Prof Ian Penton-Voak was appointed to lead this initiative and as part of the process we’ve been working with the MoreBrains Co-operative – a group of experts in research ecosystems - to map our pre-award processes investigating factors that support or hinder researchers seeking funding (either as principal or co -investigators).

Our first, internal, workshop took place in September with a range of academic and professional services staff who reflected a diversity of backgrounds, career stages, and demographic characteristics. The workshop covered many aspects of the pre-award landscape, including the dissemination of funding opportunities, how we build collaborations, the support provided for applicants, and engagement with university and funder application systems.

This allowed us to generate a pre-award workflow, which we presented to representatives from the Association for Research Managers and Administrators (ARMA) in a second workshop in November, to determine whether our findings would generalize to other institutions and contexts. There was a great deal of interest from ARMA in this work, with over 120 representatives requesting to take part in the workshop.

These workshops have allowed us to shed light on often-hidden decision points in pre-award processes, deepen our shared understanding of mechanisms of exclusion and begin to highlight existing good practices, and propose new actions that will help to tackle these issues. We will be sharing the findings and exploring further solutions and next steps at a symposium on 18-19 January 2023 at the M-Shed in Bristol. If you’d be interested in attending this symposium, please register your interest with Sarah Blackmore (ebi-health@bristol.ac.uk).

This work has been made possible with funding from the Wellcome Institutional Strategic Support Fund awarded to the Elizabeth Blackwell Institute.