research support manager ukhsa

Cookies on NHS Jobs

We've put some small files called cookies on your device to help us make improvements to our site.

To improve our site we'd also like to use cookies which will send information to Google Analytics. You can read more about our cookies before you choose.

Knowledge and Library Services Manager

UK Health Security Agency

This job is now closed

Job summary

You will be working within the Research Management and Knowledge Division in the Science Group's Scientific Strategy & Development Directorate. The division consists of two teams providing support to all UKHSA groups: Knowledge & Library Services (KLS) and the Research Support & Governance Office (RSGO).

Our main function as a division is to co-ordinate knowledge, evidence, research and research-related activities across UKHSA and with external partners and the wider public health research system nationally and internationally. A significant focus is on the development and application of skills, capacity and resources to enhance how UKHSA and public health system partners deal with all sources of public health knowledge and evidence.

The KLS team provides UKHSA with library and knowledge management expertise to support research and development, evidence-based public health, management and business services, with the overall aim of facilitating the translation of knowledge into practice.

Main duties of the job

The purpose of the role is to develop and manage UKHSA's knowledge and library services for all UKHSA staff, to help meet UKHSA's business needs and support the translation of knowledge and evidence into practice. This will include managing staff and collections based at UKHSA sites.

A key aspect of the role is to work with the Heads of Service to review the current knowledge and library services and implement a series of quality improvement programmes to meet quality standards within an agreed timeframe.

The UK Health Security Agency exists to protect and improve the nation's health andwellbeing andreduce health inequalities. We do this through world-leading science, knowledge and intelligence, advocacy,partnershipsand the delivery of specialist public health services.

We are an executive agency of the Department of Health and Social Care, and a distinct delivery organisation with operational autonomy. We provide government, local government, the NHS, Parliament,industryand the public with evidence-based professional, scientific and delivery expertise and support.We pride ourselves as being an employer of choice, where Everyone Matters promoting equality of opportunity to actively encourage applications from everyone, including groups currently underrepresented in our workforce.

UKHSA ethos is to be an inclusive organisation for all our staff and stakeholders. To create, nurture and sustain an inclusive culture, where differences drive innovative solutions to meet the needs of our workforce and wider communities. We do this through celebrating and protecting differences by removing barriers and promoting equity and equality of opportunity for all.

Date posted

01 September 2023

£49,592 to £62,286 a year Salary will be dependent on the successful candidate’s location

Working pattern

Full-time, Flexible working, Home or remote working

Reference number

JP-UKHSA00427

Job locations

Remote (with travel to UKHSA sites across the UK)

Job description

Job responsibilities.

The job holder will be required to carry out the following responsibilities, activities and duties:

Manage and develop UKHSAs library services over multiple sites
Work with the Heads of Service to develop the library and knowledge services over an agreed timeframe to ensure the knowledge and library services are delivered to consistently high standards
Support the continuous development and implementation of KLS systems and software in line with UKHSAs business needs and integration with related systems as appropriate
Support the professional and personal development of the library services staff
Lead on the planning, budget management and evaluation of UKHSA procured resources, including responsibility for negotiation of licences, liaison with Government and NHS procurement schemes, and relationships with suppliers, publishers, and relevant consortia
Ensure that Knowledge & Library Services use all appropriate channels, including digital, print and other marketing techniques to provide a pro-active and user-focused service
Be responsible for UKHSAs Library policies and procedures, standardisation and future development of quality programmes and impact measures
Lead and implement a collection development policy to ensure that adequate and suitable material is acquired for UKHSAs library service and promote systems to ensure its efficient exploitation
Oversee the establishment of records management systems for the library service, in accordance with UKHSA policy
Lead on the KLS contribution to UKHSAs institutional repository development
Contribute systems and technology expertise to the development of UKHSAs Science and Knowledge workstreams as required, and lead on the development of innovation in current awareness and alerting services
Be responsible for instituting and assuring relevant legal and regulatory provisions and compliance for KLS, liaising with UKHSAs legal team as appropriate
To oversee administrative systems within the UKHSAs library service
Be responsible for the delegated budget for UKHSAs library service, monitoring spend and risk & developing business plan
Act as a representative of UKHSAs library service on relevant UKHSA committees and working groups
Perform any other duties required by the Line manager

The duties/responsibilities listed above describe the post as it is at present and is not intended to be exhaustive. The Job holder is expected to accept reasonable alterations and additional tasks of a similar level that may be necessary.

For the full list of responsibilities and duties, please see the attached job description.

Selection process details

STAGE 1 - APPLICATION & SIFT:

You will be required to complete an application form and statement of suitability of up to 1250 words. This will be assessed in line with the advertised essential criteria please do provide evidence of how you meet this.

If you are successful at this stage, you will progress to an interview.

You will also be asked to provide information within the Employer/ Activity history section of the application form. This is equivalent to the information you would provide on a CV, setting out your career history (this will be used in sifting process and will be scored).

STAGE 2 INTERVIEW

This competition will involve an interview by video.

As part of the process, candidates will be invited to interview which will involve an in-depth discussion of your previous experience and professional competence in relation to the criteria set out in the Person Specification. Candidates will also be asked to participate in a session where they will be required to prepare and deliver a five minute presentation to the panel. This will be followed by a question-and-answer segment. The presentation will be designed to assess each candidates experience in line with the requirements of the role. Full details will be provided prior to the interview.

The Success Profiles framework will be used to assess and recruit the most suitable candidate. The following behaviours and strengths will be used at the interview:

Seeing the Big Picture
Communicating and Influencing
Working Together
Change Agent

For further information on the selection process, please refer to the attached Candidate Pack.

Expected Timeline:

Advert close: 23:55hrs on Sunday 24th September 2023 unfortunately, late applications will not be considered. Once this job has closed, the job advert will no longer be available. You may want to save a copy for your records.

Interviews: Week commencing 9th October 2023

Please note these dates could be subject to change.

Person Specification

Qualifications.

A degree or professional qualification in librarianship or information science in a KIM related discipline such as knowledge management, records management, library and information studies, information rights, information science or information management, including those which have been accredited by CILIP or ARA
Chartered Member of the Chartered Institute of Library & Information Professionals (CILIP)
Experience in an NHS, academic, research, or special library in a management role
Experience of managing & delivering electronic information sources
Experience of computerized library and knowledge management systems
Understanding of copyright and other legislation relating to libraries
Knowledge of factors involved in provision of electronic journals & resources, and Web.2 developments and services
Experience in financial and procurement decision making and management
Ability to travel to other UKHSA sites
Experience of implementing organisational change
Experience of managing teams on multiple sites
Knowledge of factors involved in provision of e-resources, and current and emerging technologies

Disclosure and Barring Service Check

This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act (Exceptions Order) 1975 and as such it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service (formerly known as CRB) to check for any previous criminal convictions.

Certificate of Sponsorship

Applications from job seekers who require current Skilled worker sponsorship to work in the UK are welcome and will be considered alongside all other applications. For further information visit the UK Visas and Immigration website (Opens in a new tab) .

From 6 April 2017, skilled worker applicants, applying for entry clearance into the UK, have had to present a criminal record certificate from each country they have resided continuously or cumulatively for 12 months or more in the past 10 years. Adult dependants (over 18 years old) are also subject to this requirement. Guidance can be found here Criminal records checks for overseas applicants (Opens in a new tab) .

Employer details

Employer name, employer's website.

https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/uk-health-security-agency (Opens in a new tab)

For questions about the job, contact:

Head of Library Services

Scott Rosenberg

[email protected]

07901108668

Supporting documents

Privacy notice.

UK Health Security Agency's privacy notice (opens in a new tab)

London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine

UK Public Health Rapid Support Team (UK-PHRST)

A specialist team ready to respond to disease outbreaks around the world before they develop into health emergencies. The team also conducts rigorous operational research to improve epidemic preparedness.

The UK-PHRST, funded by UK aid from the Department of Health and Social Care, supports low- and middle-income countries in investigating and responding to disease outbreaks and conducts research to improve our response to future epidemics.

The UK-PHRST is funded by UK aid from the Department of Health and Social Care and is a partnership between the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) and the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) with contributing academic partners.

Recent updates

London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, Keppel Street, London, WC1E 7HT Email for enquiries about the UK-PHRST: [email protected]

For all media enquiries about the UK-PHRST: Phone: +44(0)2079272802 Email: [email protected]

About the team

Through the UK Public Health Rapid Support Team (UK-PHRST), the UK has the capacity to respond rapidly to disease outbreaks in low- and middle-income countries around the world and conduct operational research into epidemic preparedness , playing an important role in global health security. The team also works to help countries to build their own capacity for an improved and rapid national response to outbreaks.

Tackling disease outbreaks at their source at the earliest possible stage helps prevent their spread, saves lives, and is the most effective way to protect the UK. As of March 2021, the team has taken part in just over 20 deployments across more than 10 countries.

Deployable team

UK-PHRST member in personal protective equipment. Credit: UK-PHRST

The UK-PHRST comprises of a core team of experts ready to deploy overseas within 48 hours to support countries in responding to disease outbreaks.

The deployable team includes experts in tracking the progress of an outbreak (epidemiologists); in diagnosing the cause of an outbreak (microbiologists); in advising on outbreak control measures (infection prevention and control) and community responses to outbreaks (social scientists); and in developing the best clinical response measures (clinical researchers). The full team comprises:

Epidemiologists
Clinical researcher
Social scientist
Microbiologists
Data scientist
Infection prevention and control expert
Logistician

Deployment of the UK-PHRST is at the invitation of the host government or in response to requests made by the World Health Organization (WHO) or by the Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network (GOARN).

Reservist team

In addition to the deployable team, the UK-PHRST will train a group of public health reservists to ensure the UK is able to scale up its response to any disease outbreak or health emergency. Information on how to join the public health reserve cadre will be posted as soon as it is available.

Lassa virus causes a potentially fatal haemorrhagic fever syndrome that, in its most severe form, is similar to Ebola virus disease. The virus is carried by a rodent called the “multimammate rat”, which is found across West Africa, infecting humans exposed to infected rodent excreta, with occasional secondary transmission between humans, including to healthcare workers. There are estimated to be hundreds of thousands of infections and tens of thousands of deaths due to Lassa fever every year, with transmission usually peaking during the dry season.

Outbreak response: Putting out the fire

Lassa fever reached epidemic proportions in Nigeria during the dry seasons of 2018 and 2019, prompting the Nigerian Centres for Disease Control to request support from the UK-PHRST. The UK-PHRST quickly deployed personnel to provide epidemiologic, laboratory, and logistical support to Nigeria to help bring the outbreak under control.

Research: Identify the causes of the fire

The UK-PHRST is collaborating with investigators in Nigeria and Sierra Leone – two countries where Lassa fever is hyperendemic and often leads to epidemic spread – to fill key knowledge gaps regarding this dangerous disease. These include studies exploring the clinical evolution and pathogenesis of Lassa fever and looking at the pharmacokinetics of ribavirin, a drug used to treat the disease but whose efficacy and mechanism of action remains to be determined.

In the laboratory, the UK-PHRST is working on the development of a less invasive diagnostic antibody test that can be performed on saliva (as opposed to on blood), which will facilitate field studies on risk factors for transmission. The UK-PHRST is also engaged in social science research to better understand healthcare seeking behaviour for febrile illness in an effort to encourage early recognition and presentation of care for people with Lassa fever, potentially allowing rapid implementation of life-saving care.

Capacity building: Preventing future fires

With an eye to the long-term, the UK-PHRST is helping to development clinical research capacity at the Kenema Lassa Ward in Kenema, Sierra Leone, one of the major care centres for the disease in West Africa. This will facilitate the study of novel therapeutic agents and vaccines for Lassa Fever, with the hope of ultimately being able to prevent the disease. In addition to enhancing the physical infrastructure in Kenema, the UK-PHRST has sponsored the training of local physicians in the use of various techniques, such as echocardiography to assess cardiac function, to better understand the pathophysiology of Lassa fever, and thus provide better clinical care.

Background to the UK-PHRST

Former Public Health Minister, Nicola Blackwood meets Martin Hibberd and Sonal Shah on a visit to LSHTM to launch the UK-PHRST in 2016. Credit: London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine/ Anne Koerber

The Ebola crisis in West Africa in 2014/15 highlighted the need for the international community to develop a system to help countries respond to and control disease outbreaks that pose a threat to public health, before they develop into a global emergency.

The UK Public Health Rapid Support Team was developed as part of the UK contribution to global health security and to complement the World Health Organization’s work on the Global Health Emergency Workforce. The team is funded over five years by £20 million made available from the UK official development assistance budget. Former Public Health Minister Nicola Blackwood officially announced the launch of the team in November 2016.

The London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine was chosen to lead the UK-PHRST in partnership with Public Health England. LSHTM is a world authority in public and global health research. During the Ebola crisis, LSHTM staff advised governments, analysed data to assist in response planning, conducted clinical trials of vaccines and treatments, provided a free online course for healthcare professionals, developed culturally sensitive interventions to change behaviour in local communities, volunteered on the frontline in Ebola treatment centres, and carried out research to strengthen the global response to future infectious disease epidemics. LSHTM was also involved in the response to the Zika virus outbreak and ongoing related research.

Further information:

UK-PHRST deployments
UK-PHRST research to improve epidemic preparedness
Find out more about LSHTM’s work on responding to global health emergencies
View information about the UK-PHRST on the GOV.UK website

UK-PHRST Director (UKHSA)

UK-PHRST Director (UKHSA)/Honorary Professor in the Practice of Global Outbreak Response, LSHTM

Gwenda Hughes

Deputy director for research uk phrst.

UK-PHRST Deputy Director of Research (LSHTM)/Professor of Epidemiology and Public Health, LSHTM

UK-PHRST Programme Manager (LSHTM)

Babak Afrough

Uk-phrst interim programme manager (ukhsa), cristina leggio, lead microbiologist (ukhsa), anthony twyman, ipc team lead (ukhsa)/senior ipc specialist (ukhsa).

Infection Prevention and Control Team Lead (UKHSA)/Senior Infection Prevention and Control Specialist (UKHSA)

Claire Bayntun

Uk-phrst head of capacity strengthening (ukhsa).

UK-PHRST Head of Capacity Strengthening (UKHSA)/Honorary Clinical Consultant, Global Leadership Programmes, LSHTM

Victor Del Rio Vilas

Epidemiology co-lead (ukhsa).

UK-PHRST Epidemiology Co-lead (UKHSA)/Senior Epidemiologist (UKHSA)

Hilary Bower

Associate professor in epidemiology.

UK-PHRST Epidemiology Co-lead (LSHTM)/Associate Professor in Epidemiology, LSHTM

Farhana Haque

Assistant professor.

UK-PHRST Implementation Science lead (LSHTM)/Assistant Professor, LSHTM

James Hargreaves

Professor in epidemiology and evaluation.

Professor of Epidemiology and Evaluation (LSHTM)

Nadine Beckmann

Associate professor in social science.

UK-PHRST Social Science Lead (LSHTM)/Associate Professor in Social Science (LSHTM)

Shelley Lees

Professor anthropology of public health.

Professor of Anthropology of Public Health, LSHTM

Julian Eaton

Assistant professor global mental health.

UK-PHRST Mental Health and Psychosocial Team lead (LSHTM)/Assistant Professor of Global Mental Health, LSHTM

TSC Chair/UK-PHRST Deputy Director of Research (LSHTM)/Professor of Epidemiology and Public Health, LSHTM

UK-PHRST Director (UKHSA)/Honorary Professor in the Practice of Global Outbreak Response, LSHTM

Richard Amlôt

Scientific programme leader, behavioural science (ukhsa), miles carroll, university of oxford, jake dunning, senior clinical research fellow in emerging and high consequence infectious diseases (university of oxford), martin hibberd, professor of emerging infectious disease (lshtm).

Adam Kucharski

Prof of infectious disease epidemiology, chinwe lucia ochu, director, prevention, programmes & knowledge management, nigeria centre for disease control.

Bhargavi Rao

Clinical associate professor pub. health, mohammed abdulaziz, head of disease control and prevention (africa cdc), nigel field, director of the centre of molecular epidemiology and translational research at the institute for global health (ucl), e. wangeci kagucia, research fellow, kemri wellcome trust, william nicholas, uk-phrst project manager (lshtm).

TSC Facilitator

Stella Atim

Senior veterinary officer, animal disease diagnostics and epidemiology, ministry of agriculture uganda, abdul sesay, jonas brant, professor of public health, university of brasilia.

Mudslide in Sierra Leone. Credit: UNICEF

The UK Public Health Rapid Support Team (UK-PHRST) receives requests for deployment through WHO-GOARN, direct requests from the government of the state affected by the epidemic, or through the UK Emergency Medical Team and DFID.

The first deployment of the UK-PHRST took place in April-May 2017, when two epidemiologists and one clinical researcher deployed through GOARN to the Somali Regional State of Ethiopia to support an escalating outbreak of acute watery diarrhoea.

This was followed in May-June 2017 by a deployment through GOARN to Nigeria when a team of two epidemiologists and one laboratory microbiologist assisted in the response to an outbreak of cerebral meningitis.

The UK-PHRST’s first bilateral deployment was to Sierra Leone (August-September 2017) when two epidemiologists, two microbiologists, one logistician, two Field Epidemiology Training Programme (FETP) fellows and the UK-PHRST Director were deployed. In this instance they assisted in the establishment of water-borne disease surveillance and assessment of diagnostic capacity at Connaught Hospital in Freetown in the wake of heavy rains, flooding and landslides in and around the capital.

In October – November 2017, two epidemiologists and one clinician were deployed to Madagascar though GOARN to support the response to an outbreak of pneumonic plague affecting primarily two large urban centres.

This was followed by a deployment to Bangladesh (December - January 2017/18) when a team consisting of an epidemiologist, a FETP fellow and an Infection Prevention Control (IPC) specialist worked alongside the UK Emergency Medical Team and DFID in support of the international response to the outbreak of diphtheria in the displaced Rohingya population in refugee camps in Cox’s Bazar.

The second bilateral deployment came in February-March 2018 in Nigeria , when an epidemiologist, FETP fellow, case management specialist and a logistician supported the government in controlling a large outbreak of Lassa fever through field-level interventions, logistics, capital-level data analysis and intervention strategy. This fostered a good partnership between UK-PHRST and Nigeria Centre of Disease Control (NCDC). In February-March 2019, UK-PHRST were invited to support the control of the a Lassa fever outbreak in Nigeria once more.

During February – March 2018, two epidemiologists and one infection prevention and control specialist were deployed to Bangladesh once again to support the WHO response to surveillance and monitoring of infectious disease outbreaks in the Rohingya refugee camps in Cox’s Bazar. In July 2018 an IPC specialist was redeployed to Cox’s Bazar.

In May-June 2018 during the Ebola outbreak in DRC , UK-PHRST deployed two epidemiologists and a data scientist to support with strengthening the alert system, including case investigation, protocol development, epidemiological analysis and data management.

The UK-PHRST is still actively engaged in the ongoing Ebola outbreak in DRC and has been instrumental in providing senior epidemiological support and in setting up the analytical cell, which is fully operational at the strategic coordination level (currently in Goma).

In 2019, deployments of UK-PHRST epidemiologists, data scientists and IPC specialist in response to the Ebola outbreak in DRC , have been continuous through GOARN.

At the end of March 2020, UK-PHRST in-person deployments to Africa CDC (Ethiopia), WHO Western Pacific Regional Office (the Philippines) and WHO Nepal to support the response to the emerging COVID-19 outbreak were cut short. This was due to the abrupt cessation of flights and rapid closure of borders globally. Despite the rapid change in location, the teams quickly adapted to remote working, continuing the support they had initiated with colleagues overseas.

This coordinated package of remote support has continued alongside in-person deployments when possible, subsequently benefiting from the team’s ability to draw on additional expertise from the pool of reservists and extended team when required.

Summary of Key COVID-19 Response Activities

Initially an epidemiologist, infection prevention and control (IPC) specialist, social scientist and microbiologist were engaged directly at the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) headquarters in Ethiopia. Since their return to the UK, a comprehensive programme of remote support has continued. Key areas include:

Epidemiology
Infection prevention and control
Social science

Read more: UK Public Health Rapid Support Team COVID-19 Response – Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention

We continue to build on previous UK-PHRST deployments as well as remote support to WHO’s Sub Office in Cox’s Bazar, with support from Field Epidemiology Training Programme (FETP) Fellows and UK-PHRST reservists. Key areas include:

Epidemiology and data science
Research - Read about the COVID-19 seroprevalence study

Read more: UK Public Health Rapid Support Team COVID-19 Response – Bangladesh

WHO African Regional Office

One UK-PHRST field epidemiologist and two data scientists assisted WHO AFRO with analysis and interpretation of data gathered from across member states. The team supported WHO AFRO remotely and provided brief reports on the data that different countries had provided.

WH O Country Office (WCO) Tajikistan

In June, the UK-PHRST deployed one microbiologist and one epidemiologist on an assessment mission to determine the appropriateness, feasibility and likely impact of deployment of a Rapid Response Mobile Laboratory (RRML) to support the COVID-19 response. This was in response to a request for support through the Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network for the Tajikistan Ministry of Health and Social Protection in response to increasing case numbers of COVID-19.

Following a joint rapid assessment on COVID-19 response with colleagues from Africa CDC, UK-PHRST deployed a team of four to support the scaling up of testing and contact tracing services and the improvement of data systems. This was a bilateral deployment in collaboration with the Ministry of Health with support from two epidemiology specialists and two laboratory experts, all of whom have now returned to the UK and will continue to engage remotely.

Read more: COVID-19 Surveillance in The Gambia

Strengthening public mental health in Africa in response to COVID-19

Globally, mental health faces unprecedented challenges due to COVID-19. Bereavement, isolation, loss of income and fear are triggering mental health conditions or exacerbating existing ones. National leaders face significant challenges in protecting and scaling up mental health support as part of the COVID-19 response. A recent WHO global survey indicated that 37% countries reported that COVID-19 mental health response plans were only partially funded and a further 37% reported having no funds at all.

The UK-PHRST “Strengthening public mental health in Africa in response to COVID-19” project, due for completion in March 2021, aims to better understand enablers and barriers to integrating mental health and psychosocial support (MHPSS).

Read more: UK-PHRST Strengthening public mental health in Africa in response to COVID-19

Wall with Ebola messages in Freetown, Sierra Leone, 2014. Credit: Jimmy Whitworth

When not responding to disease outbreaks, the UK Public Health Rapid Support Team (UK-PHRST) conducts rigorous operational research to improve epidemic preparedness and enhance our understanding of how best to tackle these threats in the future.

The team’s work will help generate an evidence base for best practice in disease outbreak interventions.

The London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) leads an academic consortium which includes University of Oxford, King's College London and University of Glasgow, to carry out this research.

At LSHTM there are academics from a range of disciplines who are involved in research related to the UK-PHRST. Their areas of expertise include epidemiology, mathematical modelling, anthropology, community engagement and trust, virology, bacteriology, mental health and clinical research.

Projects include:

The UK-PHRST funds the Epidemic Response Anthropology Platform , which is a partnership between LSHTM and the Institute of Development Studies. The platform is a resource to support a humane and effective response to epidemics. It aims to promote evidence on the social dimensions of epidemics in different contexts and to improve the way this evidence is used in response planning. The platform builds networks of anthropologists and other social scientists with regional or subject expertise and connects them to policy makers, scientists and humanitarian response workers involved in responding to outbreaks.

