asked, You Said, We Did

See what we've consulted on. See all outcomes

We asked

In January 2024, we asked for feedback on the Medical Research Council’s (MRC's) draft public partnerships strategy. The strategy was drafted following a process of co-development and sets out MRC’s ambition and priorities for effective collaboration and genuine partnerships between the research community and wider society.

You said

We received 354 responses to the consultation. These responses came from a variety of individuals, groups, and organisations from the research community, the voluntary sector and wider society. The consultation responses were overwhelmingly positive. 87% agreed with the strategy overall, and 81% said that the strategy was written in clear language.

Respondents welcomed specific aspects of the strategy, including its inclusiveness, the focus on non-clinical research and the ambition to build long-term sustainable partnerships between the research community and wider society. Respondents highlighted specific initiatives which they considered vital to the success of the strategy such as, having a clear payment policy, appointing a new MRC programme director for public partnerships, and setting up a public advisory group at MRC.

Respondents recommended that MRC publish the new strategy in a variety of formats, alongside clear delivery (action) and evaluation plans.

We did

We used findings from the consultation to inform the final MRC public partnerships strategy. Key changes included:

  • Clearly stating that this strategy is an initial three-year commitment to our long-term ambition
  • Clarifying that the strategy has been co-developed
  • Specifically mentioning the involvement of international researchers, public partners, and public involvement and engagement professionals
  • Making clear that the consultation informed the final strategy
  • Emphasising that this strategy is intended to be inclusive, and will be aligned with MRC’s Embedding Diversity in Research Design policy
  • Acknowledging the importance of sharing power
  • Making clear that we will implement our new payment policy for public partners, and that other rewards and recognition are additional to payment
  • Emphasising that we will support public partners to take on leadership roles and responsibilities, such as chairing groups or co-leading projects
  • Committing to publish our action and evaluation plans

The consultation findings have been summarised in an infographic and are detailed in full in our consultation report. 

Next steps:

The final MRC public partnerships strategy will be published on the MRC website in summer 2024.

We asked

For opinions on the definition and scope of a categorisatino of UKRI funding as either 'Investigator-led' or 'Directed'.

You said

Only 8 responses were received, and there was no clear consensus on many questions. Most respondents were from universities.

We did

In the absence of opinion to the contrary we will continue to develop and apply the indicator to all UKRI funding. It will be applied as a binary indicator.

We asked

In April 2022, we asked for feedback on the new MRC expectations on the inclusion of sex in experimental design of studies involving animals, tissues, and cells. We also asked what MRC could do to aid researchers in implementing these requirements.

You said

We received 91 responses from researchers and research staff, with many constructive and detailed suggestions. We also received a written submission from the Academy of Medical Science, on behalf of their fellows.

We were pleased that many were already using both sexes in their experiments or were ready to begin doing so (32% and 5% of respondents, respectively). We recognise that many (57%), even though they were very often supportive in principle, felt barriers existed to implementing this in their research.

One of the most commonly mentioned concerns was a likely increase in grant costs. Respondents sought clarity from MRC as to how this would be handled. Ensuring animal welfare standards and the logistics of single housing male animals were also mentioned as barriers.

Roughly a third of respondents had questions about the changes, particularly around:

  • When the new expectation would begin to apply and how compliance would be ensured
  • How and when MRC would grant exceptions for single sex studies
  • How MRC would handle grants where costs were significantly increased due to using both sexes of animal

The support from MRC that was identified as being most helpful was:

  • Advice from MRC Head Office about applications
  • Training in statistical design and analysis
  • Written guidance
  • Case studies or worked examples

We did

As a result of this feedback, we have been working to make more information available about the upcoming change and to ensure the research community receives the necessary support. We have:

  • Updated our Guidance for Applicants with details about how to comply with these new expectations
  • Made it clear that there is no retrospective application of this requirement for grants that have already been awarded
  • Clarified that the requirement of including both sexes does not mean ‘balancing’ or using equal numbers of both sexes, as for many experiments this would result in unnecessary use of animals, but including both sexes as appropriate for the experimental design 
  • Made the cases where MRC will consider single sex studies clearer both on our website and in our Guidance for Applicants
  • Planned a webinar for applicants together with NC3Rs to be held on 21 July 2022, in which animal handling and statistical design will be discussed, and applicants can ask questions
  • Made it clearer on our website that there is no cap on MRC awards, and researchers should submit grant costings based on the cost of performing the work, and justified by the importance and potential of the work

In the coming months, we will:

  • Update our guidance to Peer Reviewers to ensure proposals submitted to the deadlines starting from September 2022 are reviewed in accordance with the new requirements
  • Develop case studies to show the level of information that would be required in applications, including examples of where single sex studies would be appropriate
  • Ensure that MRC Programme Managers are available to support applicants that have further questions
  • Look into what other support we can provide