This work was led by Shelley Lees and Karl Blanchett (LSHTM). The project had two components:

Component one consisted of exploring the views and experiences of anthropologists and other social scientists, and key information from organisations involved in infectious disease responses on the role of social scientists.
Component two consisted of conducting secondary data analysis of research concerning community views and experiences of the Ebola response during the 2014 to 2016 Ebola epidemic.

An oral presentation was delivered at the Quebec Outbreak Intervention Symposium 2017, with Shelley Lees being invited as a main speaker. Manuscripts describing the work are being finalised.

This project has raised the profile of the UK-PHRST within the social science community. A social science working group has been formed at LSHTM to support the research team, which will be sustained. The findings of this work helped define the profile of the social researcher to be recruited into the UK-PHRST and have also guided the social science working group when developing the social science research strategy. On a wider scale, these findings will inform contemporary debates about the role of social scientists and anthropologists in outbreaks, and on how to engage with affected communities.

This work was led by Judith Glynn (LSHTM). Understanding population mixing patterns are vital for predicting how infectious diseases move through communities. This project aimed to assess how acute illness affects contact patterns in a rural African setting in northern Malawi. We recorded contacts over 48-hours following a clinic consultation for acute illness and again 2-3 weeks later for the recovered person and for their mother/carer, if a child.

We documented changes in contact patterns when ill and these findings will help to refine models of infection transmission, which are essential for understanding how infections spread, and for planning appropriate interventions. We are preparing a paper for publication.

This work was led by Hilary Bower (LSHTM), Tom Fletcher (Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine), and Mubarak Mustafa El Karsany (Karary University/Federal Ministry of Health (FMoH)).

The research aims to assist the FMoH of Sudan to identify the causative agent(s) of outbreaks of febrile illness associated with haemorrhagic symptoms that occur regularly in the country and to inform public health intervention and diagnostic capacity for them.

The study involves testing legacy samples from an outbreak in Dafur in 2015/16 (~500 case; 18% case fatality) at PHE Porton Down, and developing a prospective study with a FMoH and Karary University team to encourage more rapid identification and better description of the disease in future outbreaks.

To date, a set of stored outbreak samples have been prepared and transferred, with the collaboration of colleagues from the National Public Health Laboratory (NPHL) and FMoH agreement, to PHE Porton Down and tested on a bespoke panel of molecular and serological assays covering a broad range of likely pathogens. Results have been shared with the Ministry and will be published shortly. A prospective study protocol has been developed with ethical approval from LSHTM, Karary University and the FMoH Technical Review Board, and a seven-person team has been trained in study implementation, with basic logistics also in place for a rapid start if/when an outbreak occurs. If no outbreak of the syndrome occurs within the current grant period, the protocol will remain in place ready to be triggered by Sudanese colleagues and we anticipate a request for UK-PHRST support may be made at that time.

Our project has created a new and strong collaboration with the FMoH and the NPHL, and provided a good example of UK research collaboration and support to improve outbreak investigation and control in Sudan. As health scientists in Sudan emerge from the period of sanctions, we hope these relationships with key outbreak-related departments of the FMoH will create further opportunities to assist outbreak response and International Health Regulation capacities in the country.

This work was led by Oliver Cumming and Lauren D’Mello-Guyett (LSHTM). The project aimed to combine the academic experience of LSHTM and the operational experience of Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) to strengthen the evidence base for Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) interventions used in disease outbreaks in emergency settings in low and middle-income countries (LMICs).

The role of WASH interventions as a means to both preventing and controlling infectious disease outbreaks is well established. However, at a practice and policy level, there have been calls to address the evidence gap as to how WASH interventions can be best mobilized to support during outbreak responses. We therefore developed approaches for evaluating the WASH component of MSF outbreak responses with a particular focus on study designs and methods that are appropriate for cholera outbreaks during complex emergencies.

Using these approaches to more rigorously evaluate WASH interventions will help strengthen the effectiveness of routinely delivered interventions for cholera control and improve access and outcome among vulnerable populations in low income settings.

Three summary reports are available from our field site visits to MSF projects in Nigeria and South Sudan, evaluating the ability, risks, and ethical considerations to be able to conduct operational research in such a setting. These are supplemented by a desk-based study including interviews with MSF staff in Central African Republic and Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

Three “sleeper protocols” that could be adapted for urban or rural contexts and/or closed or open settings within DRC have been developed. Ethical approval has been granted on the basis that an update will be submitted when an appropriate study site has been identified at the start of a conducive cholera outbreak. The collaboration has continued with MSF with plans to implement the protocols in DRC during the next cholera outbreak. Copies of the reports and protocols can be obtained on request from [email protected] .

This work was performed by teams from PHE and LSHTM. The aim of the study was to take advantage of new technologies for near-real time genome sequencing in the field. We aimed to develop specific genome sequencing primers for selected viruses capable of causing outbreaks, validate sequencing methods and primers using UK returning traveller clinical samples and evaluate MinION sequences in relation to MiSeq,

Equipment is now in place within UK PHRST for amplicon-based viral whole-genome-sequencing on the MinION, primer sets have been designed and provisioned for 4 dengue virus serotypes, 3 chikungunya lineages, and 5 Lassa virus lineages. The UK PHRST lead microbiologist has been trained in the use of the MinION and the primer sets, a bioinformatic pathway has been developed in-house at LSHTM. Testing shows DENV-1,2,3 and CHIKV Asia and ECSA schemes are fully effective at detecting viruses with good genome coverage.

However, the schemes were less effective for DENV-4, CHIKV West Africa and Lassa; most likely due to lack of a relevant reference genome and future work could be done to establish this. A strategy for amplicon-based Crimean Congo Haemorrhagic Fever (CCHF) virus genome sequencing has also been developed by PHE using a separate funding source. The primers and protocol are also available to the UK PHRST. All established protocols could now be field tested for further integration into the PHRST.

We aim to transfer technology to laboratories in West Africa and evaluate performance in an LMIC setting, and utilize sequence clustering and other bioinformatics tools to determine the performance of sequence results in identifying transmission.

University of Glasgow

The MRC-University of Glasgow Centre for Virus Research (CVR) is home to an internationally leading critical mass of virologists, entirely focused on the study of human viral diseases and viruses at the human-animal interface. Established in 2010 as a partnership between the University and the Medical Research Council (MRC) , the CVR contributes to national virology capability and supports the global response to viruses and the diseases they cause.

Kasese District is nestled in the far western corner of Uganda, surrounded by mountainous national parks, and bordering the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Building on existing collaborations with Kagando hospital, a team from the MRC-University of Glasgow Centre for Virus Research (CVR) is investigating the prevalence of exposure to viral hemorrhagic fever viruses (VHF viruses) and SARS-CoV-2 in health care workers and surrounding communities. VHF viruses are regularly seen in this part of Uganda and cause a variety of diseases: Rift Valley Fever (RVF), Ebola and Crimean congo haemorrhagic fever (CCHF). This study seeks to understand the epidemiological spread of disease in healthcare workers and abattoir workers in order to strengthen prevention strategies.

Pandemic roadblock

After successfully running several studies in Uganda, international travel was suspended and team members from the UK were unable to visit the research sites. However, with the leadership of Dr Mary Munyagwa, medical director at Kagando hospital and Stella Atim, a veterinarian and PhD fellow at Makerere University who is investigating CCHF in Uganda and remote assistance from members of the CVR team, the study went ahead. Laheri Kabugho was appointed as team leader with Mercy Musoki, Joshua Muhindo, Esther Atolere and Mercy Kabugho as study nurses, Bettress Happy and Robinah Aliganyira as HIV counselor, Robert Muhindo as community mobilizer and Edson Masereka as laboratory technologist. Alongside the need to train staff in sample collection and research, the UK team also ensured that equipment was delivered in a timely and safe manner – with items such as blood tubes and needles, a heat block, and the relevant trial documentation i.e. consent forms.

What did they do about it?

Zoom provided the platform to carry out remote training with powerpoint slides and videos shared online. WhatsApp daily communication was also an essential tool.

(L-R): Mercy, Bettress, Laheri and Joshua in Kagando, with Marina on Zoom.

Marina Kugler, Project Coordinator, made sure that the equipment and necessary items for the study arrived, carefully boxed and labelled from Glasgow.

‘We organised kits and lab equipment, printed out consent forms and packed boxes with needles, phones, face masks and much more. Everything was labelled so the participants could be easily recruited and to reduce administrative errors in the very important documentation of the study’.

The minutiae required in planning a remote study was not underestimated and enabled the successful implementation of the research. Participants were recruited at a rate of ~30 per day, blood samples were heat inactivated and stored in the delivered freezer, before transported to Entebbe for testing at the UVRI.

Study questionnaires were filled out via mobile phones and REDCap, rather than by paper, to allow quick collection and safe storage. Data is available in real time online, which allowed Marina to check for missing values and any queries were resolved on Whatsapp – the fastest and most reliable way to communicate with the study site. Laheri and the team also commented on the ease they felt in getting help and support from the remote team.

‘The care and the support you gave us was the best part of the study. It was not as we were alone, we were always with you during the whole study.’ - Laheri

One of the key elements of any study is the mobilisation of communities and this was carried out very effectively by the study team. Stella, Laheri and Robert would meet with a member of the village health team and the village leader to explain the study. Through these contacts, they would organise mobilisation in the villages to recruit participants.

What can we learn?

Clear expectation setting with stakeholders is important, especially in regard to the availability of data for analysis. Depth is paramount with many qualitative or mixed-methodological studies, and when timing is disrupted, staying open, positive, and accommodating goes a long way toward ensuring high-quality data. It’s advisable to build in padding for each and every stage of the research process, from recruitment through to analysis. Staying flexible will help ensure maximum number of participants are recruited and it will also reinforce a collaborative research ethos, which is important now more than ever.

What is next?

Right now, the team is working on the data analysis of all 300 health care workers with their sex/age/geographically matched 450 community members. The results will provide information about the epidemiological spread of viral infections in the expected special risk group of health care workers. Results will be communicated to the study groups and solutions for risk reduction will be developed together.

The Epidemic Diseases Research Group Oxford ( ERGO ) delivers on the clinical operational research theme and contributes to the core deployable team and the training and capacity building in low and middle income countries. ERGO is led by Professor Peter Horby and the group aims to reduce the health and socioeconomic impact of emerging and epidemic infections by conducting and enabling clinical research in this area.

Since the launch of the UK-PHRST, members of the Oxford team have worked in Ethiopia, Nigeria, Madagascar, Sierra Leone, Nigeria and Cambodia, either as part of deployments or on research projects with local staff.

Selected research projects completed by ERGO:

This work was led by Louise Sigfrid together with Alex Salam , Catrin Moore and Peter Horby .

The evidence base for the response to epidemics of (re-)emerging pathogens is limited. Research is rarely an early priority, there are many challenges at the outset of an epidemic, and there is a limited window of opportunity to implement research.

This means it is important that the priorities for research are rapidly, but rigorously defined during the earliest stages of an epidemic, while considering ethical aspects and ensuring the potential for a direct clinical and public health impact.

A methodology for rapidly (≤5 days), systematically and transparently identifying key knowledge gaps to inform research priorities during emergency outbreaks was developed in collaboration with Evidence-Aid and Cochrane response .

The intention is that the outcome from the rapid research needs appraisal will be used to inform clinical research prioritisations.

The methodology was piloted in July 2017 using a Lassa fever outbreak scenario and the results compared with expert opinions collected from Lassa fever experts to inform the final version of the protocol.

The methodology was presented at the Global Evidence Summit in South Africa in September 2017.

This work was led by Amanda Rojek, Alex Salam, Peter Horby and the Infectious Diseases Data Observator .

Good medical record keeping is a challenge, particularly in humanitarian public health emergencies, and this is likely to impact clinical care for patients.

The overall aim of this project was to evaluate the quality of clinical data from patient records from the West African Ebola outbreak (2014/15).

The project was divided into 3 sub-projects:

A systematic review and metaanalysis of published clinical data from the West African Ebola outbreak
A questionnaire for healthcare workers, investigating their perceptions of the quality of clinical record keeping whilst working in West African Ebola Treatment Centres
An audit of clinical data from 5,000 Ebola virus disease clinical case records from West Africa

This project will help generate an evidence base for best practice for medical record keeping in disease outbreaks and humanitarian emergencies in developing countries.

This work was led by Amanda Rojek together with Karl Blanchet (LSHTM) and Peter Horby.

There is an unprecedented global forced migration, with the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) estimating that more than 65 million people are in need of protection. At least 12 million of these are living in refugee camps, which are a high risk environment for disease outbreaks.

This work aimed to improve the provision of accurate and comprehensive clinical information that verifies an outbreak, characterises the likely cause and severity of illness, and identifies populations at risk.

The team collected prospective data from thirteen refugee camps across Greece, where research nurses observed clinical consultations with recently arrived refugees presenting with syndromes consistent with outbreak prone infectious diseases.

The data were collected to find out the extent to which the risks for infection, severity of infection and clinical manifestations of infection were assessed and recorded.

The study findings were published in BMC Medicine .

ERGO have several research projects currently underway. These include: Rapid identification and characterisation of avian influenza viruses by direct Nanopore sequencing in collaboration with Institut Pasteur du Cambodge ; an ongoing cohort study looking at clinical characterisation and microbiological diagnosis of patients with suspected pneumonic plague in collaboration with Institut Pasteur de Madagascar ; and Lassa fever cohort study based in Sierra Leone and Nigeria in collaboration with Kenema Government Hospital and Owo Federal Medical centre respectively.

In collaboration with the WHO/Tropical Diseases Research (TDR) programme, ERGO developed and ran a training curriculum on generating clinical evidence during outbreaks in lower and middle income countries (the Clinical Research During Outbreaks Course - CREDO). The delivery of the curriculum will build capacity overseas for an improved and rapid national research response to disease outbreaks. CREDO received accreditation for the African Academy of Sciences in 2017. The work was presented in October 2017 as a poster at the 10th European Congress on Tropical Medicine and International Health, Antwerp, Belgium.

King’s College London

Research into the mental health aspects of infectious disease outbreaks is led by a joint team from the NIHR Health Protection Research Unit in Emergency Preparedness and Response at King’s College London and the South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust .

Projects already completed by the team as part of their UK-PHRST work include studies to understand the feasibility and effectiveness of small group therapy for staff in Sierra Leone who worked in Ebola treatment centres, the preliminary results of which are available in the International Journal of Social Psychiatry .

Ongoing work involves assessing whether it is possible to ‘screen’ people who wish to work on future infectious disease outbreaks, to identify and support people at risk of experiencing distress as a result of this work. For further information, please contact Dr James Rubin at KCL.

Annotated world map depicting UK-PHRST activities between April and June 2024.

View our quarterly map to see our activities between April and June 2024.

The UK-PHRST team and partners are currently delivering 10 research projects. In this edition, read about the Community Leader Event Based Surveillance project's launch, training workshops and first mini-guides for health professionals. You can also read about the Marburg project's recent prize at London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Centre for Epidemic Preparedness and Response Awards.

Ongoing research projects

Project launch for Community Leader Event Based Surveillance study in Brazil and The Republic of Cabo Verde, Brasília

Audience listening to keynote speaker address standing at the front of a room with projector screen behind and panel of experts sitting on left-hand side of photo

The Guardians of Health – Community Leaders research project, officially launched in Brasília and on-line in April 2024, is piloting an early warning system for infectious disease outbreaks in Brazil and Cabo Verde that is developed with and relies on the participation of community leaders.

The study is investigating whether a community-led event-based surveillance system is feasible and more effective at detecting outbreaks of infectious disease than conventional surveillance systems. It also aims to understand how sustainable this approach could be, and whether the involvement of community leaders in the design of the data reporting system from the beginning can help the system to be integrated into local and national public health surveillance in the longer-term.

The launch event included speakers from contributing partners and organisers, including:

The Brazilian and Cabo Verdean Ministries of Health
Melanie Hopkins, the British Deputy Head of Mission in Brazil
José Pedro Máximo Chantre D’Oliveira, the Ambassador of The Republic of Cabo Verde in Brazil
National Institute of Public Health of Cabo Verde
Association of Field Epidemiology Professionals (ProEpi)
Health Situation Room of the University of Brasília (SDS UnB),
Pan American Health Organization (PAHO)

Read the full story in Portuguese .

Watch the launch event recording .

Community Leader Event Based Surveillance: Study workshops in Cabo Verde

Speaker addressing seated attendees standing in front of screen

Since the launch event in April, the National Institute of Public Health (INSP) and the Brazilian Association of Field Epidemiology Professionals (ProEpi) held the first training session on the use of the electronic Public Health Emergency Management (ePHEM) software in Cabo Verde in June as part of the Guardians of Health: Community Leaders project.

The workshop was attended by key community health leaders in Cabo Verde who were able to learn about the concept of Event-Based Surveillance and test the ePHEM system in person. Following this workshop, two large user workshops will be held (Santiago South and Santiago North) to test the application throughout the island of Santiago.

Read the full round-up in Portuguese.

Community Leader Event Based Surveillance: Mini-guides for health professionals

The project team have also developed two mini-guides for health professionals and those interested in event-based surveillance with community leaders and approaches to mapping local community leaders as part of public health surveillance projects and/or for programme planning.

Mini guide: Mapping community leaders for local public health surveillance.

Mini guide: Event based surveillance in public health.

London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Centre for Epidemic Preparedness & Response Prizes 2024 - Collaboration Prize winner

Speaker presenting research looking at display screen with audience in background

We're pleased to share that a UK-PHRST research project recently won LSHTM’s Centre for Epidemic Preparedness and Response 2024 Collaboration Prize.

The project, “A novel One Health approach to develop an early warning system to improve preparedness for and response to Marburg virus disease outbreaks”, involves a multi-disciplinary team of researchers is led by Dr Joseph Akoi Boré at the Centre de Recherche et d'Analyse Médicale (CRAM) in Guinea and involves the UK-PHRST, the University of Oxford, CEFORPAG (Center of Research on Priority Diseases) Guinea, the National Viral Haemorrhagic Fever Reference Laboratory Guinea, the University of Glasgow, Universidad Peruana Cayetano and the MRC Unit The Gambia at LSHTM. The entire team and project was recognised for showcasing the best of contemporary work in the field of epidemic preparedness.

The team has used the award to invest in solar panels for Dr Joseph Akoi Boré’s laboratory, further enhancing sustainability and team capacity to continue researching viral outbreaks in Guinea.

South Africa Learning Review 2022 attendees. Credit: lightlounge.co.za

South Africa Learning Review 2022 attendee speaking into microphone

South Africa Learning Review 2022 attendee. Credit: lightlounge.co.za

Attendees in group discussion. Credit: lightlounge.co.za

Flipchart papers pinned to wall with different handwritten ideas with someone writing on one

Brainstorming session. Credit: lightlounge.co.za

South Africa Western Cape Minister addressing attendees of the South Africa Learning Review 2022. Credit: lightlounge.co.za

Read the full UK-PHRST and Partners Learning Review Post Review Reflections & Actions Report

The UK-PHRST are currently delivering eight ongoing research projects, a selection of which are included below:

Developing a mental health and psychosocial support (MHPSS) package for infectious disease outbreaks

Attendees of Mental Health and Psychosocial Workshop in Cairo, hosted by Egyptian Red Crescent

A collaboration between UK-PHRST and Saint Joseph University of Beirut, this research project aims to identify, through expert consensus, a list of interventions to support people’s mental and psychosocial health as part of a complex package for an infectious disease outbreak context.

As part of this project, a consultation workshop was held in Cairo, Egypt from 8-10 May 2023 hosted by the Egyptian Red Crescent (ERC). Participants, including people with lived experience from the Global Mental Health Peer Network, shared their experiences of mental health and psychosocial support (MHPSS), and experts identified barriers and facilitators for MHPSS in outbreaks. The workshop provided valuable learning allowing the project team to focus on developing MHPSS priorities with country partners.

Epidemiological and clinical review of mpox in Nigeria: A multi-disciplinary research project to inform outbreak control measures (with Nigeria CDC)

The UK-PHRST team continue to collaborate with Nigeria CDC to develop two interlocking research studies. Using a OneHealth approach, the project aims to better understand the factors behind the spread of mpox across different Nigerian states. A UK-PHRST research team travelled to Abuja in May to finalise project details prior to the study implementation later this year. Researchers from the UK-PHRST, including colleagues from the University of Oxford also assisted Nigeria CDC colleagues to further strengthen their laboratory systems ahead of the studies. For instance, one workshop provided attendees with hands-on experience of preparing, running and analysing blood sample analysis assays as well as the transfer of scientific methods to build local skills capacity for the upcoming studies.

Completed research projects

New briefing paper flags priority research questions to improve cleaning practices in resource-limited hospital settings

The CLEAN research group, first convened in mid-2022 within a UK-PHRST project, have produced a briefing report that outlines the need for additional research work in the field of environmental cleaning in resource-limited healthcare settings. The report details their 12 recommended key research questions and associated considerations to facilitate effective hospital cleaning in resource-limited healthcare settings and to help reduce the spread of infections and antimicrobial resistance.

They hope the research priorities will encourage the eventual implementation of low-resource tailored and cost-effective cleaning practices in resource-limited settings which will benefit the health of both patients and staff and ensure a respectful environment for patients. They are now calling on funders, policymakers and advocates to drive forward implementation research into cleaning practices in these healthcare settings.

Operational research framework workshop at Africa CDC

March - Members of the research team supported the facilitation of a consultative workshop held in Addis Ababa on developing an operational research framework in emergency preparedness and response at Africa CDC. The workshop built on remote support provided by the research team in developing the concept, format and agenda in previous months. The team will continue to support Africa CDC as the framework develops.

Field Deployment Training course

Attendees of Field Deployment Training for the UK-PHRST

This year’s Field Deployment Training (FDT) course took 18 participants on the 'journey' of pre-deployment, deployment, needs assessment, intervention recommendations and exit planning thanks to the expertise of the co-ordinators in humanitarian scenarios, health, operations and capacity strengthening.

The training, jointly delivered by UK-MED (a humanitarian health organization), UK-PHRST and UK Health Security Agency across four days in Bedfordshire, is a mandatory component for all deployable members of the UK-PHRST team to ensure they can deploy safely and effectively.

To make sure the participants would be equipped for situations, the components typical of real deployments were condensed into a micro time scale (ie. experienced across four days rather than the usual deployment of six weeks), using forum theatre techniques such as being accosted by media, being challenged for breaches in security protocol and safe-guarding issues.

Workshop on mpox antibodies detection

There was an opportunity to learn more about tools for detecting mpox at a workshop during the UK-PHRST research team’s visit to Abuja, Nigeria in March focusing on the clinical characteristics and outcomes of mpox disease in Nigeria. The MVA (modified vaccinia Ankara) ELISA assay workshop and technology transfer session was held with colleagues from the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) and National Veterinary Research Institute (NVRI).

The workshop, hosted by The MRC Unit The Gambia at LSHTM, included training and advice from a University of Oxford expert on how to use the MVA ELISA to detect mpox antibodies for different aspects of the study. Colleagues from NCDC – Abuja, NCDC – Lagos, NVRI – Vom, the MRC Unit The Gambia at LSHTM and the National Public Health Laboratory Gambia who attended found the workshop informative, enjoyable and worthwhile.

Caribbean collaboration visit

In March, our Director Ed Newman, was invited to meet counterparts from the Caribbean Public Health Agency (CARPHA). Together, the two organisations hope to develop a strong collaborative relationship which could include the co-deployment of staff at CARPHA’s request - UK-PHRST deploying staff to CARPHA to enhance their public health emergency response and CARPHA deploying staff outside the Caribbean to gain response experience.

The meetings were well received by the CARPHA Senior Leadership who were very keen to work further with the UK-PHRST and develop future areas of collaboration. Additionally, Anita Shah, a UK-PHRST Field Epidemiologist who had seconded to CARPHA, shared the findings of her work with the organisation regarding its Field Epidemiology and Laboratory Training programme and future expansion plans.

View our quarterly map to see our activities between January and March 2023.

Helathcare worker washing their hands using a chlorine solution in a bucket with nozzle in Nigeria.

Cleaners must be viewed as a key part of the health system to reduce infections and antimicrobial resistance among staff and patients, according to a report by experts from the CLEAN research group.

The group produced the briefing paper as part of a UK-PHRST project. It sets out 12 priority research questions to improve hospital cleaning and highlights the challenges facing resource-limited settings, as well as factors that need to be considered to support the implementation of tailored and effective cleaning practices. These include, for example, ensuring capacity strengthening of cleaners and the need for financial support to cement cleaning in the healthcare system.

The Group is now calling on investors, policymakers and advocates to drive forward implementation research into cleaning practices in hospitals with limited resources.

The CLEAN Group was first convened in mid-2022 within a UK-PHRST project to identify the most urgent research questions to inform or enhance the implementation of best practices in surface and non-critical equipment cleaning in healthcare facilities in resource-limited settings. It includes experts from Africa, Europe, Asia, Australia, North and South America, with expertise in infection prevention and control, hospital cleaning and disinfection, water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH), health policy, implementation science and clinical research in resource-limited settings.

Read the full blog and the CLEAN Briefing Paper on the UK-PHRST Knowledge Hub .

The UK Public Health Rapid Support Team invites you to join our new drive to evaluate the definition, value and impact of our partnerships and capacity strengthening activities.

Fill out our Market Consultation Survey to indicate your interest in the competition to receive a contract. The contract will involve conducting the evaluation and generating significant learning and understanding of our partners' perspectives, identifying challenges and how these have and can be addressed in real time over the lifespan of UK-PHRST's project cycle.

Some key considerations for the evaluation include:

Partnerships

Understanding of the "nuance of relationship" by different partners
The degree to which they are perceived as beneficial and equitable by the people we work with
What factors appear to enable or detract from "ideal partnerships" –what does the much-used phrase "power dynamics" mean in our context?
Is it constraining in crafting equitable and useful partnerships?
Does it play a facilitative role, or is it neutral in its perception by partners?
What impacts have our partnerships had?

Capacity strengthening

How can we gauge a deeper understanding of capacity strengthening in the context of UK-PHRST's work?
What are the impacts realised by partners in their work with the UK-PHRST?

Information session

For more information, please join us online at our Market Engagement Session on 15 December 2022 at 10:00 am GMT. Join here

In order to be considered, please complete the Market Consultation Survey here. This should be completed by the supplier or a partner or an authorised representative in his / her own name and on behalf of the company / organisation completing this questionnaire.

Registration is free and open to all. The deadline to complete the survey is 13 January 2023.

More information Find out more

For further information, please refer to the documents attached, including:

download Attachment 2 - How to Bid including Evaluation Criteria v1.0.pdf

download Attachment 1 - About the Procurement Competition v1.0.pdf

download Market Consultation Survey - Evaluation of UK-PHRST Partnerships Capacity.docx

download Pre-sourcing event Zoom meeting invite link.docx

Please contact [email protected] if you have any questions.

 The UK Public Health Rapid Support Team and partners are currently working on seven research projects, and we have also developed our Research Plan for 2022-2025. Within the plan, we have described 17 new cross-discipline research projects that were co-identified and will be co-led with low-and-middle income partners, and three of these have recently started. Projects in the plan have been grouped into themes covering preparedness and prevention, detection, response, and impact and evaluation, however, the plan also enables flexibility to begin new projects that address urgent research questions arising during outbreaks or during deployments. Most of the 14 projects yet to be approved by Technical Steering Committee (TSC) are expected to be reviewed and begin over the next six months. 

We are also delighted to announce a new research collaboration on Monkeypox with the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control, University of Oxford and partners. This new collaboration will cover key priorities in Monkeypox research in Nigeria and will have clinical, epidemiological, One Health, laboratory, and social science components. Priorities for the Monkeypox research programme were identified during a workshop in Abuja in August 2022, during which participants proposed several multi-disciplinary studies with Nigerian leads. The group also recommended strengthening laboratory operations at Nigeria CDC in preparation for the research, and this work is currently underway. The Monkeypox research programme is included in our research plan. 

Among our currently running studies, one is developing an early warning system that can identify “hot spots” in remote regions of Guinea where Marburg virus outbreaks are likely, based on interactions between human and bat populations. In recent months, the study team have completed a community sensitisation (awareness raising) and a risk communication campaign across study villages in Macenta, led by the Guinean project lead in collaboration with a local NGO. They have also collected pilot data for surveillance tools from study villages and generated preliminary biodiversity indicators and machine learning algorithms. The next stage of the project will include in-depth investigations of zoonotic exposure and bushmeat hunting practises among the target population using qualitative methods. 

Since the last research update, three research projects have been completed, including two Infection Prevention and Control (IPC) studies and a pilot study of a non-whole genome sequencing approach for monitoring SARS-CoV-2 variants in Burkina and Kenya. Find out more below.

Development and evaluation of resources to support IPC engagement with caregivers in hospitals 

This study, which began in February 2021, aimed to develop and evaluate resources to support informal caregivers in Cameroon to engage with IPC . The project was co-led by the UK-PHRST and Cameroon Baptist Convention Health Services (CBCHS) in partnership with the Infection Control Africa Network (ICAN), the not-for-profit visual resource charity Medical Aid Films (MAF) and the Africa Task Force for Corona Virus Response (AFTCOR) IPC technical working group. 

Thee study described the role and function of caregivers in a tertiary referral hospital in Cameroon, developed training resources to support their engagement with IPC, including context-appropriate audio-visual materials, piloted delivery of a multimodal intervention, and evaluated the effectiveness of the intervention.  

The evaluation demonstrated the feasibility of delivering the intervention in the health system and that it was well-received by caregivers and health workers. Six local research assistants were also trained. The study findings have been and are being shared with all relevant stakeholders, including ICAN, MAF, Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC), and the Cameroon Public Health Institute. The study team  plans to present the findings at the bi-annual ICAN conference in 2023 via partner networks  and in an open access, peer reviewed journal. The team will support further engagement of informal caregivers with a ‘toolkit’ of resources that will be transferable to other LMIC healthcare settings.  

What is the current level of cleaning in LMIC health systems and what interventions are effective at improving it? 

Formal training for cleaners in health settings may be inadequate in many LMICs and is of particular concern during outbreaks when there is additional urgency for rapid interventions.

In this study, the team led a systematic review of cleaning interventions in LMIC health settings and convened a workshop with diverse international stakeholders to develop recommendations and a roadmap of future research priorities. Stakeholders included leading IPC researchers in Africa, Asia and high-income countries, and representatives from public health institutes, relevant networks and the World Health Organization.

Unsurprisingly, most evidence from LMICs came from areas with greater resources, such as tertiary referral centres in large cities. Standard outcome definitions for cleanliness were found to be lacking, and results were reported inconsistently, hampering the synthesis and meta-analysis of aggregate data. Preliminary systematic review findings have been presented in a Webber teleclass and are being submitted for presentation to the ICAN conference and International Conference on Infection Prevention and Control in 2023. A blog and research prioritisation paper have been submitted to The Global Health Network, and the systematic review will be submitted for publication in a peer-reviewed journal. 

A non-whole genome sequencing approach for monitoring SARS-CoV-2 variants in Burkina Faso and Kenya

This study, which started in November 2021 and was a collaboration between UK-PHRST/LSHTM and Groupe de Recherche-Action en Santé in Burkina Faso (GRAS), Kenya Medical Research Institute (KEMRI), MRC Unit Gambia (MRCG) and Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine (LSTM), aimed to understand the feasibility of running the HRM assay in LMIC settings through pilots in Burkina Faso and Kenya. These sites were selected because the research team had established partnerships through the Gates Foundation-funded Malaria as a Risk Factor for COVID-19 (MALCOV) SStudy. UK-PHRST Rapid Research funding enabled the team to leverage real-time access to MALCOV study specimens. 

The study team developed and updated their high-resolution melt (HRM) assay in response to the emergence of new SARS-CoV-2 VOCs. Following training, researchers from Burkina Faso and Kenya analysed samples using the assay at laboratories in The Gambia and Kenya and validated assay performance against whole genome sequencing (WGS). This project demonstrated the utility of a non-WGS method in lower resource settings for tracking SARS-CoV-2 variants and may provide a lower-cost approach for understanding molecular epidemiology in settings where access to WGS is absent or limited. The project built new and developed existing collaborative working relationships between researchers from LSHTM, Groupe de Recherche Action Santé (GRAS), Kenya Medical Research Institute (KEMRI), MRC Unit The Gambia at LSHTM (MRCG) and Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine (LSTM). The findings have been presented at LSHTM and external meetings and conferences. One peer-reviewed article is nearing publication in the Scientific Reports journal, and a further article will be submitted in December 2022.  Find out more about the field visit to The Gambia here.  

In the coming months, the UK Public Health Rapid Support Team (UK-PHRST) will focus on establishing a refreshed and enhanced capacity strengthening pillar. Dr Claire Bayntun has been appointed to lead this work as the Head of Capacity Strengthening and will expand the team to take forward new strategic spheres of opportunities, reflecting the values of the UK-PHRST and aiming to secure trusted, sustainable partnerships for the future. 

View UK-PHRST's capacity strengthening pillar Over the last quarter, the UK Public Health Rapid Support Team (UK-PHRST) conducted eight capacity strengthening activities, including a learning review in Cape Town, South Africa, and R training* in Ethiopia and Nigeria, respectively. * R is an open-source software environment for statistical computing and is used for data analysis and visualisation. 

In September, we met with many of our partners in Cape Town, South Africa, to reflect on our working practices and exchange lessons on improving outbreak response, research and capacity strengthening. Experts at UK-PHRST co-led sessions on gender equity, capacity strengthening, policy and practice in research, outbreak response and equitable partnerships. These discussions will inform a summary of recommendations and actions we can implement to enhance our equitable partnerships and foster sustainable ways of working. Watch the highlights of the learning review

  R Training

UK-PHRST facilitated R-Training with Africa Centre for Disease Control and Prevention in Ethiopia in July, capturing lessons learned to strengthen future training, planning and delivery. The UK-PHRST epidemiology team co-facilitated two workshops with the African Volunteer Health Corps (AVoHC). This included prioritising key programme activities for 2022-23, reviewing and refining content for an induction course, and training new AVoHC roster members.

Equitable partnerships with infection prevention and control (IPC) stakeholders

The infection prevention and control (IPC) team shared preliminary results for developing and evaluating resources to support a study with Cameroonian partners in July. It delivered a workshop with key global stakeholders reviewing evidence and prioritising research needs for cleaning and disinfection interventions.

The team is contributing to reviewing a World Health Organization course for environmental cleaning and infection prevention control. The team is supporting the WHO Emergencies IPC team, offering technical support for Ebola and Monkeypox, and developing specific IPC implementation tools, including an IPC outbreak implementation package and updated IPC assessment tools will be provided in addition. 

Mental health

As part of the Strengthening Public Mental Health in Africa in response to COVID-19 (SPACE) programme’s phase two delivery, the team involved representatives from Sierra Leone and Cameroon in a workshop in Liberia with partners Africa Centre for Disease Control, World Health Organization Regional Office for Africa (WHO AFRO), WHO Regional Office for the Eastern Mediterranean (WHO EMRO), West Africa Health Organisation (WAHO), and East Central and Southern Africa Health Community (ECSA-HC).

We have summarised the latest UK-PHRST deployment, research and capacity development activities from July – September 2022 in a quarterly map. Many of our activities across the triple remit overlap, and some will continue into the next quarter. The map demonstrates ongoing or completed activities during the quarter, and the year stated is when the project commenced.

View the UK-PHRST quarterly activity map.

The Strategic Framework 2022 to 2025 sets out UK-PHRST’s objectives to build on the commitment, impact and effectiveness of the past six years of our operations.

The UK-PHRST strategy is underpinned by three principles: learning, partnerships and impact. It outlines how the UK-PHRST will deliver on this commitment through activities across the triple remit in outbreak response, research and capacity strengthening.

View the UK-PHRST Strategic Framework 2022-2025

On the week that the UK Public Health Rapid Support Team (UK-PHRST) celebrates its 6 th sixth year anniversary, and with staff currently deployed to the Ebola outbreak in Uganda, UK-PHRST Director, Dr Ed Newman, shares the team’s ambitions for the next three years and our continued commitment to respond to disease outbreaks in the countries we work with. Published by the UK Health Security Agency. Read more. We are an innovative partnership between the UK Health Security Agency and the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, funded with UK aid by the UK Department of Health and Social Care.

In celebration of World Field Epidemiology Day on 7 September, the UK Public Health Rapid Support Team spoke to UK Field Epidemiology Training Program (UK-FETP) fellows Megan Bardsley and Mona Dave, who recently deployed with the UK Public Health Rapid Support Team (UK-PHRST). Field epidemiologists support the UK-PHRST to prevent and control infectious disease outbreaks, before they develop into global emergencies. The UK Field Epidemiology Training Programme recruits seven to eight UK-FETP fellows a year.

Megan Bardsley

Megan completed her undergraduate degree in biological sciences and studied an MSc in Control of Infectious Diseases at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine. She is in her second year of the Field Epidemiology Training Programme based in Field Service South West with the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA). Before joining UK-FETP, she had prior experience in UKHSA’s human immunodeficiency virus / sexually transmitted infections (HIV/STI) department, worked as a research assistant at LSHTM and gained experience in Malaysia at a breastfeeding NGO. She recently deployed with UK-PHRST to Papua New Guinea via the Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network.

Mona Dave

Mona gained an undergraduate degree in biomedical sciences at Warwick University, and a Master's in Public Health with International Health at the University of Nottingham. She began her journey into global health after spending three months in the Philippines on a health education programme with the Voluntary Service Overseas (VSO) as part of the International Citizen Service (ICS) in 2013. Before joining the UK-FETP, she worked as a research assistant in non-communicable disease research at Newcastle University and as a scientist in the South West Field Service. Mona recently deployed with UK-PHRST and is currently based at a training site at UKHSA's Midlands Field Service.

What is epidemiology?

Mona : I would describe epidemiology as 'detective work' - building and piecing together an evidence base for public health recommendations and actions.

How do epidemiologists contribute to outbreak response?

Megan: R esponding to an outbreak of disease in epidemiology involves providing and interpreting data to understand the severity of the situation, affected groups, what people are being infected by, and the impact and burden. You then highlight particular risk factors and groups that need targeting for intervention. One key role of the epidemiologist in an outbreak is getting everybody to agree on the case definition.

Mona: Contributing to regular disease surveillance allows us to understand 'normal' patterns and trends of disease spread. In other words, we can spot, investigate, and act when something looks out of the ordinary. Descriptive epidemiology (describing a disease in time, person and place) and analytical epidemiology (conducting statistical analysis to test a hypothesis) can explain how an infection might spread. However, you may not always know the true cause. As an epidemiologist, being able to interpret findings, make evidence-based recommendations and tailor these to your audience can help to ensure recommendations are actioned by the right stakeholders and, therefore, control further infections from spreading.

What does the role involve?

Megan : It involves working with many different people and using your technical expertise and scientific background to identify trends in surveillance data and present the strengths and limitations to various stakeholders. When investigating a public health outbreak, I am responsible for managing the data, writing code to analyse the data, and working with people to identify and describe cases and do detective work to investigate the source.

Mona: I support UKHSA's Midlands Field Service infectious disease surveillance and outbreak response work as part of a rota. This can involve producing or reviewing epidemiological summaries, attending outbreak control meetings and providing feedback and recommendations. I also work on specific projects that enable me to enhance existing and develop new skills while meeting my UK-FETP competencies.

What is a highlight of your job?

Megan: I worked on an investigation into an outbreak of Salmonella where I rang patients to complete questionnaires and conducted an analytical study, also known as a case-control study . Secondly, I enjoy being part of a global epidemiology network - it's a community of people who are interested in the spread of infectious diseases and you learn from people across the world.

What challenges do you experience in your role?

Megan : I think a lack of awareness of epidemiology can be challenging as some of the fantastic work we produce can go unacknowledged. I think increased awareness of epidemiology will attract more people who are interested in helping people through the use of science.

What led you to apply for UK-FETP? Mona: As challenging as it was, contributing to the COVID-19 response, seeing the impact and working alongside dedicated individuals is incredibly rewarding. That was when I realised I wanted to continue working in and developing my skills in this field, and I applied for the UK Field Epidemiology Training Programme (UK-FETP).

About UK-FETP

The United Kingdom Field Epidemiology Training Program (UK-FETP) was founded in 2011 as a program associated with the European Program for Intervention Epidemiology Training (EPIET), and it was accredited by TEPHINET in the first accreditation round. Since EU-Exit the UKFETP has run as an independent programme for the UK.

About UK-PHRST

The UK-PHRST is an innovative partnership between the UK Health Security Agency and the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, funded with UK aid by the UK Department of Health and Social Care.

The UK Public Health Rapid Support Team (UK-PHRST) and partners are currently delivering nine research projects, including two new studies bolstering UK-PHRST's research in outbreak preparedness and response:

'A novel One Health approach to develop an early warning system to improve preparedness for and response to Marburg virus disease outbreaks' . This innovative study combines serological sampling of humans and Marburg virus detection from faecal bat samples to confirm target populations and uses remote audio-monitoring devices (AudioMoth) to assess humans and bat population interaction in target regions in Guinea. The team will use these findings to develop an early warning system to allow public health systems to recognise MARV outbreak threats with greater precision and prepare response measures tailored to affected areas. The study is being co-delivered with University of Oxford, the National Viral Haemorrhagic Fever Reference Laboratory, Guinea and MRC Unit The Gambia at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM).
' A novel early warning system involving local community leaders for early detection of health-related events indicative of outbreaks: A pilot in Cape Verde and Brazil'. This project, a collaboration between Brasília University, the Ministry of Health in Cape Verde and the UK-PHRST, investigates whether an event based surveillance (EBS) system - developed with and relying on the participation of community leaders - is more effective at detecting infectious disease outbreaks than indicator-based surveillance or centralised EBS systems. The study team will focus on two contrasting outbreak prone lower middle-income countries (LMICs), Cape Verde and Brazil, respectively.

In other active studies in the UK-PHRST portfolio, the project team delivering a pilot of a non-whole genome sequencing approach for monitoring SARS-CoV-2 variants in Burkina Faso conducted a successful research and laboratory visit to MRC Gambia Unit The Gambia at LSHTM in July 2022. See further details of the visit . The team had needed to move sequencing and assay development to two new sites, at MRC Gambia and Kenya, following a coup in Burkina Faso earlier in the year. The project team will submit a final report in October.

The study 'Rapid response molecular diagnostics for Crimean-Congo Haemorrhagic Fever ( CCHF)' , which aims to assist the economic development and welfare of CCHF endemic populations in LMICs, particularly those in marginalised areas with limited laboratory capacity, conducted its final visit to the Ministry of Health virology laboratory in Turkey in June 2022. A UK-PHRST-hosted CCHF workshop in September 2022 is in preparation to disseminate results to key stakeholders.

The UK-PHRST also convened a two day hybrid research workshop in June 2022 in partnership with Stellenbosch University as part of the UK-PRHST study investigating 'evidence on levels of, and interventions to improve, healthcare cleaning in low-and middle-income countries. Over 30 regional and international organisations attended, including experts in water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH), Infection prevention and control (IPC) and environmental hygiene. A report and roadmap are currently in preparation and will be published in due course as outputs.

A closing ceremony for the IPC Caregivers study in Cameroon, which focused on the development and evaluation of resources to support IPC engagement with caregivers in LMIC hospitals, was held at Banso Hospital on 24 June 2022 to mark the contribution of the research team and the conclusion of field research. As part of the study, a series of IPC instructional/orientation animated videos were developed in partnership with Medical Aid Films and designed for caregivers of patients. See the animations in English and in Pidgin . A short version of the film was also produced. The project team are writing the final project report currently, and will also present findings within the Infection Control Africa Network (ICAN) webinar series and at the upcoming Global Health Network Conference.

Three research projects have also been completed since the last research update. These include the study which examined excess mortalities associated with COVID-19 in The Gambia, as well as two rapid studies; one to improve the application of oral fluid filovirus surveillance methods in Africa, and one focused on the development of mental health and psychosocial support (MHPSS) in outbreak preparedness and response in Africa.

The study team investigating excess mortality in The Gambia associated with COVID-19 and other causes concluded there was an unexpected decline in recorded mortality during the COVID-19 pandemic, but that mortality rates increased in the second wave and reached excess mortality of 22.6 per 100,000 compared to 2016-2019. Foetal complications constituted the highest proportion of deaths, while sepsis, COVID-19 and stroke were also important. A report written by UK-PHRST, MRC Unit The Gambia at LSHTM and Ministry of Health Gambia has been shared with regional health centres and health facilities participating in the study. Results will also be disseminated through a policy briefing, Ministry of Health meetings, and presentations at national and regional meetings.

The second completed study, conducted in partnership with University of Oxford and the Fondation sante et développement durable (FOSAD) Guinea, set out to understand if the Lola population in Guinea exhibited signatures indicative of non-Ebola filovirus infections that impact upon individual and population-level seroepidemiological inference, and if so, if this information could be used to refine strategies for both oral fluid and serum-based seroepidemiological investigations in filovirus-endemic LMICs in Africa. The study demonstrated that oral fluid samples showed discordant responses with blood and concluded that at population scale, and despite prior validation of the assay in an Ebola virus survivor cohort, surveillance for Ebola virus and likely other filoviruses appeared unfeasible with oral fluid-based assays due to insufficient specificity. These limitations are important for public health professionals and researchers using oral fluid tools for the surveillance of filoviruses as they were widely used during and after the outbreak of Ebola in West Africa and have been suggested as more acceptable tools for surveillance in endemic settings. Results from the study were disseminated in Guinea through the national health security agency (ANSS), who lead operations and research strategy related to emerging infectious diseases including filoviruses. The study highlights the limitations of relying on oral fluid based surveillance for filoviruses and suggest dried blood spot (DBS) based sampling as a viable alternative.

The study ‘ Evidence to practice: research and capacity development for mental health and psychosocial support (MHPSS) in outbreak preparedness and response in Africa: SPACE 2.0 ’, sought to support national actors in Liberia, Sierra Leone, Cameroon and Nigeria prone to outbreaks to integrate mental health interventions in emergency preparedness and response (EPR). An umbrella review on the effectiveness of mental health and psychosocial support (MHPSS) interventions during infectious disease outbreaks was conducted, and a hybrid workshop was held in Liberia which brought together mental health experts from African public health institutions. This included World Health Organization Regional Office for Africa (WHO Afro), Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC), West African Health Organization (WAHO), East, Central and Southern Africa Health Community (ECSA-HC) and mental health leaders in Liberia, Sierra Leone, Cameroon, and Nigeria to share expertise and develop a theory of change (ToC) for integrating mental health into national EPR plans. Capacity building activities included introducing the newly developed Minimum Services Package for MHPSS in emergency response, and related MHPSS resources. The UK-PHRST mental health consortium convened a further webinar on 18 May 2022 at which results from the study were shared, and next steps discussed, including:

How best to facilitate sharing expertise and lessons learned from different countries responses to the COVID-19 pandemic and other emergencies
How to further improve and refine the ToC for MHPSS integration into emergency response
Identification of research and capacity strengthening priorities for the next phase of the consortium’s work.

We have summarised the latest UK-PHRST deployment, research and capacity development activities from April – June 2022 in a quarterly map. Many of our activities across the triple remit overlap, and some will continue into the next quarter. The map demonstrates ongoing or completed activities during the quarter, and the year stated is when the project commenced. View the UK-PHRST quarterly map

The UK-PHRST team and partners are currently delivering 11 research projects, including two new studies:

‘ Integrating Social Science into Africa CDC’s Public Health Operations’ , which examines the status and use of social science at Africa CDC and how it can be further integrated into public health preparedness and response.
‘ What is the current level of cleaning in LMIC health systems and what interventions are effective at improving it?’ which strengthens UK-PHRST's research in Infection Prevention and Control (IPC) and environmental hygiene and aims to improve the evidence base for cleaning implementation and investment in cleaners, a vulnerable and neglected group in the health system in many Lower Middle-Income Countries (LMICs).

We are also delighted to welcome Nasser Fardousi to the UK-PHRST, who joined us as a Research Fellow in Environmental Hygiene in January. Nasser is working with the IPC team, investigating the current level of cleaning in LMIC health systems and what interventions are effective at improving it.

We have several research projects that are concluding. These include two rapid research studies, one of which aims to improve the application of oral fluid filovirus surveillance methods in Africa, and the other to develop mental health and psychosocial support (MHPSS) in outbreak preparedness and response in Africa. The team investigating the extent of excess mortality in health facilities in The Gambia associated with the COVID-19 pandemic is also in the final stages of writing up their results.

In February, as part of the MHPSS study, the team delivered a workshop in Liberia in partnership with Africa CDC hosted by the Liberian Ministry of Health. The workshop brought together a consortium of mental health experts from African public health institutions to share experiences and lessons learned from COVID-19 and other crises in the region. The workshop also mapped out processes for strengthening MHPSS in outbreak preparedness and response in Africa.

A military Coup in Burkina Faso in January 2022 threatened to affect the delivery of the rapid study piloting a non-whole genome sequencing approach for monitoring SARS-CoV-2 variants in Burkina Faso, however, the team were able to move sequencing and assay development to The MRC Unit The Gambia at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and a new field site in Kenya.

Our study on COVID-19 vaccine strategies implementation in partnership with Gates Exemplars in Global Health has been published online and will soon be published in French. Read more here.

The research management team are also preparing the programme’s six-month report for National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR), including quarterly and annual finance reports.

Our newly developed research strategy for 2022-2025 is currently in review by our key stakeholders. The strategy has been informed by an evidence gap analysis complemented by stakeholder interviews and feedback from partners and formal reviews and aims to deliver a coherent, structured, partner-led research programme informed by public health need.

We have summarised the latest UK-PHRST deployment, research and capacity development activities from January – March 2022 in a quarterly map. Many of our activities across the triple remit overlap, and some will continue into the next quarter. The map demonstrates ongoing or completed activities during the quarter, and the year stated is when the project commenced. View the UK-PHRST quarterly map

We are looking for an external consultant with ethnographic experience, public health, outbreaks training or experience, and experience working within or closely with Ministries of Health, National Public Health Agencies, or relevant multilateral bodies.

This consultant will support the UK-PHRST in conducting an institutional ethnography of Africa CDC, to support the development of a social science integration strategy and roadmap within the organisation; to conduct analysis of data collected; to write up operational and academic findings in partnership with Africa CDC.

Skills and experience:

Relevant PhD or MA/MSc
Social science training and substantial experience with primary data collection of qualitative data
Project management skills
Ability to work independently and as part of a team
Excellent written and verbal English language communication skills
Confident presentation skills

Preferred start date : 15 April 2022

Expected duration (days): 84 days

Expected hours per day: 7. Flexible working patterns can be considered during the project’s analysis phase.

Daily rate: £350-500/day, dependent on skills/experience

Interested candidates should submit their CVs and a cover letter outlining how they are suitable for the role, along with their expectations for a daily rate. Please send these to [email protected] and [email protected] .

The UK-PHRST team and partners are currently working on ten research projects, two of which have newly started since our last quarterly newsletter:

a rapid systematic review, building on the UK-PHRST infection prevention and control (IPC) caregivers study, of the evidence on the levels of, and interventions to improve, cleanliness in health facilities in LMICs and specifically relating to outbreak preparedness and response.
a rapid study to validate and improve the application of oral fluid-based immunoassays for filovirus surveillance in West and Central Africa, building on previous UK-PHRST research on Ebola Virus immunoassays.

The team have also recently completed two research projects. One of these explored how serosurveillance of healthcare workers might be used to strengthen viral haemorrhagic fever preparedness in Uganda. The findings suggested that increased PPE training is needed to increase awareness and reduce potential exposure to Ebola Virus (EBOV) in healthcare workers and to Rift Valley Fever in abattoir workers. The other investigated the feasibility of using oral fluid-based anti-EBOV immunoassays to identify previously undetected EBOV infections in Guinea. It provided strong evidence that this approach can detect previously unidentified EBOV exposures many years after infection and demonstrated its feasibility in targeted surveillance and preparedness activities where EBOV is endemic.

In our last research update in July, we shared the collaborative research project with Gates Ventures that explored the barriers, enablers, and lessons from the previous implementation of vaccines during epidemics in LMICs that can be applied to COVID-19. The findings of this research were presented in our latest webinar on COVID-19 vaccination in low and middle-income countries: lessons from past and current campaigns.

We are also in the process of developing our new 3-year research strategy. This work is being informed by an evidence gap analysis to identify key areas where evidence from impact evaluations and systematic reviews in outbreak prevention, detection and response in LMICs is most limited. This resource is being complemented by stakeholder interviews and together these efforts will provide a strategic approach for identifying our research priorities in the coming years. We hope to provide more details on our new research strategy in the next research update.

We are seeking an outstanding Research Fellow or Assistant Professor to support the UK Public Health Rapid Support Team (UK-PHRST). The post-holder will contribute epidemiological and analytical expertise to support UK-PHRST’s strategic objectives in outbreak response, operational research, and capacity building, working in partnership with local and regional stakeholders. The role will also include representing the UK-PHRST at relevant external events, conferences and workshops.

The UK-PHRST is a collaborative partnership between the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) and Public Health England (PHE) that rapidly deploys a team of multidisciplinary public health professionals and researchers on behalf of the UK Government to areas of need in low and middle-income countries (LMICs). Application details here. Deadline: Tuesday 28 September

Between September and November 2020, Itad conducted a number of Key Informant Interviews with stakeholders to gather evidence for the end-point evaluation of the UK Public Health Rapid Support Team (UK-PHRST) programme.

The purpose of the evaluation is to ensure independent monitoring and quality assurance of programme delivery, documentation of lessons learned, and robust tracking of results, providing assessment of the effectiveness of official development assistance (ODA) funds.

We are delighted to share these with you;

Executive Summary
Final Report (plus annexes )
Management Response

We are delighted to announce that Dr Ben Gannon has been appointed as the Interim Director of the UK Public Health Rapid Support Team (UK-PHRST). Ben has taken over the role from Professor Dan Bausch, who has accepted a post as Director of Global Health Security at the Foundation for Innovative New Diagnostics in Geneva. We would like to take this opportunity to thank Dan for his leadership of the UK-PHRST over the past four years.

Ben has worked in the UK-PHRST as the Microbiology Lead for the last five years, deploying on multiple occasions and building an extensive portfolio of overseas research and capacity development projects. He comes from an academic background, including specialising in zoonotic disease transmission and diagnostics at the University of Bristol. Later he joined the PHE Rare and Imported Pathogens Laboratory where he deployed to Sierra Leone on multiple occasions to support the Ebola diagnostic laboratory programme. Ben’s appointment is strongly supported by the Department of Health and Social care, as well as Public Health England and the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, the joint lead UK-PHRST partner organisations.

We are confident that the UK-PHRST is in excellent hands at this critical time.

Adapted by UK-PHRST staff, Dr Alice Walker, this course shows front-line responders how to recognise when people affected by the COVID-19 pandemic are in distress, and how to provide them with Psychological First Aid (PFA). It is specifically designed for first responders in Africa and reflects the different healthcare situations of African countries, drawing on guidance from the World Health Organisation and the United Nations, and has been adapted for the context by the UK-Public Health Rapid Support Team (PHE/LSHTM) with input by experts from WHO AFRO, WHO EMRO, Africa CDC, the West African Health Organization, and the East, Central and Southern Africa Health Community (ECSA-HC).

Take the course.

We are seeking an outstanding academic leader to serve as Deputy Director for Research for the UK Public Health Rapid Support Team (UK-PHRST). The post-holder will oversee and deliver the UK-PHRST research programme, building the evidence base for international disease outbreak response and interventions. The UK-PHRST is a high-profile collaboration between the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) and Public Health England (PHE), with a 5-year £20m grant from the UK government to support a triple mandate of outbreak response, outbreak-related research, and capacity building in low and middle-income countries (LMICs). Application details here .

Deadline: Sunday 03 January

Prof Bausch has served on ASTMH’s executive committee as scientific program chair for the last six years, and was recently voted President-elect by the society’s members. ASTMH is the largest international scientific organisation of experts dedicated to reducing the worldwide burden of tropical infectious diseases and improving global health. Prof Bausch will serve a three-year term comprised of one year each as President-Elect, President, and Immediate Past-President.

As president, he will be responsible for steering the important work of ASTMH, which includes generating and sharing scientific evidence, informing health policies and practices around the world and advocating for investment in tropical medicine and global health research.

Prof Bausch said “I feel so fortunate to be elected to lead such a great and talented group of people at ASTMH who are so dedicated to making the world a better place. Furthermore, being based in London and engaging with the Royal Society over the past few years, I’m excited about the potential for ASTMH-RSTMH collaborations.”

Read the full story here .

The UK Public Health Rapid Support Team (UK-PHRST) is conducting an online survey (until 25 th October 2020) open to public health and healthcare professionals worldwide to understand their professional assessment of current and future COVID-19 interventions, specifically the practicality of, and barriers to, implementation in their context.

Your participation is important to share learning to inform the COVID-19 response in your country and in others. The survey is available in English, French and Portuguese and is anonymous .

For more information on how to complete the survey, please click here .

Please help to share this with relevant professionals - many thanks for your valued support!

The UK-PHRST are pleased to announce the launch of their new Knowledge Hub , where practitioners and researchers can find and share the most useful information for their work in outbreak response. Hosted on The Global Health Network, the Knowledge Hub aims to:

Bridge the gap between the fast-paced world of online discussion forums and maintain long-term access to useful resources.
Share up-to-date research and policy, as well as a dedicated education and training area with resources to support learning and inform effective outbreak response.
Connect UK-based researchers with specialists in LMICs, creating a flow of information exchange and localised adaptations to outbreaks.

The new UK-PHRST Knowledge Hu b provides a community function, allowing members to start group conversations around key topics, such as this timely post on contact tracing technology and comment on current issues, as shown in this blog on the importance of looking after Mental Health in COVID-19

We look forward to you joining, contributing and using our Knowledge Hub as a reliable and up-to-date source on outbreak response! Please do give us feedback on how you would like to see the UK-PHRST Knowledge Hub evolve in our discussion forum here .

Welcoming Ashley Sharp, a medical doctor before moving into public health and completing the UK Public Health Specialty Training Programme and the UK Field Epidemiology Training Programme (FETP).

He has worked in a variety of public health roles at local, regional, national and international levels in the UK, Eswatini, Sierra Leone, Haiti and Bangladesh, with a focus on health protection and health systems development. He is also a member of the UK Faculty of Public Health, the standard setting body for public health specialists within the United Kingdom.

Ashley joins the team as the Senior Epidemiologist and Deputy Director for Operations, replacing Olivier le Polain.

The UK-PHRST notes that April 28 th 2020 marks 20 years since the inception of the Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network ( GOARN ). For 20 years GOARN has facilitated and promoted partners to work together in tackling disease outbreaks across the world and by doing so, ensuring that the response can be greater than the sum of its parts. We congratulate GOARN for two decades of dedicated service, making the world a safer place. The UK-PHRST is proud to support GOARN, both through deployments in the field and strategic support through membership on the GOARN Steering Committee.

The UK-PHRST deploys specialist experts to outbreaks of infectious diseases overseas, to help increase and improve the response and reduce their risk of becoming global threats. As COVID-19 has shown, diseases don’t respect borders . In February and March the UK-PHRST deployed, both through GOARN and bilateral agreements, to combat COVID-19, working alongside colleagues from the World Health Organisation (WHO), Ministries of Health and others in the WHO Western Pacific Regional Office in the Philippines, WHO Country Office in Nepal, Nigeria CDC, and Africa CDC in Ethiopia to deliver expertise in epidemiology, data analysis, infection prevention and control, clinical care, laboratory diagnostics, social science, logistics, and strategic guidance.

Although global travel restrictions have now necessitated recalling all personnel back to the UK, the UK-PHRST continues to provide support remotely to the aforementioned partners, as well as to the WHO African Regional Office in the Republic of the Congo and WHO Country Office and Ministry of Health in Bangladesh. In addition to their support to partners overseas, many UK-PHRST team members are also supporting the domestic response, providing clinical care and epidemiologic support. The UK-PHRST is also engaged in developing and implementing several research projects on COVID-19 and has organized a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) on COVID-19 through LSHTM, which has nearly 200,000 registrants.

At any time, an emerging, lethal, and highly transmissible pathogen might pose a risk of being spread globally because of the interconnectedness of the global population. 1 , 2 Emerging epidemic threats are occurring with increasing scale, duration, and effect, often disrupting travel and trade, and damaging both national and regional economies. 3 , 4 Even geographically limited outbreaks such as the Ebola virus disease in Africa might have a global effect.

Read the full comment

The UK-PHRST has been working closely with the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) to improve knowledge on Lassa fever by identifying other pathogens that may be causing similar illnesses. A recent Weekly Epidemiological Report from NCDC features an update on this work, which is taking place at the NCDC National Reference Laboratory.

It's hoped the work could lead to improved patient care, better surveillance data, and will inform public health policy. As well as broadening the scientific knowledge base on the topic, this collaboration is supporting the growth of in-country capacity for genetic sequencing in Nigeria and leadership by local experts.

Building in-country Capacity for Genetic Sequencing

Experts from the UK Public Health Rapid Support Team have contributed to a new Massive Online Open Course (MOOC) from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine.

This course is for those interested in, studying or working in global and public health. This includes government stakeholders; health practitioners and NGO employees - particularly those working in countries regularly affected by infectious disease outbreaks.

Recent outbreaks of emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases have shown we need to be able to coordinate responses to disease outbreaks at the regional, country and global level. On this free course, participants will explore disease outbreaks, discovering what outbreaks are and why they matter as well as the different responses to such outbreaks. They will also consider the future of outbreak preparedness.

Disease Outbreaks in Low and Middle Income Countries

Public health specialists from the UK Public Health Rapid Support Team are supporting the Democratic Republic of Congo to tackle the country’s Ebola outbreak as it reaches the one-year mark.

Those deploying to the country include a data scientist, an expert in tracking outbreaks (epidemiologist), and an infection and prevention control expert who will work with local scientists. The deployment is at the request of the World Health Organization’s Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network following the recent decision to declare the outbreak a Public Health Emergency of International Concern.

Read the full announcement

In her final annual report before leaving the role, Dame Sally Davies – Chief Medical Officer, England, and Chief Medical Advisor to the UK – chose to ‘address the UK’s engagement with health at a global level’. Her report showcases the work of the UK Public Health Rapid Support Team and includes a case study of the team’s work to support Nigeria in tackling Lassa Fever.

Read the full report

Q&A with UK-PHRST’s Dr Olivier le Polain.

Olivier le Polain is the senior epidemiologist and deputy director for operations of the UK Public Health Rapid Support Team.

He has been a member of the team for just under two years and in that time has deployed to Madagascar to respond to an outbreak of pneumonic plague, to Bangladesh amidst the Rohingya refugee crisis and most recently to the Democratic Republic of Congo. The latter was to support the response to two consecutive Ebola virus disease (EVD) epidemics, one in Equateur Province (May – July 2018) as well as the ongoing large outbreak which has affected the Eastern provinces of North Kivu and Ituri since August 2018.

Olivier talks about his experience on the ground in the DRC during the ongoing Ebola epidemic, the importance of working in partnership with other countries and organisations and his experience on the UK-PHRST so far.

Read the interview

A new online resource which aims to strengthen the control response to disease outbreaks has been developed by the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) and the Institute of Development Studies. The Epidemic Response Anthropology Platform is funded by the UK-PHRST and will work with, and build, networks of anthropologists and other social scientists with regional or subject expertise, and connect them to policymakers, scientists and humanitarian response workers involved in responding to epidemics.

Read the full story

On 8 May 2018, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) Government declared a new outbreak of Ebola Virus Disease (EVD)—the country’s ninth outbreak. The UK-PHRST is deploying to the Democratic Republic of Congo to help control the outbreak. The three UK-PHRST team members deploying include two experts in tracking outbreaks, LSHTM’s Hilary Bower and Olivier le Polain from Public Health England, and data scientist Patrick Keating from LSHTM.

The team is expected to remain in the DRC for around six weeks, during which time they will help track the spread of the outbreak, and will also support in establishing robust data systems that will help align crucial information gathering. The UK-PHRST also has expertise in various other key areas for Ebola response, such as laboratory diagnostics, that can be deployed should they be needed.

Q&A with team Director, Prof Dan Bausch.

In April 2017, Professor Daniel Bausch was appointed Director of the UK-PHRST. Prof Bausch is a specialist in emerging infectious diseases trained in internal medicine, infectious diseases, tropical medicine, and public health. He has extensive experience in sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America, and Asia combatting deadly global health threats such as Ebola virus, hantavirus, and SARS coronavirus.

A year on from the team's first deployment, Prof Bausch tells us more about the team and how they work to assist in managing disease outbreaks.

The UK Public Health Rapid Support Team (UK-PHRST) is deploying to Sierra Leone to help reduce the risk of a disease outbreak following the deadly landslides in Freetown.

Following natural disasters, outbreaks of water-borne diseases such as cholera can occur, particularly where there is a lack of access to clean water and sanitation. Given the scale of the disaster in Freetown, the local capacity to detect and control a disease outbreak is limited and the Government of Sierra Leone has requested international support.

The UK-PHRST team deployed to Sierra Leone includes experts in tracking the progress of an outbreak and diagnosing its cause, as well as a logistician. It will be working alongside Sierra Leone health system professionals and other experts in disaster relief to support the Sierra Leone Government’s response. As the UK-PHRST’s deployment progresses, it will continue to provide support and share expertise with our partners in Sierra Leone to strengthen the health system beyond the immediate response.

Professor Daniel Bausch has been appointed Director of the new UK Public Health Rapid Support Team (UK-PHRST).

Prof Daniel Bausch, a specialist in emerging infectious diseases trained in internal medicine, infectious diseases, tropical medicine, and public health, will take up the position of Director of the UK-PHRST in April. He has extensive experience in sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America, and Asia combatting deadly global health threats such as Ebola virus, hantavirus, and SARS coronavirus.

His most recent role was as the Technical Lead for the Epidemic Clinical Management Unit in the World Health Organization's (WHO) Pandemic and Epidemic Diseases Department. He is a tenured Professor at the Tulane University Health Sciences Center in the United States and has served as a regular consultant for the WHO, the United Nations and the US National Institutes of Health. In addition to his expertise in the sciences, Prof Bausch places a strong emphasis on capacity building in all his projects and also has a keen interest in the role of the scientist in promoting health and human rights.

The UK Public Health Rapid Support Team (UK-PHRST) has deployed to Nigeria to help control an unusually large outbreak of Lassa fever, a viral haemorrhagic illness that can cause severe symptoms and sometimes death.

Lassa fever outbreaks occur in most years in Nigeria but on a lower scale. Given the size of the current outbreak and the risk of further spread locally, the Government of Nigeria has requested support from the UK-PHRST.

The London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine has been chosen to jointly run the newly established UK Public Health Rapid Support Team in partnership with Public Health England. Public Health Minister Nicola Blackwood announced the £20m initiative, to help prevent global health emergencies on behalf of the UK Government. It means the UK has a fully operational specialist team that is ready to be deployed anywhere in the world within 48 hours to tackle disease outbreaks which have the potential to develop into major health emergencies.

It will continually monitor infectious disease outbreaks around the world, identifying situations where the deployment of specialist expertise could help mitigate threats. When not responding to a disease outbreak, the team will research how best to deal with different types of outbreak scenario as well as training a group of public health reservists so the UK maintains the capability to rapidly scale up responses to outbreaks.

Dr Abdulmajid Suleiman Musa shows a group of NCDC staff how a correctly prepared PPE suit should look when working in a virus hit region, Keffi, Nasarawa state. Credit: Louis Leeson/LSHTM

UK Public Health Rapid Support Team: Latest research & scientific insights

Let’s Talk COVID-19: Historians, Policy, and Public Health

Deployable members of the UK-PHRST at a new ward for COVID-19 cases at the Singapore National Centre for Infectious Diseases, March 2020

Introducing the UK Public Health Rapid Support Team (UK-PHRST): How we are supporting the COVID-19 response

Let’s Talk COVID-19: Use case scenarios for potential COVID-19 vaccines

Let’s Talk COVID-19 "COVID-19 elimination in New Zealand: Could it work in the UK?"

COVID-19 vaccines to the rescue?

Coronavirus (COVID-19) Outbreak – Insights from Leading Expert Prof Yik-Ying Teo

Prof Gabriel Leung, Dean of Medicine, University of Hong Kong

Coronavirus (COVID-19) Outbreak – Insights from Leading Expert Prof Gabriel Leung

Photo credit: Alissa Eckert, MS; Dan Higgins, MAM

Coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak - update

Coronavirus outbreak.

Survivors: Hope and survival in the time of Ebola

Ebola in conflict: Field perspectives on response strategy and implementation in DRC

The uk public health rapid support team: research progress and working with the rst, controlling global outbreaks: the slow road to rapid control (session at phe annual conference).

Outbreaks and the UK Public Health Rapid Support Team: The Slow Road to Rapid Control

An introduction to the newly launched uk public health rapid support team.

Responding effectively to outbreaks of infectious diseases saves lives. Sharing knowledge, learning, and experience of outbreak response across geographies, diseases, and between researchers and policy makers is essential. Without collaboration, outbreaks risk spreading in size and scale.

The UK Health Security Agency and the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine came together in 2016 to form the UK Public Health Rapid Support Team (UK-PHRST), with an academic consortium including the University of Oxford. The UK-PHRST’s integrated tripartite remit includes outbreak response, research, and capacity building.

Funded by UK aid from the Department of Health and Social Care, UK-PHRST supports low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) in investigating and responding to disease outbreaks and conducts research to improve our response to future epidemics.

The UK-PHRST are pleased to announce the launch of their new Knowledge Hub, where practitioners and researchers can find and share the most useful information for their work in outbreak response.

Hosted on The Global Health Network, the Knowledge Hub aims to:

Many of these resources have been developed by UK-PHRST and its partners, including a number of virtual learning resources on COVID-19.

The new UK-PHRST Knowledge Hub provides a community function, allowing members to start group conversations around key topics, such as this timely post on contact tracing technology and comment on current issues, as shown in this blog on the importance of Looking after Mental Health in COVID-19 .

About The Global Health Network

Faster and better research is critical to solving the world’s biggest health challenges. The Global Health Network enables researchers and institutions to share best practice and know-how with each other to drive progress, while empowering local health professionals undertaking research in the world’s most vulnerable settings. The Global Health Network facilitates sustainable health improvements through sharing of research methods, knowledge and experience through an open-access online platform and face-to-face within varied healthcare settings. It delivers training, skills and career development to frontline health workers, no matter where they are or how resource-constrained their environment may be. The result is easier, faster, better research to help address the world's biggest health challenges.

Visit: www.theglobalhealthnetwork.org .

The UK-PHRST are deployed to outbreaks all over the world from Bangladesh to Nigeria to Sudan. Working alongside in-country staff from Minstries of Health, NGOs and other government organisations, UK-PHRST successfully help combat the outbreak and protect against future threats to health. Read some of our stories below:

The UK Public Health Rapid Support Team (UK-PHRST), funded by UK aid from the Department of Health and Social Care, supports low- and middle-income countries in investigating and responding to disease outbreaks and conducts research to improve our response to future epidemics.

Our expertise in infection and prevention and control, which includes the use of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), is used to protect people from infection in disease outbreaks. PPE can diminish transmission when used as part of an integrated package of measures, and crucially helps protect medical staff from disease, but there is variation in the need for, and use of PPE for different diseases, across countries, and differing views on its necessity.

This project investigated the use of PPE to protect people from Lassa Fever, in specific Lassa Fever Treatment Centres (LTCs) across Nigeria.

Lassa fever is often confused with Ebola or other viral haemorrhagic fevers, but it differs - it is less fatal, and its transmission is very different. Ebola is transmitted between people, whereas Lassa fever is spread to most people (~80%) through exposure to food or household items contaminated by rats . Less commonly, transmission can occur in laboratories, or between people, particularly in health care settings with inadequate infection prevention and control measures.

Why are the UK-PHRST involved? Lassa Fever is an important cause of outbreaks of infectious disease. It is one of the pathogens in the World Health Organizations’ list of epidemic threats needing urgent research. The disease is endemic in rodent populations in parts of West Africa including Benin, Ghana, Guinea, Liberia, Mali, Sierra Leone, Togo, and Nigeria, and most likely exists in other West African countries as well. Cases are increasing in Nigeria .

The nuances between viruses causing haemorrhagic fevers, such as Ebola and Lassa Fever, are not translated into official guidance, and policies end up addressing them in the same manner. In addition, much of the research and guidance for PPE are developed in high-income settings, where there are few cases of disease, therefore the guidance is built on data, rather than lived experience.

Recognising limitations in existing guidance, The Nigerian Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) invited the UK-PHRST work with them to investigate whether their infection, prevention and control (IPC) policies devised in 2017 were effectively disseminated and how, in the case of Lassa Fever, they were operationalised.

A woman suspected of contracting Lassa Fever awaits her lab results in quarantine. Suspect cases of Lassa Fever typically wait 12-24 hours for their samples to be tested locally at the virology laboratory. If positive they are moved by ambulance to the confirmed case ward a short distance away.

What did they discover?

The team found that health care workers in Lassa treatment centres (LTCs) were frequently not using PPE in line with government guidelines. Limited availability of PPE in some centres led to health care workers using personal risk assessments to drive decision-making about its use, and there is a gap in understanding of staff perceptions, and how they protect themselves, in the absence of adequate PPE.

During interviews, researchers noticed that much importance was placed on the language, behaviour and understanding of PPE by the health workers. For example, some staff were basing their decision-making on what they perceived as ‘careful’ best practice, but this is not reflected in guidance. Staff also consistently expressed challenges with using PPE, for example in the environment they were using it in (high temperatures), with poor quality materials (gloves breaking or tearing), and limited function (reduced visibility when using eye protection).

Inside the grounds of the Federal Training Hospital (FETHA) in Abakaliki, a makeshift Lassa Fever holding centre is prepared for quarantining of suspected cases.

To mitigate some of these issues, some health workers adapted PPE to suit their local context; for example, choosing to wear a surgical gown in replacement of gowns provided, saying they were cooler to wear and simpler to remove.

The study team observed that judgements made by health workers were based on their experience and understanding of the situation, and this was very different to PPE guidance from international and national bodies.

Demonstrating a correctly prepared personal protective equipment suit

In low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), funds assigned for PPE procurement and supplies can be limited. Where there are competing demands, funds are often redirected to more immediate requirements, such as emergency operations, or treatments.

Alongside this, there were worries that the PPE provided was substandard. Much of the PPE in use had been donated, for example from non-governmental organisations, and there was no formal process in place to ensure it was fit for purpose.

As a result of the collaborative work carried out in the LTCs, The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) has revised national guidance on infection prevention control for viral haemorrhagic fevers.

Together with this success, emphasis on the quality of PPE facilitated prompted dialogue at a national level about developing assurance systems so that donation of equipment is fit for purpose in the future. These results have informed national advocacy work for improvements to supplies to Lassa Treatment Centres – with the ultimate aim of reducing countrywide infection.

How can this work be translated into other contexts?

There has also been ongoing professional collaboration between the NCDC as part of the COVID-19 response with Africa Centre for Disease Control and as part of the African Union Taskforce for COVID-19.

Thinking through novel and more nuanced approaches to PPE is useful when considering PPE for COVID-19. It is also helpful in the face of supply chain issues, with many countries unable to source PPE during the pandemic. Rational use of PPE has been suggested to mitigate insufficient PPE supplies.

While COVID-19 has brought worldwide disruptions to PPE supplies, and its availability, the experience of clinicians in LMICs has much to teach us all about the realities of working with limited resources; developing adaptations and creating innovative local solutions. However, it is important that guidelines are rooted in evidence-based best practise, as well as reflecting the reality of those who are required to implement them.

Read the updated guidelines and vital role the NCDC plays in keeping hospitals, clinics, and health facilities safe and free from disease.

Funded by UK aid from the Department of Health and Social Care, the multidisciplinary nature of the UK Public Health Rapid Support Team (UK-PHRST) allows its outbreak response support to take many forms, depending on the situation, and includes a mobile laboratory that can be deployed worldwide. This enables instant diagnostic capacity to process samples, identify causal agents, and tackle disease outbreaks.

The Philippines, like many tropical countries, has a wide variety of infectious agents circulating that cause febrile illness and severe disease. Patients presenting with febrile symptoms could be infected with dengue, yellow fever, zika, or malaria, for example. When there is a spike in fever cases in any country, it is vital that the diagnostic tests can accurately describe the pathogen or ‘causal agent’ – to facilitate appropriate treatment and prevent further spread.

Why are the UK-PHRST involved?

Dengue is a mosquito-borne viral disease that has rapidly spread in all regions of WHO in recent years. The Americas, South-East Asia and Western Pacific regions are the most seriously affected, with Asia representing ~70% of the global burden of disease. As part of its public health system to identify cases, and outbreaks, it is compulsory to record dengue cases in The Philippines. This enables trends to be analysed which provides potential notice for future outbreaks.

Dengue is a disease that not only has a high impact on health of the population, but also a large impact economically, therefore it is essential to identify outbreaks with the end goal of using targeted control measures to help combat the spread and repercussions.

So how are they tracking cases?

A national surveillance programme tracks cases countrywide, with 21 disease reporting units across 17 regions – 4 in the national capital region. The units are housed in hospitals and clinics. Many of the reported cases are ‘suspected dengue’ where the patient has presented clinical symptoms, but this has not necessarily been followed up with a laboratory test due to limited diagnostics.

From the national surveillance programme, the UK-PHRST identified >4,000 patients, including more than 1,000 with severe disease, that had been tested and actually found to be dengue negative. From these, UK-PHRST prioritised samples from severe cases and identified ~400 to analyse (2015-2016). Then they sought to identify the unknown cause(s), the so called ‘mystery pathogen(s)’ of this febrile illness.

The role of the modular flight case mobile laboratory

To test and diagnose disease, UK-PHRST deployed research expertise and various components of the modular flight case laboratory via airline courier to The Philippines. Inside this mobile laboratory are two very sophisticated pieces of kit, previously not used in-country, a MinION and a Film Array. Both accurately diagnose disease by analysing the genetic code and comparing it with an existing database of genetic material. This process is called metagenomics.

Metagenomics identifies the closest strains or sequences of disease, which can also give the transmission patterns and geographical origin.

How does this differ from current diagnostics?

Through use of metagenomics, all genes from the sample are sequenced, rather than specifically testing for an individual pathogen. Film Array is useful because it has the capacity to detect a range of pathogens, then the MinION enables precise confirmation of the causal agent. Because all the DNA is sequenced using these techniques, it gives scientists the ability to spot any disease, as well as find new strains of diseases.

Interestingly, within the samples there was lots of dengue present, despite testing negative. This suggests a new strain is not being picked up by the existing diagnostic tests.

Prior to the arrival of the mobile laboratory in The Philippines, diagnostics were only available for diseases the test is designed to recognise – allowing new strains to go under the radar.

How were the samples previously tested?

Samples can be tested in the Philippines, but the majority of sequencing would be carried out in labs overseas. For various reasons, this makes the process longer and creates a gap between sample collection and identification of the unknown pathogen, and all the time the outbreak can increase.

Firstly, there is difficulty shipping samples overseas because you need national and institutional approvals. Testing for Dengue is a lab bench process in The Philippines since it is as common as ‘flu. Elsewhere, such as the UK, dengue is very rare, therefore, to work on the virus itself research is contained within a category 3 laboratory and requires certain standards of biohazard safety. DNA needs to be transferred into RNA to be categorised as ‘uninfectious’ before shipping, and again, this increases the length of the process.

Having the in-country capacity to process samples makes a huge difference to the diagnosis and prevention of outbreaks.

Will this work continue?

The UK-PHRST tested three batches using these techniques, with 31/107 samples processed. As a result of the deployment, the team at Research Institute for Tropical Medicine in Manila are trained and equipped to test the next few batches.

To train a laboratory scientist on a Film Array, it requires one or two sessions of a couple hours each. A MinION takes slightly longer and training can be up to a week, as you are required to initially prepare and clean the sample. The time-consuming component is the analysis, with plenty of training and biological theory involved. As this is work with datasets, this part of the process can be supported remotely.

UK-PHRST can train and equip a team with the necessary techniques to diagnose unknown disease outbreaks within three weeks of the mobile laboratory arriving in the country.

The in-country team are then better prepared to manage further outbreaks without direct support.

Can this be used in other outbreak settings?

Any additions to the global database of genetic material from pathogens can assist with the diagnosis of future disease outbreaks worldwide. Scientists use these data to compare the genetic code to this database and further develop diagnostics for fever cases in many different settings.

In Sudan, the UK-PHRST used minimal components of the modular flight case laboratory to determine the requirements for metagenomic sequencing and analysis. 32 samples were sequenced in-country and Chikungunya virus was identified

In all 139 samples sequenced, Chikungunya virus was identified in 84%, with the metagenomic approach also identifying co-infections in six patients including ‘Dengue 4’ - not previously known to be circulating in Sudan.

"This case study shows the UK-PHRST are able to deploy a mobile laboratory providing cutting-edge diagnostic capabilities matching even the best ‘static’ laboratories. However, the value of this lab reaches beyond just doing the science and diagnostics; it provides a mobile training facility allowing local scientists, in countries such as the Philippines and Sudan, to learn and experience new techniques and develop their own scientific skills." Dr Ben Gannon

The use of this method in Khartoum, Sudan, demonstrated capability to identify previously unknown pathogens. This shows that during an outbreak, the UK-PHRST can effectively deploy laboratory equipment to provide high level diagnostic capability, which is often unavailable even in most high-income health facilities.

The work of the mobile laboratory makes outbreak response more efficient, better equipped, and ready to tackle mystery pathogens all over the world.

Join the UK-PHRST Knowledge Hub here to find out more.

No two outbreaks are the same. Having completed 19 deployments between April 2017 and November 2020, the operations team can safely testify that there is a need to remain alert, agile, and consistently open to change. Regardless of the mode of deployment, destination or disease, there are always new challenges to navigate.

For example, the suspension of air travel, resulting from border controls during the COVID-19 pandemic, led the team to explore new and innovative ways to offer technical support. Technical expertise was delivered remotely alongside a wide range of partners (including WHO Bangladesh and Africa CDC). This offered opportunities for reservist staff who may not be released for a six-week deployment to volunteer their support.

A full summary of deployments up to November 2020 below:

We will summarise the operational requirements to deploy UK-PHRST staff and reflect on what it takes to be operationally ready.

Onboarding staff:

Feedback from a wide range of governmental and non-governmental organisations supported the creation of processes to support the onboarding and advanced preparation of deployable staff.

Medical It is critical that individuals are medically fit for deployment and have all the necessary routine vaccinations to support their health and wellbeing whilst overseas. A routine schedule of vaccinations alongside a comprehensive medical assessment is required on appointment to the team. Individuals are then issued with an emergency medications kit, first aid kit and trauma kit (and of course, the training on what to do them).
Training In addition to the necessary technical training, UK-PHRST individuals undertake mandatory UK-PHRST training which aims to prepare them for operating effectively overseas. This includes residential safety and security training, safeguarding training and an immersive 5-day deployment course alongside a package of online learning.
Logistics Deployed staff are given a comprehensive kit to support their deployment, which includes resources for a wide range of environments (e.g. IT equipment, tents, mosquito nets, water chlorination tablets and ration packs). This kit is systematically reviewed, managed, and maintained by the operations team. external audits of the kit have taken place to ensure rigor and continual improvements are made.
Deployment handbook This is a guidance document containing all the processes and procedures required of UK-PHRST staff. It incorporates all feedback to date and serves to anticipate any questions relating to finance, medical support, incidents, travel, logistics and more.

Accepting a request to deploy:

When the UK-PHRST Director receives a request to deploy, the following steps are taken;

Criteria – Considerations to deploy include the country, infectious disease agent, location, partners already engaged and threat to further spread (particularly cross border).
Approval – A Cross-Government protocol (developed in advance with key partners) ensures rapid consideration of any request received by HMG departments. This protocol has been revised several times and represents the key approval mechanism for the team to deploy.

To prepare for deployment:

Once a deployment has been accepted, the team are sent additional information;

Risk assessment – a travel risk assessment is prepared in advance and includes any known hazards and mitigating actions in relation to the specific deployment, pathogen and country.
Information pack – includes country and disease specific documentation to aid preparations.
Pre-deployment briefing – A meeting is set up with the Director, deploying team and key UK-PHRST members to discuss a range of aspects relating to the deployment. This is an opportunity for the individuals to ask any questions and includes, but is not limited to, input from subject matter experts, medical advice, logistics and admin support.

In the field:

Whilst in the field team members have access to a wide range of 24/7 support from the UK based team. They also benefit from access to a dedicated nurse within the PHE Occupational Health team.

Reporting of any health and safety incidents or other concerns is done through a systematic process which links in with PHE reporting policies.

Although mental health affects everyone, whether it’s people trying to maintain their mental wellbeing or those living with a mental health condition, it is often forgotten about in the response to a public health emergency. This is particularly a problem in countries where services are already limited. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, resources allocated to mental health were scarce, with a median of 2% of government expenditure allocated to mental health across the world . During the pandemic, more resources were shifted towards managing COVID-19 infections, making the existing care gap even wider - in a global survey by the World Health Organization (WHO), 93% of 130 countries surveyed reported substantial disruption to their mental health services during the pandemic.

The UK-PHRST has a dedicated Mental Health and Psychosocial Support (MHPSS) team that works particularly across the African and the Eastern Mediterranean regions, on projects ranging from research and capacity strengthening activities to deployments.

The team works to integrate mental health into outbreak response plans and procedures, to improve the mental health and psycho-social wellbeing of people affected, including staff from organisations assisting on the ground – a direct response to the serious impact that these events can have on individuals and communities. During the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 for instance, global prevalence of depression and anxiety disorders increased by a quarter , with the WHO stating the pandemic “had a severe impact on the mental health and wellbeing of people around the world” .

Strengthening existing MHPSS guidance in outbreaks through research

The team has a diverse research portfolio split into four main phases:

Phase 1: Identify the needs, resources and current interventions for MHPSS across the African continent
Phase 2: Work with stakeholders to explore how to better support existing MHPSS frameworks to adapt them into location and outbreak specific response tools
Phase 3: Test the proposed MHPSS interventions in an outbreak scenario
Phase 4: Produce a package of MHPSS interventions as a best practice guide which can be applied to specific outbreak situations

The team has already started to see real progress thanks to its research. For instance, members of the UK-PHRST team worked with a consortium of public health institutions in Africa including the Africa Centre for Disease Control (Africa CDC), World Health Organization African Region (WHO AFRO), WHO Regional Office for the Eastern Mediterranean (WHO EMRO) on the Strengthening Public Mental Health in Africa in Response to Covid-19 (SPACE) programme . The programme aimed to help integrate MHPSS into African countries’ emergency responses by exploring the extent to which MHPSS was already included in the national response to the COVID-19 pandemic in African countries. The consortium also examined the barriers and enablers to MHPSS integration in the COVID-19 response. Based on their findings, they recommend five key areas to target for improving mental health integration into the response to public health emergencies . The SPACE programme also acted as a catalyst to the development of working partnerships with regional health bodies and the establishment of an informal network of MHPSS experts across Africa. The research project, alongside other evidence sources, helped inform Africa CDC’s decision to integrate MHPSS into its strategic plan for emergencies .

Building recognition for MHPSS in outbreak response through capacity strengthening

In many countries, current outbreak response infrastructure and national outbreak response plans do not incorporate MHPSS measures. Through its capacity strengthening work, the UK-PHRST MHPSS team actively advocates for MHPSS to be included as part of national outbreak response plans with key health leaders, the strengthening of local co-ordination capabilities and dedication of resources to the area. For example, the team collaborate with Africa CDC to organise workshops throughout African regions to build recognition for the importance of MHPSS in outbreaks, while also taking the opportunity to learn from national MHPSS and emergency response leads to better understand how MHPSS can fit into a local context. In February 2022, the Liberian Ministry of Health, Africa CDC and the UK-PHRST MHPSS team hosted a three day regional workshop bringing together mental health experts from institutions in Africa and worldwide with national mental health leads from Liberia, Sierra Leone, Cameroon and Nigeria. The workshop aimed to build a knowledge and expertise sharing regional network whilst also developing a Theory of Change model for integrating mental health into national emergency preparedness and response plans.

Group attendees of UK-PHRST, Liberian Ministry of Health and Africa CDC Regional MHPSS Workshop

Finally, the team have also worked directly with organisations like Africa CDC’s African Volunteers Health Corps (AvoHC) to add MHPSS to the list of expertise they provide in public health emergencies in the continent and contributed to WHO Eastern Mediterranean Region’s MHPSS action plan .

Making MHPSS expertise part of outbreak deployments

A lack of global prioritisation for MHPSS during outbreaks, coupled with limited funding and understanding of its benefits, means that MHPSS experts are often not requested during an outbreak response call.

To address this, the UK-PHRST team is actively working to strengthen deployment mechanisms for rapid response, through collaboration AvoHC and IASC/Dutch Surge Support mechanisms. As a part of this collaboration, a group of MHPSS professionals will be trained and prepared to be deployed to ensure that MHPSS is an integral part of the outbreak response.

MHPSS deployments would allow a country to bring in experts to increase its preparedness and response capacity for mental health during an outbreak, allowing other in-country response teams to prioritise the other public health measures that are also required.

If you would like to find out more about the MHPSS team within the UK-PHRST, including how to collaborate or request their help during an outbreak please contact [email protected] .

Cookies on GOV.UK

We use some essential cookies to make this website work.

We’d like to set additional cookies to understand how you use GOV.UK, remember your settings and improve government services.

We also use cookies set by other sites to help us deliver content from their services.

You have accepted additional cookies. You can change your cookie settings at any time.

You have rejected additional cookies. You can change your cookie settings at any time.

UK Health Security Agency

UKHSA strategic plan 2023 to 2026: executive summary

Updated 22 September 2023

This publication is licensed under the terms of the Open Government Licence v3.0 except where otherwise stated. To view this licence, visit nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3 or write to the Information Policy Team, The National Archives, Kew, London TW9 4DU, or email: [email protected] .

Where we have identified any third party copyright information you will need to obtain permission from the copyright holders concerned.

This publication is available at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/ukhsa-strategic-plan-2023-to-2026/ukhsa-strategic-plan-2023-to-2026-executive-summary

About UKHSA

The UK Health Security Agency ( UKHSA ) prepares for and responds to infectious diseases, and environmental hazards, to keep all our communities safe, save lives and protect livelihoods.

We provide scientific and operational leadership working with local, national and international partners to protect the public’s health and build the nation’s health security capability.

UKHSA is an executive agency, sponsored by the Department of Health and Social Care ( DHSC ).

For most of UKHSA ’s work, our remit covers England as health protection is largely a devolved policy area. We hold some UK-wide responsibilities on reserved matters where the UK government has retained policy responsibility.

This strategic plan relates to UKHSA ’s work in England, with the exception of sections where we note we are referring to reserved matters, such as our work in preparing for and responding to the effects of radiation on public health and international obligations on global health security. UKHSA recognises the cross-border nature of health threats and works in close partnership with the devolved governments on common challenges.

UKHSA strategic plan 2023 to 2026: summary

Changing threats need new responses

Threats to the security of our health are rising across the world. Our world is changing in multiple, compound ways that are amplifying the health security challenges the UK and other countries are likely to face. The COVID-19 pandemic has been a reminder of the impact that health hazards can have on our lives and livelihoods. It has also shown the great strides that can be made when government, industry, and academia work together, developing innovative solutions and harnessing the power of data and scientific insight to drive policy and response.

Our mission

Our mission is to prepare for, prevent and respond to health threats, save lives and protect livelihoods.

We are a centre of scientific and operational excellence in health protection. Our reach is local, national and global as we collaborate and share learning across the NHS and wider health and care system and with partners to improve health security worldwide. The threats we protect against range in type, scale and intensity, covering infectious diseases – from pathogens with pandemic potential to everyday infections such as measles – and environmental threats including radiation, chemical, nuclear and extreme weather events.

Through our scientific and operational expertise, we aim to protect every person, community, business and public service from infectious diseases and environmental hazards, helping to create a safe and prosperous society.

At UKHSA , our aim is that the country can thrive, unlimited by the impacts of health security threats. We support this by delivering rapid and highly effective responses to all health threats, and by preventing or reducing their harmful impacts as much as possible.

UKHSA ’s goals

We have 3 overarching goals supported by a commitment to improving health outcomes for groups whose health is disproportionately affected.

UKHSA aims to ensure that the country is fully prepared for – and wherever possible can prevent – future health security hazards. We establish which threats are on the horizon; develop the right evidence, insight and tools to best protect against them; and have the right tested response plans in place to protect the population.

UKHSA protects people from health threats every day. We deliver agile, rapid, evidence-based responses at a local, national and international level. We respond to infectious disease outbreaks, health security incidents, and ongoing health security threats.

We continue to build and invest in the scientific, public health and operational capabilities needed to protect the country’s health now and in the future. We are modernising our approaches and technology, ensuring we are a high-performing and efficient agency.

Our commitment to achieving equitable health outcomes

We recognise that health threats often disproportionately impact certain groups and therefore tackling health inequalities is central to UKHSA ’s work. We actively address this across all of our activity, working closely with DHSC , including the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities ( OHID ).

UKHSA ’s capabilities

We deliver health security through our agile and scalable strengths in:

clinical and public health expertise
health protection science
health protection operations
data analytics and surveillance
policy advice

All these capabilities are facilitated by technology and critical infrastructure and a range of supporting functions to ensure performance, impact and value for money. Our staff include microbiologists, epidemiologists, immunologists, toxicologists, data scientists, health economists, logisticians, commercial specialists, policy advisors and many other specialties.

UKHSA ’s strategic priorities

Our strategic priorities are the areas where we believe we can make a significant difference through focused effort, either by developing new approaches or by going further and faster on long-term challenges. We deliver on these in addition to our work on a wide range of ongoing responsibilities to protect health from a wide range of health security hazards.

1. Be ready to respond to all hazards to health

We will ensure we have the right plans, expertise, infrastructure, capabilities and countermeasures in place to prevent and mount scalable and agile responses to health security threats, including pandemics. We will support the whole health system to enhance its readiness and to develop robust response plans.

2. Improve health outcomes through vaccines

We will harness UKHSA ’s strengths across the whole vaccine pathway to facilitate innovation in the development of safe and effective vaccines, reliable procurement and increased uptake among the population, thereby reducing the burden of infectious disease.

3. Reduce the impact of infectious diseases and antimicrobial resistance

We will harness our science, analytical and operational expertise to minimise the impact of infectious disease, with a focus over the next 3 years on COVID-19, antimicrobial resistance and our elimination targets for blood-borne viruses and tuberculosis.

4. Protect health from threats in the environment

We will protect the population from the health effects of environmental, chemical, radiological and nuclear incidents of any scale by improving planning and preparedness and providing public health expertise to inform policy and response.

5. Improve action on health security through data and insight

We will capitalise on our partnerships and maximise the health impact of the data we hold, the evidence we generate and the insights we draw, to be a leader in the safe and regulated handling and use of public health data, analytics and surveillance.

6. Develop UKHSA as a high-performing agency

We will ensure UKHSA is ready to prepare for and respond to health security challenges, at scale as required, by investing in our people and culture; partnerships and relationships; data, science and research and operational excellence.

UKHSA ’s role in the system

Health security is complex and multidimensional, affecting many parts of everyday life. Many organisations play an important role in protecting the public’s health. UKHSA plays a crucial role in leading on preparedness and response but cannot deliver its mission alone.

We work in across government, and in partnership with the devolved governments, local government, the NHS and wider health system, academia and industry to make sure we have the greatest impact possible.

Read UKHSA ’s strategic plan for 2023 to 2026 in full

Is this page useful?

Yes this page is useful
No this page is not useful

Help us improve GOV.UK

Don’t include personal or financial information like your National Insurance number or credit card details.

To help us improve GOV.UK, we’d like to know more about your visit today. Please fill in this survey (opens in a new tab) .

Skip to main navigation
Skip to main content
Skip to browse links

Our use of cookies

We use essential cookies to make this website work.

We would also like to set additional cookies to enhance your user experience, help us understand how you use UKHSA, and improve our services.

This may include cookies set by trusted third-party providers.

You can learn about the categories of cookies used on this website and manage your preferences below.

Essential cookies

Essential cookies are used to enable core functionality of this website, such as remembering your progress through a form or logging in. Such cookies are always enabled.

Analytics cookies

Analytics cookies help us to understand how this website is used, providing information that can help us to improve our services and your browsing experience.

We use Google Analytics to collect this data which will set cookies on your device. Please be assured however that this data is collected in a way that cannot be used to directly identify anyone and is never shared with other third-parties.

You have no jobs in your shortlist Shortlist ( 0 )
I.T. & Communications
Science & Technology
All other sectors
United Kingdom

Your search returned 8 results

Mechanical Plant Engineer

Eprr senior training manager, principal technical architect, climate and health assessment team lead, business manager.

This role will be responsible for leadership of the Centre for Climate and Health Security’s (CCHS) ‘Climate and Health Assessment Team’, leading a small team of climate change and health scientists. You will have responsibility for setting the strategic...

Job title – Mechanical Plant Engineer Profession - Engineering Directorate – Science Full Time equivalent - 37.5 hours No of Roles – 1 Contract Type – Permanent Location – Porton Down, Salisbury, SP4 0JG Working Pattern – Full Time /Part Time / Flexible...

Scientific Lead - Aerobiology

Scientific Lead - Aerobiology G6 National - £65,302 - £75,129 Based at UKHSA Porton Down – Lab-Based Permanent Contract Are you interested in working on the frontlines of infection control and vaccine development? Do you have expertise in aerobiology and...

Job Title – Business Manager Profession - Business Manager Directorate – Data & Cyber Security Full Time equivalent - 37.5 hours No of Roles – 1 Contract Type – Permanent Location – The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) offers hybrid working – this means...

Senior Computer Systems Validation Engineer

This post is to provide validation support to the Clinical Evaluation team which is part of the GxP test facility within the Vaccine Development and Evaluation Centre (VDEC) and is responsible for the delivery of key clinical and pre-clinical data in...

EPRR Senior Exercise Manager

£51,824 - £61,414 (National) £53,812 - £63,252 (Outer) £55,799 - £65,089 (Inner) The EPRR Senior Exercise Manager will have extensive knowledge and experience of exercise simulation development, delivery and evaluation at a national and international...

EPRR Senior Training Manager Salary & Grade: Grade 7, £51,824 - £61,414 (National), £53,812 - £63,252 (Outer), £55,799 - £65,089 (Inner) Location: This role can be based at any one of UKHSA's core or scientific locations; Birmingham, Leeds, Liverpool,...

Job title – Principal Technical Architect Profession - Development & Operations Directorate – Technology Full Time equivalent - 37.5 hours No of Roles – 1 Contract Type – Permanent Location – Hybrid UKHSA operates a hybrid working model where business...

Malvika Sharan

Professionalising Community Management Roles in Interdisciplinary Research Projects

In this article we discuss community management in interdisciplinary research teams, focusing on recognising and professionalising roles referred to here as the Research Community Managers (RCM). Drawing insights and examples from research and data science projects, we discuss how RCM roles address some of the research’s most pressing challenges, from promoting best practices for open research and reproducibility to engaging diverse stakeholders in community-led research and ensuring fair recognition for their contributions. We offer a Community Maturation Indicator and share examples of projects from The Alan Turing Institute, the UK’s national institute for data science and Artificial Intelligence (AI), where institutionally supported RCM roles were established. With the aim to integrate RCM expertise in teams involved in data science and AI research, we provide an RCM Skills and Competencies Framework. We also propose a roadmap for professionalising RCM roles by improving recognition and rewards, potential career paths and organisational support structures. To systematically sustain and progress these roles, we recommend institutional investment in establishing RCM teams that are empowered to prioritise collaboration, transparency and community-based approaches in interdisciplinary projects, such as in data science and AI. As a team, RCMs are well placed to connect disparate teams, initiatives and resources across the organisation, building more resilient research communities that can achieve greater innovation, improved project outcomes and a strongly connected ecosystem, with impacts extending beyond their narrow contexts.

1 Introduction

Community management has its roots in the theory of ”Communities of Practice” (CoP), a term that first appeared in 1991 to describe the social and informal learning process (also known as ‘situated learning’ ( [ 92 ] ) through which novices interact with experts and create professional identities. By the early 2000s, CoPs had transcended their social origins and found application within industries and scientific research communities ( [ 96 ] ). There are three main characteristics of a CoP: 1) ’domain’ that provides shared goals and purpose for members, 2) ’community’ that provides a social structure for knowledge exchange, and 3) ’practice’, which are resources to address challenges faced by the members ( [ 96 ] , [ 182 ] , [ 181 ] ). CoPs, spontaneously formed or deliberately designed, foster critical environments for knowledge exchange, deeper engagement and meaningful collaborations that build trust and rapport among participants ( [ 58 ] , [ 72 ] , [ 151 ] ). Community management and CoPs play a crucial role in building skills through peer-based learning and adoption of best practices from initial design and development of ideas to knowledge building and information dissemination ( [ 90 ] , [ 95 ] ). In the context of research, projects that choose to put development and maintenance of material and social infrastructure (also termed repertoire) at the centre of their research work from the start, build resilient and productive collaborations despite the changing requirements of research ( [ 94 ] ). While everyone in research benefits from CoPs and uses community approaches for collaborations and knowledge sharing, only a few members take active roles in establishing those practices and processes for their entire team ( [ 23 ] , [ 112 ] ). This discrepancy, especially in academic research, stems from inadequate reward for researchers to engage with their communities and overlooked mechanisms to measure their impact on increasing the quality of research outcomes ( [ 89 ] , [ 154 ] ). Driven by the growing specialisation and diversity of skills required within research and data science, dedicated CoPs, along with community managers to support those communities have emerged in recent years ( [ 147 ] , [ 167 ] , [ 189 ] ). We refer to these roles as Research Community Managers (RCMs).

1.1 Definition of Research Community Managers

RCMs are professionals responsible for fostering a collaborative environment where a diverse research community can access the socio-technical infrastructure and participatory processes they need to actively engage, get recognition and build shared agency over their work.

This definition highlights the three core functions of RCM roles:

Access to socio-technical infrastructure : RCMs set up the technical infrastructure, ideally with the involvement of the community members, providing access to collaborative tools (such as GitLab and Jupyter) and platforms (such as Discord and Slack). These resources are managed with the goal of improving social interaction, participatory project development, shared documentation and collaboration throughout the project lifecycle ( [ 24 ] , [ 188 ] ).

Facilitation of participatory processes : RCMs design and organise collaborative activities, community events, workshops, and training sessions to promote active participation from community members. These processes empower users to become engaged members and contributors to different parts of research that they can benefit from ( [ 124 ] , [ 177 ] ).

Building shared ownership and agency : By ensuring access to skills, resources, and platforms, RCMs allow community members to gain autonomy, build a shared sense of agency and ownership, and contribute meaningfully to the project. They strengthen this by recognising individual and collective contributions fairly and transparently, enabling progress towards both projects and community members’ personal goals ( [ 11 ] , [ 26 ] ).

A note on the term ‘RCM’ : We note that different organisations use different job titles to refer to RCMs, such as community manager, community coordinator, community engagement officer, community outreach manager, community project manager and community educators, among others. Some roles may not even have “community” in the titles, such as network coordinator, project team coordinator, users and developers advocates (used in tech industries) or, simply, research associate or Postdoctoral researcher (traditional academic roles), with responsibilities similar to an RCM. The term ‘RCM’ in this article has been used to encompass all roles that have community-oriented responsibilities in research projects, including in the contexts of data science and AI. In professionaling RCM roles, we draw lessons and inspiration from the Research Software Engineering (RSE) movement, an international initiative aimed at recognising, professionalising, and supporting the role of software engineering in research ( [ 70 ] , [ 187 ] ). In this effort, we have also adopted the naming convention from RSE, using “Research” in the title to both improve awareness and strengthen a shared understanding of community management in academic, government and industry research activities. Community management methods and expertise : Traditional research networks, open source/science projects, and other community-oriented initiatives present opportunities to gain practical expertise in community management on the job or through voluntary roles. Numerous research articles, learning resources and training programmes also focus on developing a theoretical understanding of community management methods to further improve practices in real-world scenarios. These resources are applicable to RCM roles too along with the research experience needed to engage and support research communities. Since the primary focus of this article is on the professionalisation of RCMs, we don’t discuss those aspects of community management skills in detail. Nonetheless, we have cited the relevant publications rigorously throughout the article and, for example, purposes, mention a few community consulting organisations that offer learning resources and paid certification programmes for community managers ( [ 45 ] , [ 59 ] , [ 134 ] ).

1 2 Understanding How RCMs Evolve Community Building Approaches with their Community

Each project goes through different stages of development, with each stage influencing the maturation of a CoP developing within it. An RCM adapts community-building strategies at each maturation level to advance a CoP to the next stage. There are several theoretical frameworks, such as Tuckman’s developmental sequence ( [ 170 ] ) and Peck’s four stages [ 119 ] , that describe how a community forms, identifies challenges, creates norms and ultimately organises itself. Similarly, Arnstein’s ladder of citizen participation ( [ 7 ] ), Nabatachi’s increasing level of shared decision authority ( [ 110 ] ) and Mozilla Open Leadership’s Mountain/Matrix of Engagement ( [ 138 ] ) provide different perspectives on participation from the citizen, members of public and open source projects respectively. Similar frameworks exist to describe community participation in specific social contexts within which a community exists. Although these theories provide good starting points, they do not clearly capture the lifecycle that a research project and, consequently, a research community goes through ( [ 132 ] , [ 146 ] ). An RCM considers both the “levels of participation” and “stages of community building” to determine the maturation status of a CoP and inform their approaches for building and nurturing a community successfully.

1.1 2.1 Introducing a Community Maturation Indicator for RCMs

Drawing insights from existing frameworks, we have developed a Community Maturation Indicator for research communities in Figure 1 . It illustrates six “Levels of Community Participation” (x-axis/vertical line): 1) inform the community; 2) invite community feedback; 3) engage and involve members in community initiatives; 4) mobilise and connect different groups within the community; 5) empower groups to take different decisions in benefit of the community; and 6) decentralised decision-making power to move away from centrally managed projects. This indicator also illustrates six “Stages of Community Building” (Stages 1 to 6) that RCMs should take into account for CoPs at all levels of participation in their research communities (y-axis/horizontal line): 1) community initiation; 2) planning and design of community strategy; 3) implementation of community strategy; 4) growth and scaling of the community; 5) monitoring and evaluation to build sustainability pathways; and 6) sustaining or sunsetting a CoP. A community can be assigned a specific status at any given time, which can be indicated in the Community Maturation Indicator through a “Level Number - Stage Number” pair (the same stages of development are applied at different levels).

For each “Level of Community Participation”, an RCM has to evolve their approaches to different “Stages of Community Building” before a community can move to the next maturation status (as suggested in the indicator). For different CoPs, an RCM may require different timeframes and resources to move a community from one maturation status to another. Approaches at any maturation status also influence and inform the strategies an RCM can adopt for the next maturation status. A table with descriptions and examples has been shared in Supplementary 1 . We later use this indicator in Table 1 to communicate the community maturation status for CoPs in different projects. Levels of Community Participation : The level of participation possible within a community depends on several factors, including who the main stakeholders are and what resources are allocated to support them in a CoP. For example, a ‘seminar series’ can be informally organised with limited resources to inform interested members on specific topics of interest (Level 1). In action-oriented projects, such as public health projects or policy advocacy, RCMs provide targeted infrastructure and processes through which community members can provide feedback and get involved ( [ 176 ] ) (Level 2-3). In a formal research partnership such as between academia and industry, an RCM involves specific groups of stakeholders from the partnering organisations, with ideally shared resources provided to engage them (Level 3). To engage stakeholders from different domains, meta-communities (such as in open science) can be established where RCMs mobilise and connect community leaders to collaborate, share practices and combine solutions from their respective domains ( [ 46 ] ). In an open source or open science projects, an RCM engages both project members and volunteer contributors, providing them open and accessible resources that empower them to self-determine their involvement in the community, from using resources to contributing to them or leading new development (Level 4-6) ( [ 107 ] , [ 146 ] ). Stages of Community Building : After the Level has been identified, a CoP can start applying targeted community-building approaches appropriate for the stage of the CoP. For example, as shown in Supplementary 1 , at the community initiation stage of a new CoP, an RCM shares information and communicates project goals (Level 1 - Stage 1); at the planning and design stage, an RCM builds stakeholder awareness plans and help to prioritise specific objectives (Level 1 - Stage 2); at the implementation stage, an RCM provides collaborative opportunities for specific stakeholders (Level 1 - Stage 3); at the growth stage, an RCM facilitates knowledge exchange and skill building (Level 1 - Stage 4); and at the evaluation stage, an RCM assesses the success of the CoP through feedback data to inform plans (Level 1 - Stage 5). These stages collectively affect how the project and its community can be sustained in the future or whether it should be paused (sunsetting) (Level 1 - Stage 6). RCMs build effective community strategies and implement creative approaches to support the development of a CoP, advancing a community from one stage to the next, across different levels of participation ( Supplementary 1 , shows possible steps to move from one level to another in the Community Maturation Indicators).

1.2 2.2 RCMs Adapt Community Building Strategies According to Community Maturation Status

RCMs build a strong understanding of the technical and cultural contexts within which the communities exist and the shifting power and influence community members can have in the project ( [ 169 ] ). These factors impact the choices and possibilities for infrastructure, platforms and practices adopted by RCMs and their communities. For example, in an open source software project that intends to engage community members in its development, an RCM maintains an online repository under a permissive licence, such as on GitLab or GitHub with MIT Licence ( [ 137 ] ), where volunteer users and developers can easily become contributors and engaged community members. Whereas, in a public health data project, RCMs may support the use of trusted research environments for data access for authorised members of the project ( [ 86 ] ), while also promoting Patient and Public Involvement and Engagement (PPIE) approaches ( [ 83 ] ). In a participatory project, an RCM may integrate citizen science approaches, inviting members of the public to actively participate as volunteers or paid consultants in research and collaborate with research staff ( [ 21 ] , [ 39 ] , [ 86 ] ). Similarly, various socio-technical factors influence the evolving needs and demands for community management within a project ( [ 24 ] , [ 72 ] ). Only through professional recognition, institutional support and appropriate resourcing, RCMs can be empowered to address these changing and often context-based requirements effectively.

1.3 2.3 RCMs Implement Best Practices to Improve Research Quality

Quality research refers to rigorous, reproducible, transparent, collaborative, and ethical processes and outcomes, encompassing all aspects of research, from study design to the selection of methods, data collection, analysis, measures against errors or bias (systemic and non-systematic) and dissemination ( [ 20 ] , [ 97 ] , [ 102 ] ). Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) underpins research quality achieved through “a collective, inclusive and system-wide approach” through involvement of all stakeholders in the processes of research and innovation, validated through internal and external review ( [ 73 ] ). This allows research stakeholders to obtain relevant knowledge and resources to inform actions addressing the ’grand challenges’ of society and to co-create sustainable research outputs, products, and services ( [ 73 ] ; [ 180 ] , [ 179 ] ).” RCMs involvement in research projects can be integral to the operationalisation of RRI’s four dimensions ( [ 43 ] , [ 116 ] , [ 193 ] ): i) Anticipation: “[Researchers and innovators] think through various possibilities to be able to design socially robust agendas”. ii) Reflexivity: “[Researchers and innovators] think about [their] own assumptions to consider [their] own roles and responsibilities in research and innovation, and public dialogue”. iii) Inclusion: “[Researchers and innovators] broaden and diversify the sources of expertise and perspectives”. iv) Responsiveness: “[Researchers and innovators] maintain flexibility and capacity to change research and innovation processes according to public values”. Expertise in research and data science equips RCMs to provide technical support, evidence-led approaches and strategic problem-solving capabilities in research collaboration processes. With multidisciplinary and multi-stakeholder collaborations as a focus of RRI, RCMs further the adoption of best practices and standards that enhance research quality, promoting greater community participation and creating pathways for involving members in addressing research questions ( [ 50 ] , [ 156 ] ).

Here, we highlight five key areas where RCMs champion best practices and operationalise RRI to improve research quality: 1) Reproducibility, 2) Openness and Transparency, 3) Accountability and Innovation, 4) Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, and Accessibility, and 5) Fair Attribution and Recognition.

1.3.1 2.3.1 Reproducibility

For multi-disciplinary collaboration to contribute to scientific progress and research innovation, it is important to integrate tools and methods that lead to reliable and reproducible research ( [ 36 ] , [ 131 ] ). Multiple studies have revealed the ”reproducibility and replication crisis” in scientific publications ( [ 33 ] , [ 67 ] , [ 80 ] , [ 40 ] , [ 184 ] ). In the absence of underlying data and methods, a large proportion of scientific experiments and published results can’t be replicated or reproduced by other researchers. In a survey by ( [ 12 ] ), more than half of the respondents to the survey (1576 researchers) were unsuccessful at replicating their own work. Researchers must be able to have confidence in their research findings, and those of their collaborators. Failure to apply reproducibility practices, such as by not sharing methods, data and conditions under which results are generated, leads to preventable errors and misleading conclusions for both researchers conducting research, and those attempting to reuse or build on the research outcomes. Designating RCMs to promote practices and skills in reproducibility can build a research culture where community members share responsibilities to create, maintain and sustain reproducible research assets. RCMs build awareness of key reproducibility methods like version control for code and data, data management practices and containerisation for a reproducible research environment, facilitating their adoption in the project. They enhance access to learning resources and training opportunities so that all stakeholders can build skills and apply research reproducibility approaches in their work. Several reproducibility requirements like documentation, collaborative coding, peer review, and code testing inherently serve as excellent approaches for community engagement and involvement [ 167 ] . These practices also provide onboarding, mentoring and community leadership opportunities among new and established community members. By connecting across different teams within the project, RCMs reduce friction and improve the potential to create a reproducible workflow that incorporates reusable tools, data and algorithms.

1.3.2 2.3.2 Openness and Transparency

Open science advances scientific knowledge by promoting transparency across all areas of research ( [ 171 ] , [ 185 ] ). By making methods, practices and outputs including all research components open for others, community members can reuse and build upon those components. Open science practices such as open source codebases, open data, open access and open education empower communities to participate in open collaboration, co-creation and sharing of resources [ 171 ] . These are reinforced by reproducibility methods referenced in section 2.3.1, such as version control, data management, licensing, and reproducible workflows, enhancing rigour and reliability in research ( [ 121 ] ). Using the principles of ”as open as possible, as closed as necessary,” ( [ 56 ] ) open science can also inform decisions on which aspects of research cannot be made open, with clear justifications, particularly when handling sensitive data or high-risk technology ( [ 91 ] ). Advocating for open science can nevertheless be challenging in research teams unfamiliar with these concepts and practices ( [ 34 ] ). Researchers may be unsure about securely handling different research objects or determining what components can be openly shared, and to which extent ( [ 4 ] , [ 142 ] ). RCMs use and share open practices to bridge this gap by guiding open collaboration and open source development approaches across various research facets, all while balancing transparency with awareness of data privacy requirements ( [ 22 ] , [ 108 ] ). They provide accessible project-related resources, community activities, and information in ways that consider diverse accessibility needs and community standards. RCMs lead and educate the community on navigating different scenarios and combine open ways of working. In projects involving sensitive data or which can’t be published openly, RCMs can draw practices from large-scale open source projects but apply them in an ‘inner source’ manner ( [ 5 ] ) to improve collaboration among internal stakeholders ( [ 81 ] ). RCMs enhance transparency in the system by acting as bridges between communities, governance bodies and other stakeholders ( [ 16 ] , [ 190 ] ), sharing information regularly through appropriate channels.

1.3.3 2.3.3 Accountability and Innovation

Multi-disciplinary research inherently involves diverse stakeholders with distinct expertise within the project ( [ 126 ] ). To build a shared understanding of goals, ways of working and responsibilities, team members must be provided with the resources and information they require to participate. Establishing a project charter with a project vision, mission, roadmap, milestones, stakeholder map and engagement plans early on is crucial in shaping the governance of the project ( [ 98 ] ). Throughout the project life cycle, it is also critical to ensure interactions and collaboration among all stakeholders promoting comprehensive approaches to problem-solving, use of interdisciplinary methodologies and effective bi-directional flow of information ( [ 114 ] , [ 98 ] ). These aspects lead to greater accountability and innovation in multidisciplinary project teams and communities ( [ 172 ] ). RCMs enable the creation and centralisation of knowledge from different teams and facilitate communication in an accessible manner for everyone involved. When working with community partners and research stakeholders, they apply participatory approaches, focusing on ethical considerations, clear set of responsibilities and community involvement, all contributing to greater accountability ( [ 57 ] ). Through their engagement with different groups, they gain a broad view of the project operations, identifying both roadblocks and opportunities and ensuring timely dissemination of relevant information. Operating at multiple levels, from hands-on tasks to strategic collaboration with senior leadership, RCMs advocate for diverse perspectives and interests from community members, especially in matters that impact them or when they are not directly involved in the decision-making process. By supporting the development of an effective governance process, RCMs can contribute significantly to building accountability among members of a project team and community ( [ 61 ] ). Furthermore, by inviting diverse perspectives via multiple channels for engagement, RCMs support project teams in integrating knowledge from different sources, playing an important role in research innovation ( [ 87 ] , [ 126 ] ).

1.3.4 2.3.4 Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, and Accessibility (EDIA)

Data and AI models, collected, generated, and developed by humans, can be biassed by our social contexts and influenced by factors such as capitalism, ableism, patriarchy, and Western hegemony ( [ 32 ] , [ 63 ] , [ 69 ] , [ 118 ] , [ 178 ] , [ 191 ] ). These biases can cause disproportionate harm to already underprivileged groups and exacerbate societal inequalities ( [ 18 ] , [ 192 ] ). One significant source of perpetuating bias is the lack of diversity among researchers, developers, and decision-makers in technology development. Another challenge lies in training datasets that reflect biases in how data were collected and the implicit biases of data collectors, leading to the underrepresentation of diverse needs and perspectives in technologies ( [ 30 ] , [ 178 ] ). Data science practices that disregard diversity and accessibility considerations create additional barriers for disabled individuals. This limits opportunities to develop technology, for instance, powerful AI models, that are ethically robust, inclusive and equally beneficial for a diverse audience ( [ 173 ] , [ 35 ] ). Responsible and ethical development, deployment, and monitoring of data science and AI systems necessitate the careful implementation of EDIA principles. This involves actively engaging diverse voices in the design, development, and dissemination of rigorous research methods and their outcomes ( [ 35 ] , [ 93 ] , [ 106 ] ). Professionals working closer to the community play a crucial role in creating pathways and opportunities for them to contribute their expertise and perspectives ( [ 8 ] , [ 88 ] , [ 120 ] , [ 123 ] ). RCMs in research communities operationalise EDIA principles by establishing and enforcing community policies such as community participation guidelines and actionable codes of conduct [ 145 ] , [ 158 ] . Through thoughtfully designed stakeholder engagement processes, RCMs create an inclusive environment where individuals from diverse backgrounds and identities, including those likely to be directly impacted by technology, are intentionally included and empowered to influence research directions () [ 10 ] , [ 37 ] ). RCMs collaborate with a range of experts, including AI ethicists, EDIA specialists, and representatives from underrepresented groups, to develop learning opportunities and resources that integrate EDIA consideration and real-world requirements into research outputs and technologies by design ( [ 13 ] , [ 37 ] , [ 105 ] ).

1.3.5 2.3.5 Fair Attribution and Recognition

As research in data science and AI becomes more complex and increasingly depends on community contributions, establishing authorship and credits for contributors becomes even more important ( [ 19 ] , [ 128 ] ). Assigning appropriate attribution can be challenging, particularly when multiple contributors, each with different roles and levels of interests, are involved ( [ 68 ] ). Traditional authorship models often fail to capture the diverse contributions of data scientists, software engineers, community organisers, data wranglers, project managers and other professionals ( [ 129 ] ). This becomes even more complicated for projects that involve a broader community of volunteers and external contributors, such as in citizen science ( [ 175 ] ) and open source projects. This can lead to the undervaluation of some roles over others. RCMs are instrumental in developing community processes, guidelines, and policies for community involvement, authorship in traditional research outputs and contributorship across all aspects of a project ( [ 117 ] ). Fair attribution and recognition of community-led efforts beyond creating traditional research outputs is essentially an extension of RCM roles in operationalising EDIA principles in community management (section 2.3.4). Their work with community members, while considering individuals’ backgrounds, identities, or disabilities, can lead to fair recognition and the creation of opportunities for participation, engagement, and contributions ( [ 52 ] , [ 117 ] ). By highlighting diverse pathways for contributing to ongoing projects, RCMs ensure meaningful recognition and visibility for all contributors ( [ 19 ] ). This approach paves the way for future leadership roles within the community, empowering diverse voices and perspectives in shaping project outcomes.

2 3 RCM Roles in Practice

2.1 3.1 examples of rcm roles projects at the alan turing institute.

The Alan Turing Institute (‘the Turing’), founded in 2015, is the UK’s national institute for data science and Artificial Intelligence (AI) ( [ 78 ] . The first RCM at the Turing was recruited in 2019 in The Turing Way, a flagship project supported by the institute ( [ 167 ] ). The Turing Way is an open source, open-collaboration, and community-driven initiative for discussing and sharing data science best practices. The RCM role, based on the community manager roles from open source projects, was established to coordinate a distributed team of data science practitioners and the broader network of open science communities. Following its success, several RCM positions across different projects at the Turing have been designed with two different job titles reflecting different experience levels: Research Community Managers and Senior Research Community Managers ( [ 144 ] ). In this article, we use ”RCMs” to collectively refer to all community management titles, including RCMs and Senior RCMs at the Turing, unless specifically stated otherwise. The Senior RCMs are experienced community managers who bring some level of leadership experience from research or previous (formal or informal) community management roles. Individuals who may not have prior experience in professional community management roles can be hired as RCMs based on their domain expertise relevant to specific projects and their demonstrated interests and skills in community management. This is often evidenced by their experience in coordinating informal communities of practice or interest groups (illustrated in Figure 5 ). RCMs at the Turing build and nurture CoPs with a diverse set of stakeholders working across different projects in multidisciplinary teams. Since 2021, 12 full-time RCM positions at the Turing have been created to integrate community considerations and best practices into data science and AI projects aligned with the institute’s research priorities and strategic partnerships. These current and previous roles have brought domain-specific expertise relevant to the projects alongside community management experience from their previous roles. Each position is funded through budgets allocated for projects where needs or opportunities for RCMs have been recognised and their roles scoped with the RCM team leads alongside other domain experts. As of August 2024, RCMs have worked across priority areas in health, environment and sustainability, data-centric engineering and skill-building domains, which have been highlighted in Table 1 . We also provide links to project details and case studies that demonstrate different flavours of community management and types of CoPs supported by the RCMs at the Turing.

#	Project name	Short description	Project Start Year	RCM start year and current status	Community Status on the Community Maturation Indicators	Relevant links	Manuscript authors working on this project
1		Open source community-led project on data science best practices, featuring an online book organised into six guides	2019	2019 - Ongoing	Empower Groups (Level 5) - Monitoring & Evaluation (Stage 5)	, ,	ALS, KW, MS, AB
2	The Turing-Roche Strategic Partnership	Establish a research collaboration between Roche and the Turing to explore patient and disease heterogeneity using advanced analytics	2021	2021 - Ongoing	Engage and Involve Members (Level 3) - Growth and Scaling (Stage 4)	, ,	VH
3	Turing-RSS Health Data Lab	Independent source of statistical modelling and machine learning expertise to address policy-relevant research questions	2021	2021 - Concluded in 2023	Engage and Involve Members (Level 3) - Implementation (Stage 3)	,	EK
4	AI For Multiple Long-term Conditions -Research Support Facility (AIM-RSF)	Connect researchers across the AIM consortia, to ensure the investment delivers long-term, real-world impact	2021	2021 - Ongoing	Invite Community Feedback (Level 2) - Implementation (Stage 3)	, ,	SB, EK, KW, Previously: Eirini Zormpa (EZ)
5	Professional- ising Data Science Roles (Turing’s Skills Policy Award)	Collaborate with diverse stakeholders to communicate about and advance the professionalisation of data science roles and skills	2023	2023 - Concluded in 2024	Invite Community Feedback (Level 2) - Implementation (Stage 3)	,	EK, MS
6	Turing’s Partnership in Innovate UK BridgeAI Programme	Provide independent scientific advice, online resources and tailored training to promote AI adoption among SMEs in the UK	2023	2024 - Ongoing	Engage and Involve Members (Level 3) - Implementation (Stage 3)		AAA, KW
7	Practitioners Hub	Engage with experts from partner organisations, supporting the adoption of AI and best practices, including open source and open data approaches	2023	2023 - Ongoing	Invite Community Feedback (Level 2) - Growth and Scaling (Stage 4)	,	MS, AB, Previously: AAA
8	Data Centric Engineering	Strategic partnership between the Lloyd’s Register Foundation and the Turing to bring academic and industrial partners together to address new challenges in data-centric engineering	2018	2023 - Ongoing	Inform Community/ Invite Community Feedback (Level 2) - Planning and Design/ Implementation (Stage 3)		GK
9	Environment and Sustainability (E&S) Grand Challenge	Use data science and AI to catalyse the next big changes in addressing the climate and biodiversity crisis	2023	2024 - Ongoing	Inform Community/Invite Community Feedback (Level 2) - Planning and Design (Stage 2)		CGVP
10	People in Data	Convening a data professionals community to professionalise under-recognised data roles and provide support and training across the UK	2024	2024 - Ongoing	Inform Community/ Invite feedback (Level 2) - Initiation (Stage 1)		EK

Table 1 : This table summarises various projects at the Turing in which RCM team members are involved. Column 3 indicates the project start year, while Column 4 denotes the year an RCM or Senior RCM was assigned to the project. Column 6 reflects the community maturation status (Level of Community Participation - Stage of Community Building pair) as illustrated in Figure 1 . For each project, the table also provides links to relevant resources such as project webpages, briefing notes, or case studies. The last column provides information about manuscript authors working on this project including previous RCMs involved in the respective projects. A detailed table is provided in the Supplementary 2.

Successes of RCMs in previous projects have led to greater recognition for these roles in multi-stakeholder project teams. In the long-term strategy published in 2023, RCMs have been attributed by the institute as an important ‘core capability’ alongside the Turing’s Research Engineers Group (REG) ( [ 164 ] ), Research Application Management (RAM) team ( [ 162 ] ) and Data Wranglers ( [ 161 ] ), each bringing specialised skills in the institute’s data science and AI projects ( [ 166 ] ). These roles have been described in detail in related publications ( [ 84 ] , [ 143 ] ).

2.2 3.2 The Turing’s RCM Team Applies System-Level Approaches to Community Management

Community management roles are inherently creative, requiring fast-paced, solution-oriented and innovative approaches to navigate emerging challenges and opportunities in communities ( [ 77 ] ). To ensure that RCMs can effectively manage their tasks, they need to be offered appropriate support by institutions ( [ 14 ] ). At the Turing, an RCM team provides this support through team-based mentorship, skill building and professional guidance in RCMs’ work ( [ 163 ] ). The purpose of membership in a team is to provide opportunities for shared leadership, build standard approaches and establish reusable resources for community management that can be adapted to different projects ( [ 17 ] , [ 104 ] ). All RCMs take responsibility for CoPs in their respective projects while sharing overarching goals of community management. As illustrated in Figure 2 , the Turing’s RCM team have established six goals: 1) embed open, inclusive and reproducible research practices; 2) ensure a shared understanding of goals, roadmap, and processes; 3) facilitate stakeholder engagement and collaboration; 4) provide technical support and domain expertise; 5) co-create, maintain and communicate project resources; and 6) amplify and champion community learnings and achievements. RCMs coordinate their work with each other and apply system-level approaches to connect their projects, project teams, resources and initiatives they are involved in, both at the Turing and from open source/science projects. As close collaborators in the RCM team, RCMs learn from each other’s expertise, refine and amplify their community management approaches and share knowledge from their work regularly, rather than at the end of the project.

2.2.1 3.2.1 Turing RCM Team Structure

Since 2021, the Turing’s RCM team has been led and managed by a Senior Researcher (manuscript author MS), who provides training and mentoring, fosters team knowledge, and offers advisory support across various projects. Over the past three years, the RCM team has been growing in size and maturing its approaches by demonstrating its professional expertise, embedding community-oriented goals across various projects and applying standard community processes and workflows within the Turing. To manage the leadership for the growing team, a Senior RCM was promoted and appointed as the Deputy Team Lead in 2024 (manuscript author EK). The RCM team is operationally housed within the Turing’s Tools, Practices and Systems (TPS) ( [ 165 ] ), a research programme, started in 2019 as part of the AI for Science and Government Strategic Priority Fund award ( [ 9 ] ). RTP teams, including RCMs and RAMs in TPS, build open source infrastructure to empower a global, decentralised network of people who connect data with domain experts to enable a democratic, accessible and trustworthy research ecosystem ( [ 42 ] , [ 165 ] ). As the Institute’s core capabilities, the RCM team together with RAMs, RSEs and Data Wranglers ( [ 166 ] ), embedding open, ethical, collaborative and reproducible data science and AI practices throughout the research and innovation process, both at the Turing and beyond ( [ 161 ] , [ 162 ] , [ 163 ] , [ 164 ] ). The RCM, and other core capability teams, operate in a matrix management style, with line management and professional development sitting in the RCM functional team, while task management day-to-day occurs within research project communities. The RCM team leadership responsibilities include guiding and mentoring the team members, organising team activities and providing community resources. The team leaders support the implementation of proven community approaches and work towards professionalising RCM roles at the Turing and beyond. They are also responsible for developing the team’s strategies for short-term and long-term goals and providing a supportive environment where the team members can collaborate to deliver them. The team leaders report to the TPS Programme Director (manuscript author KW). As members of the TPS Programme’s delivery team, they collaborate with other senior researchers and the programme management team (coordinated by manuscript author AB) creating pathways for transparent reporting, advocacy and change at the senior research leadership of the Alan Turing Institute. With the involvement of the team members, the RCM team leaders develop reference materials, connect members of their communities and improve their understanding of RCM expertise more broadly at the institute. They work with members of the RCM team to extend the impact of community management through research and other cross-theme projects, as well as provide consultation to different teams at the Turing. They engage the team in peer-mentoring activities for embedding open science, reproducibility and ethical approaches into their work. They create centralised resources and offer training on best practices, such as open source, reproducibility, collaboration, community engagement, and capacity building in research and data science. To operationalise the Turing’s values and deliver on its strategic goals, the team has developed guiding principles that are applied across all their work. They support and guide each other in building the expertise required in their work as well as achieving the team’s goals. They use weekly meetings and co-working sessions as a consistent space to address specific challenges from their projects, exchange resources and discuss innovative approaches for community management. The team members keep each other updated on their work, share emerging ideas and collaborate in developing solutions to address shared challenges. They maintain documentation, practical toolkits, generalised practices, reusable templates and impact reports with examples from their projects, openly shared via the team’s GitHub repository ( [ 130 ] ). The RCM team has also been building a professional identity for RCM roles, developing research-based resources and communicating about the RCM roles at the institute and conferences nationally and internationally. The team members actively engage with meta-communities and external open science projects, learning from others’ research processes and sharing outputs from their work openly, such as in The Turing Way. This paper itself is a result of the collaboration and knowledge exchange within the RCM team.

3 4 Introducing an RCM Skills and Competency Framework to Support the Professionalisation of Research Community Management Roles

3.1 4.1 understanding the need for professionalisation of rcm roles.

Professionalisation is a process of recognising an occupation, which involves specific skill sets, prolonged training processes and established qualifications for improving the effectiveness of a profession. This process leads to raising the status of the profession, giving a professional a certain degree of agency and autonomy over their work, and compensating fairly for their service ( [ 2 ] , [ 75 ] , [ 103 ] ). Although RRI integrates inclusive approaches for community participation and engagement, the responsibility for community management has mostly remained informal, with appropriate recognition and support for RCMs and similar roles often lacking ( [ 62 ] ). These roles are highly important in research ( [ 53 ] , [ 99 ] ), yet they are frequently undermined and remain ‘hidden’ when communicating about research outcomes and impact. This results in RCMs operating without any formal title, certainty of career paths or adequate resources for their work. Therefore, an important step towards empowering researchers skilled in community management is to professionalise RCM roles and sustainably advance their careers while recognising their skills in the research ecosystem ( [ 27 ] ). Combining our insights from open science initiatives and research organisations, we focus on the frameworks needed for the professionalisation of RCM roles within the broader research and data science ecosystem. Transitioning RCM roles from informal to formal occupations will present a structured path where researchers’ contributions to community management can be openly acknowledged and effectively utilised. In this effort, we first present the ’RCM Skills and Competency Framework’ as a reference to integrate RCM roles and expertise into research and data science projects. We then describe important steps towards professionalising RCM roles across four categories:

Articulating skills and competencies

Aligning recognition and reward systems

Building long-term career development pathways

Offering prolonged mentorship and support to enable future growth opportunities

In the era of data science, we view the professionalisation of RCMs as a crucial part of an important culture change, enabling diverse research and research infrastructure to be supported, incentivised, and empowered for their significant contributions to team science [ 53 ] . By positioning RCMs at the interface of various stakeholders, including diverse Research Technical Professionals (RTP) ( [ 55 , 157 ] ), this shift will prioritise community goals, maximise outcomes and enhance the real-world impact of interdisciplinary research projects. Resources provided in this article can be used as a structured roadmap for fostering the growth and integration of community management in research and data science organisations with appropriate standards for training and professional accreditation of RCM roles.

3.2 4.2 RCM Skills and Competency Framework

The RCM Skills and Competency Framework in this article discusses five overarching skills areas needed to perform the RCM roles: i) communications, ii) engagement, iii) strategic contributions, iv) technical skills, and v) accountability (Figure 3 ; Supplementary 3.1 ). As illustrated in Figure 3 , a total of 65 skills have been outlined to assess the application of these five skill areas, categorised under core and peripheral competencies. Communication and engagement skills are essential core competencies for RCM roles, with responsibilities carried out by RCMs at a high level of proficiency and expertise. The remaining three skill areas can be considered peripheral competencies—RCMs bring knowledge and awareness in these areas, with responsibilities often carried out in collaboration with other team members, including project leaders, domain experts, and other RTPs or specialists, to meet specific project requirements. We draw from our experience working with community initiatives, community-oriented research projects, informal networks and formal partnerships in data science projects. As researchers and community members in different disciplines, the 10 current and past members of the Turing’s RCM team have collectively participated in over 50 different projects involving research communities at the Turing, other research organisations and the broader open science communities. Two lead authors have also established community-based non-profit organisations and international projects promoting open science practices in research. In conceptualising the framework, we combine our experience from working with these communities and insights from existing research publications and resources referenced throughout this article. Selected examples from the Turing are provided in Table 1 . Community Roundtable and CSCCE have previously published skills frameworks for community managers in industry and scientific research respectively (summarised in Supplementary 3.2 ). The Community Roundtable’s Community Skills Framework, developed in 2014 using survey data from online technical communities, identified 50 skills grouped into five families: content, technical, business, engagement, and strategic ( [ 133 ] ). CSCCE’s 2021 framework, based on research community surveys, outlines 45 skills categorised into five core competencies: communication, technical, interpersonal, program management, and development ( [ 186 ] ). The RCM Skills and Competency framework presented in this article has been aligned with these resources, while primarily focusing on the skills and competencies that RCMs apply in interdisciplinary research and data science projects. The RCM Skills and Competency Framework include community management skills and responsibilities undertaken in both formal and informal capacities. This includes community roles fulfilled by paid staff, appointed community representatives and members from a volunteer community, whose responsibilities may overlap with other specialised roles within interdisciplinary teams. This framework adheres to the principles of ”as open as possible, as closed as necessary ( [ 56 ] ),” while intending to promote responsible open research (open source, open data and other areas of open science) and reproducibility practices in data science projects.

3.2.1 4.2.1 How to use this framework?

The RCM Skills and Competency Framework serves as a tool and reference for various audiences within data science and AI communities, including but not limited to the following:

Organisations : Establishing the infrastructure needed to develop and sustain RCM roles and RCM teams.

Experienced community professionals : Enrich their own skills or support other community managers in identifying skills and competencies they want to develop.

New community managers : Understanding their own fit as an RCM and career development opportunities in community management.

Individual researchers : Gaining insight into what RCM roles are and how they complement other specialist positions within a research team.

Research teams : Considering the integration of community approaches and delegating responsibilities among team members with different areas of expertise in the projects.

A shared understanding of these skills and competencies can guide the creation of new research positions and job descriptions, prioritising areas most crucial for fulfilling the project’s goals. Specifically, the classification of core and peripheral competencies will help identify skills and responsibilities for RCMs that they carry out either independently or in collaboration with other members of a multi-stakeholder or interdisciplinary project team.

3.3 4.2.2 Core Competencies: Communication and Engagement Skills

Collaboration, through communication and engagement, lies at the heart of the RCM role. In our work, we identify communication and community engagement as core competencies for RCM roles. With a high level of expertise, RCMs are responsible and accountable for applying different skills across these two competencies in order to drive successful collaboration and outcomes of the project. From facilitating community inception to nurturing its growth and sustainability, RCMs leverage their specific skills in these competencies to create a transparent, two-way collaboration system with community members. The communications and engagement skills enable RCMs to fairly represent and advocate for the community’s interests throughout the research project, ultimately leading to enhanced community awareness, collaboration and involvement in project outcomes.

3.3.1 4.2.2.1 Communications Skills

RCMs work to enhance transparency by making implicit knowledge explicit and making information accessible through effective communication. Documentation serves as a key communication resource for the community, ensuring clear visibility of community norms, processes, and outcomes. This includes communicating the vision, roadmap, milestones, and accomplishments of the community. While documentation is a common reference point, synchronous communications allow RCMs to facilitate more informal and dynamic engagement. RCMs set up community platforms to connect and allow cross-pollination between members and stakeholders, enabling them to navigate various aspects of the community, including engagement pathways, contribution types, modes of recognition and sustained collaborations. Beyond communication and knowledge sharing, RCMs actively shape the community experience by designing community programs and events, overseeing community-level governance processes and facilitating inreach and outreach initiatives. RCMs align the organisational impact assessment process with a community’s communication strategy to effectively report on community success. They collaborate with the community to improve the accessibility of resources through translation, contextualisation, and localisation. Additionally, RCMs also create communication materials to promote the community’s work to non-specialist audiences or funding partners.

Examples from the Turing

All RCMs at the Turing develop resources to communicate about their work and invite feedback by sharing them with their respective communities. For example, in The Turing Way (Table 1 , project 1), the RCM (manuscript author ALS) drafts monthly newsletters with updates from various communication channels and sources, disseminating them to all community members, including those not directly involved in the project. Other communication materials, such as GitHub documentation, presentations shared on Zenodo and Slack or social media announcements enable all members to stay informed or locate specific information they need. The Turing Way handbook includes a Community Handbook that shares community-related guidance and resources for anyone to read and reuse in their work ( [ 167 ] ). The RCM also collaborates closely with different members and working groups in the community, ensuring effective communication through standard channels and contributing to the decision-making process. For example, the RCM leads the Collaboration Café, a biweekly online collaborative meeting, where members working on various parts of the project can come together and invite feedback through active collaboration during and beyond these calls. The RCM also supports community members in communicating about The Turing Way through international conference talks, training workshops, and the project’s twice-yearly Book Dash events, which facilitate synchronous work across different chapters of the book. All RCMs at the Turing aim to support a bidirectional flow of knowledge by curating and adopting data science best practices from The Turing Way in their work and sharing practices and examples from their work in The Turing Way handbook. Through their efforts in the RCM team, they develop reusable resources and communication materials and cross-post them in The Turing Way.

3.3.2 4.2.2.2 Engagement Skills

Research projects thrive not just on scientific questions, but on their social and technical infrastructure. This socio-technical infrastructure provides a space for researchers to connect around shared goals and visions. RCMs apply community engagement skills with socio-technical considerations to map stakeholders, providing diverse engagement pathways and maximising the positive impact of research. They ensure inclusivity and diversity by aligning community and organisational policies with EDIA principles. RCMs establish clear processes and roadmaps for community onboarding and engagement, fostering open and inclusive spaces like events, documentation, platforms, and forums. These spaces act as catalysts for collaboration, skill exchange, and project improvement. Essential skills for RCMs include understanding community needs and personas, designing onboarding processes for long-term collaboration, and ensuring project sustainability. They collect data, perform community assessments, and measure, and report on community health, using these insights to continuously improve processes and infrastructure.

Ambassador programs are effective at engaging specific community members through structured, time-bound, and value-based activities. An example at the Turing is the Turing-Roche Scholar Scheme ( [ 79 ] ), developed and run by the RCM for the Turing-Roche Strategic Partnership (Table 1 , project 2, manuscript author VH). The scheme supports 10 UK-based PhD students to embed themselves with the Turing-Roche partnership, a unique academic-industry collaboration, and helps them develop skills that will benefit and further their careers. Scholars are mentored and supported to undertake a community-based project of their interest, representing topics relevant to the partnership and data science and health more broadly and allowing the partnership community further opportunities to engage. Scholars also receive regular group cohort calls throughout the year are given a stipend and attend a relevant conference sponsored by the partnership. This program incorporated advice from other ambassador programs such as the Software Sustainability Institute Fellowship ( [ 155 ] ) and the OLS (formerly Open Life Science) cohort-based training and mentoring program ( [ 113 ] ). Another example is from Innovate UK’s BridgeAI program (Table 1 , project 6), which supports the development of AI skills among Small- and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) in the UK ( [ 28 ] ). The project’s Senior RCM (manuscript author AAA) is responsible for engaging different community stakeholders, including Turing teams involved in the project, external advisory members who provide sector-specific consultation for SMEs, and the broader network of BridgeAI partners. Through structured meetings and community calls with members from across these teams, the Senior RCM facilitates discussions, highlights collaboration opportunities, and shares resources from asynchronous collaboration on different project aspects. These interactions have enabled the Senior RCM to inform plans for the next stages of the project, such as the recruitment of future advisory groups, co-development of useful resources for SMEs and community calls. The Senior RCM engages with community members and invites their contributions to co-designing, leading, and participating in stakeholder engagement activities such as workshops, panels, and webinars. These community engagement efforts keep members informed and aligned while avoiding duplication of efforts.

3.3.3 4.2.3 Peripheral Competencies: Skills for Strategic Contributions, Technical Expertise, and Accountability

RCMs often start their careers on projects with specific community management needs tied to project goals. However, as they gain experience across diverse projects and communities, their understanding of the broader functioning of the project and data science evolves, influenced by the scope and scale of the communities they lead or contribute to. The breadth of information allows RCMs to foster a systems-level understanding of community roles and their interconnectedness with individuals, projects, and the organisation’s ecosystem. To encompass the generalist knowledge of RCMs beyond their specialist roles, we have identified peripheral competencies encompassing three areas: strategic contributions, technical expertise, and project management. While some skills within these competencies are crucial to RCM responsibilities, they often consult or collaborate with other specialists to fulfil the requirements necessary for the project’s and community’s success. In doing so, RCMs stay informed, offer expertise, and contribute as needed in delivering on specific goals and objectives within a project. Specifically, RCMs work with the leadership team, domain experts, RTPs and other members with formal or informal roles such as RSEs, RAMs, Data Scientists, Research Project Managers (RPM), Data Wranglers, UX specialists and Data Stewards ( [ 84 ] , [ 143 ] , [ 42 ] ). RCMs also consult other institutional teams such as partnerships, outreach and communications teams, or external partners involved in the project team.

3.3.4 4.2.3.1 Strategic contributions

RCMs in most projects are required to bring two levels of expertise: 1) to enable operational activities required at the grassroots of the community, and 2) to influence and inform strategic decisions made by the project leadership. This requires balancing community-facing activities with strategic planning and development. Strategic RCM skills include horizon scanning, crafting communication/engagement strategies, and building community roadmaps. They foster open leadership by establishing fair governance (like policies, Code of Conduct, and incentives) and aligning institutional strategy with community goals. They connect with members of their communities and advocate for their interests at the institutional level. Senior RCMs manage staff members or a team, develop funding and sustainability plans, engage in advocacy across all areas of the project internally and externally, and contribute to strategic decisions like project expansion or sunsetting. Operational activities like workshop planning, feedback gathering and transparent reporting fall under communication and engagement skills, but these activities also play a crucial role in strategy by providing insights to measure success, assess community health, communicate impact and identify programming gaps. This dual nature requires RCMs to switch contexts constantly, learning new skills to ensure community and project sustainability. To deliver on this creative yet demanding aspect of their role, RCMs work closely with other RTPs and infrastructure roles such as RSEs, Data Wranglers, and RAMs to support various types of work in research communities and enhance their impact.

The Turing-RSS Health Data Lab (Table 1 , project 3) was established in 2020 through a partnership between the Turing and the Royal Statistical Society. In collaboration with the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA), the Data Lab provided independent statistical modelling and machine learning expertise for pandemic response. The Data Lab focused on policy-relevant interdisciplinary research, addressing issues such as social inequalities in COVID-19 risk, debiasing testing data, assessing acoustic markers for diagnosis, and using wastewater as a local prevalence biomarker. The project’s Senior RCM (manuscript author EK) brought substantial research experience and provided community leadership, bringing together researchers from across different teams. Under her coordination, the Data Lab achieved significant milestones in under two years, including completing seven projects, publishing six peer-reviewed articles, and producing three preprints, while embedding open source, open access, open data and reproducibility practices in the Data Lab’s work. In close collaboration with different project members, the Senior RCM also created technical and non-technical project reports, enhancing the accessibility and impact of the research. She designed and hosted knowledge-sharing events and an international public lecture series, strengthening collaboration between senior leaders and early career researchers, and engaged the international public with the project’s focus. The Senior RCM offers specialist consultation for various teams at the Turing, including special interest groups, the Academic Programme, the Skills team, and business teams. This additional responsibility led to her transition into a more strategic community management role within the Turing’s Health Programme, followed by her promotion to Deputy Lead of the RCM team. Another example is from the Turing’s Data-Centric Engineering (DCE) program (Table 1 , project 8), where the Senior RCM (manuscript author GK) works closely with a Research Application Manager (RAM), each with distinctive responsibilities but complementary expertise in the project. One of the projects within DCE is ADViCE, the Artificial Intelligence for Decarbonisation’s Virtual Centre of Excellence. The broader ambition of the Centre of Excellence is to coordinate and engage with AI and decarbonisation stakeholders across high-emitting sectors, and it is delivered by a collaborative consortium including Digital Catapult, Energy Systems Catapult and The Alan Turing Institute. At the strategic level, this initiative aims to foster cross-sector collaboration, define key challenges that can be addressed with AI solutions, and disseminate information to relevant stakeholders. Working closely with the RAM, the Senior RCM has developed the communication infrastructure to support ADViCE’s community engagement and future collaborations. The RCM-RAM pair has implemented the ADViCE Knowledge Base ( [ 15 ] ) and Forum (GitHub Discussions) which facilitate knowledge sharing within the targeted communities openly and collaboratively. In addition to building the community infrastructure, their deployment into the project includes engaging with ADViCE’s stakeholders by leading knowledge-sharing convening events (for example, data science story-sharing circles).

3.3.5 4.2.3.2 Technical expertise

While RCMs share core community management skills, interdisciplinarity and domain-specific expertise may be crucial for some activities. This often translates to applying technical skills in managing both community responsibilities and meeting relevant technical needs in the project. RCMs bring academic or industry experience within the project’s domain, often due to their professional backgrounds in research and data science. Leveraging their combined skillset, RCMs offer technical support and implement research best practices. They build and maintain community infrastructure to streamline access for members to the skills, resources, and infrastructure they need. They also actively encourage and celebrate diverse contributions to address domain-specific and technical challenges. In partnership with other RTPs and infrastructure roles such as RSEs, Data Wranglers and Data Stewards, RCMs establish essential infrastructure such as version control systems, communication platforms, and open science practices encompassing open source, open access and open and FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable) data ( [ 183 ] ). By delivering training and workshops on collaborative coding, code review, data analysis, user testing, and data management, RCMs empower the community and contribute to its long-term sustainability.

RCMs at the Turing have research experience and technical skills that they apply to manage their tasks and workflows. For example, RCMs conduct community research to gather qualitative data through 1:1 interactions and community interviews, and quantitative data to inform their community development strategies. One example is stakeholder data mapping, a critical piece of work through which RCMs identify community stakeholders and their levels of engagement in the project. In smaller projects, this mapping can be achieved easily using simple data tables or stakeholder prioritisation criteria. However, large-scale initiatives like the Environment and Sustainability (E&S) Grand Challenge at the Institute (Table 1 , project 9), involve mapping stakeholders from environmental research across the UK and internationally. The E&S Senior RCM (manuscript author CGVP) applies technical skills to map stakeholder data, which is a crucial first step towards building strategic engagement and community-involved plans. She has created a workflow to gather public and individual consented information, harmonise data from different sources and analyse them using network analysis and programming techniques ( [ 65 ] ). To effectively communicate her findings with stakeholders, she visualises the stakeholder relationships using Kumu, an open source platform that offers an interactive map of complex relationship data ( Kumu demonstration ). She follows the Turing’s data protection plan and stores data under the UK (General Data Protection Regulation) GDPR. Code and guidelines have been shared for reference and reuse on a GitHub repository . RCMs also apply their technical skills in supporting their community members and research-related project goals. An example of this can be explored in the AI for Multiple Long-Term Conditions (AIM) programme (Table 1 , project 4) ( [ 3 ] ). Funded in 2021, AIM encompasses seven consortia spanning 28 universities, 12 NHS trusts, and numerous charities, local government bodies, public organisations, and healthcare providers across the UK. The AIM’s Research Support Facility (RSF) facilitates collaborative research within the programme, focusing on five key themes: secure and interoperable infrastructure, research-ready data, open collaboration, public and patient involvement and engagement (PPIE) ( [ 83 ] ), and sustainability and legacy. Working alongside senior researchers, Data Wranglers and RPMs, two RCMs provide community management under two core themes: Open Collaboration (previous team member Eirini Zormpa) and PPIE (manuscript author SB). Their technical responsibilities include building and maintaining technical infrastructure such as a GitHub organisation, and promoting specialised skills including data standards, public engagement, reproducibility, and open science. The RCM responsible for PPIE developed a ’glossary of terms’ to simplify technical concepts, delivered training to upskill patients on research and data science methods and hosted community calls focused on PPIE, making it easier for the public to both understand and integrate their perspectives into the research program. Meanwhile, the RCM for Open Collaboration delivered a series of training workshops introducing programming languages, open source and FAIR practices and reproducibility techniques to enhance the skills of Early Career Researchers. Collaboratively, the RCMs adapted The Turing Way’s Collaboration Café, providing a platform for connection, knowledge exchange, and the adoption of standardised approaches across AIM projects.

3.3.6 4.2.3.3 Accountability

RCMs employ strong management and leadership skills to build accountability in the community. They facilitate the access and use of community resources ethically and equitably, guiding the community towards shared goals in the project. These skills overlap with the project leadership and those in dedicated project management roles, like RPM or business administrators. RCMs’ skills complement rather than compete with these roles and their responsibilities. The project lead oversees decision-making and ensures that the project progresses according to its goals and requirements. RCMs provide a deep understanding of community needs to inform the project leadership and shape project management decisions. They fulfil this by; regularly sharing updates from the community; supplying community documentation; highlighting areas where additional management input could benefit the community; clarifying project-level governance and its connection to community governance; and prioritising tasks to streamline information flow between the community, research team, and project leadership. RPMs on the other hand remain responsible for keeping track of the project timelines, budgets and operational plans, establishing clear reporting structures, identifying risks and mitigation strategies, and coordinating finances and recruitment. In close collaboration with RPMs, RCMs clarify their focus areas and integrate community-centric approaches into project delivery.

Many projects at the Turing allocate RPM support with whom RCMs actively collaborate to achieve project goals and ensure that their work follows institutional policy and legal requirements. Given some overlaps that RCMs have with RPMs, project and community responsibilities are openly discussed at different stages of a project. This close collaboration is instrumental in aligning priorities from the project and related community while building accountability. All members of the RCM team who work with RPMs on their projects have reported feeling better supported and experiencing improved well-being at work. Having dedicated RPM support has led to more successful project outcomes, timely project completion, and a more manageable workload by allowing RCMs to focus on their core responsibilities. This close collaboration has also been beneficial for RPMs in their professional growth. A good example of RPM-RCM collaboration can be illustrated in The Turing Way’s Practitioners Hub (Table 1 , project 7), a project under the BridgeAI program that engages organisations such as Small and Medium-sized Enterprises in adopting AI skills while leveraging open source and open data practices to improve their businesses. The Practitioners Hub offers time-bound (4-6 months) cohort-based activities to work with specific groups of partnering organisations and SMEs, who dedicate part of their work time to engage with the programme. The first cohort, delivered in 2023, included six training workshops, multiple informal meetings, two high-impact cross-sector events and six case studies co-developed with the cohort participants. A Senior member of the RCM team (manuscript author MS) is responsible for the strategic planning and maintaining collaboration with the cohort members and participating organisations, while a high degree of RPM involvement has been critical for the successful delivery of the project. The RPM provides support in managing timelines, budgets, and legal contracting in coordination with the institute’s partnership, legal, ethics, events and members of the project team. Working closely with RCM team members, such as when hosting professional workshops, organising community events and planning cohort engagement activities, the RPM handled the operational requirements. The first RPM (manuscript author AAA) in the project also gained new skills and insights into the RCM’s workflow, which led them to later join the RCM team as a BridgeAI Senior RCM (Table 1 , project 6). In the absence of an RPM, a Programme Manager (manuscript author AB) provides such support, while handling similar responsibilities across multiple projects.

4 5 Recommended Steps Towards Professionalising RCM Roles

4.1 5.1. Articulating Skills and Competencies

Articulating the RCM skills and competencies is a fundamental first step towards communicating and standardising community management practices and professionalising the RCM roles. In articulating a framework for RCM skills and competencies, as described in this article (section 4.2), we recognise that the definition of research communities is itself broad. A few examples listed in Table 1 represent different types of communities fostered across open research projects (open science, open source), academia and industry partnerships, PPIE projects, research interest groups and community-based participatory research projects. Furthermore, meta-communities that span multiple domains or communities focus on shared practices, standards or policies, such as community for meta-research, meta-practices or professional roles, such as the RCM team, can also be considered a meta-community. The skills required for different RCMs for different projects will therefore vary based on a number of diverse characteristics of their research communities. Strategies for community building will also depend on the scale, size and goals of the project and the intended levels of community participation, as illustrated in Figure 1 and Supplementary 1 . Depending on the requirements, the RCM Skills and Competencies Framework can be used both as a reference in creating individual RCM roles and to support their long-term professionalisation in interdisciplinary projects and research organisations.

4.2 5.2. Aligning Recognition and Reward Systems

To professionalise RCMs in research, it is essential to proactively evolve standards and criteria for recognition and rewards for incentivising and supporting community management throughout the research process. Historically, academic incentives, including research funding, policy and promotion, have been aligned with the production of traditional research outputs, such as peer-reviewed papers ( [ 76 ] ). More attention has been given to writing articles at the end of a research project, often with a senior researcher unilaterally deciding authorship with an outsized focus on first and last authors. This narrow understanding of contributions is increasingly viewed as outdated across academia, and the traditional assessment methods of output are no longer considered fit for purpose ( [ 31 ] ). It is important to recognise the work that goes into producing a broad spectrum of tools, documents, partnerships, practices, meetings and insights during the course of research which fail to make it into traditional static publications ( [ 25 ] , [ 136 ] ).

4.2.1 5.2.1 Embedding Considerations for RCMs in Existing Reward Mechanisms

Rewards for all professions, traditional or emerging roles, are relatively consistent: open acknowledgement and appreciation at work, opportunities for professional growth, performance-based incentives, fair salary and performance-based promotions or exposure to new skills through training opportunities ( [ 48 ] , [ 60 ] , [ 100 ] ). RCMs can be fairly rewarded through these existing mechanisms by evaluating their success appropriately in line with their professional responsibilities. When roles are professionalised, employees develop stronger agency and motivation in their positions, while institutions can better recognise and reward their contributions to the progress and success of research ( [ 125 ] , [ 141 ] ). In the case of RCMs, professionalisation can enable institutions to fulfil their responsibility to engage and support collaboration among the various research and non-research groups involved, including the public ( [ 139 ] , [ 159 ] ). To fully realise the potential of community management, all stakeholders in research should view community building as a shared responsibility and a crucial objective. In the study on material and social contexts of research, authors ( [ 94 ] ) concluded that the “emergence of a resilient research community is partly determined by the degree of attention and care devoted by researchers to material and social elements beyond the specific research questions under consideration”. To ensure long-term collaboration and the benefit of research partnerships and community engagement, institutions must, therefore, support and incentivise all members of a research community to actively engage with their community efforts. In a research environment where community management is regarded as a critical and respected function, research communities can thrive and sustain both their individual and collective activities ( [ 189 ] ). Professionalisation of RCMs should therefore be seen as steps towards fostering a research culture that values, supports, and rewards the contributions of community members in terms of both technical expertise and social experiences.

4.2.2 5.2.2 Contributing to and Leveraging Research Assessment Frameworks

Initiatives such as the DORA ( [ 51 ] ), CRediT ( [ 74 ] ), the Royal Society’s Resume for Researchers ( [ 152 ] ), the Dutch Recognition&Rewards programme [ 127 ] , COARA [ 38 ] and HiddenREF ( [ 71 ] ) campaigns, are all seeking to build a new consensus around a broader scope for research contributions. Community-driven projects like The Turing Way ( [ 167 ] ), African Open Science Platform ( [ 6 ] ), EOSC Association Task Forces ( [ 54 ] ), Association of Research Managers and Administrators - UK’s ARMA and European counterpart EARMA ( [ 66 ] ), RSE communities ( [ 153 ] ), Technician Commitment ( [ 41 ] ), PRISM network (Professional Research Investment and Strategy Manager) ( [ 122 ] ) and ResearchOps ( [ 1 ] ), among many other international initiatives, are increasingly influencing funders and policymakers to evolve their metrics for evaluating academic success. This shifting narrative is an opportunity to account for the wide range of interdisciplinary roles and research communities in shaping research processes, outcomes and their impact. The professionalisation of RCM roles must occur alongside these initiatives by advocating for and informing the evolving metrics of research assessment with the requirements for community building in research. RCM roles focus on the research process, from project design to the production and maintenance of different kinds of outputs, consideration for which should be a central tenet to aligning assessment systems with their professional recognition. Therefore, the recognition effort should focus on elevating RCMs’ mission to embed best practices in research and catalyse connections across communities.

4.2.3 5.2.3 Aligning with National and International Skills Priorities

Investments from funders nationally and internationally are key to improving the status and professional security of community professionals like RCMs and other RTPs or infrastructure roles. For example, following national strategy and policy recommendations in the UK, UK Research and Innovation and EPSRC announced £16 million to support research technical professionals in community and capacity-building efforts in 2023 ( [ 55 ] ). This is one of several funding investments in digital research infrastructure professionals including community developers (RCMs), data wranglers, technicians and RSEs. One such project is People in Data (Table 1 , project 10), a community-based project funded by EPSRC and co-led by a member of the RCM team, which will convene existing communities to share knowledge, address critical challenges faced by different stakeholders working with data and create wider visibility and adoption of data-focused skills. Several such initiatives will be designed over the next few years, which will require expertise from infrastructure roles with specific opportunities to involve RCMs in leadership positions equipping them to engage all stakeholders of a data ecosystem in addressing shared issues around data science and AI skills in different domains and sectors. Similarly, philanthropic and public sector investments are being made to establish Open Source Program Offices (OSPOs) within universities and public sector organisations ( [ 109 ] ). Although the open source movement has been around for nearly three decades, OSPOs are a relatively new phenomenon, originally emerging from the tech industries in the USA and European countries ( [ 135 ] ). An OSPO team requires experts like RCMs dedicated to facilitating community engagement efforts to support community collaboration, skill building, and the adoption of open source practices to drive innovation and greater return on investment across the organisation. Rather than a few specific projects, OSPOs aim to improve the general use, development practices and reusability of open source software, an area or work that has clear overlap with community building and RCM roles. Since 2023, the United Nations has hosted an international symposium on OSPOs for Good to enable knowledge sharing among stakeholders from government, public sector, industry and academia from across the globe ( [ 111 ] ). Given the increased awareness and potential for OSPOs to promote open source practices for developing digital public infrastructure and resources, RCM and infrastructure roles like RSE and RAMs can strategically combine their expertise and support open source-led innovative solutions embedding shared practices and collectively contributing to OSPO’s goals at national and international levels ( [ 82 ] ). The goals of research assessment, policy and funding is to improve desired skills at all levels of research, future-proof the talent pipeline at national and international levels and unlock the economic potential and societal benefits of RRI. RCMs’ involvement from across different disciplines, organisations and countries in achieving these goals by engaging different professionals and involving community stakeholders clearly demonstrates the value of professional RCMs for the research ecosystem and the wider economy.

4.3 5.3 Building Long-Term Career Pathways

RCMs bring practical experience in community building that they often learn as part of their previous roles, often making a career switch from traditional research roles to focus on community management. Several organisations offer learning resources as well as paid certification for community managers. Nonetheless, this route is far from widespread or suitable practices for most research institutions. These roles have largely remained informal, often filled by researchers who are self-taught through responsibilities such as managing scientific networks or supporting open source communities (Figure 5 ). RCMs transfer their knowledge about how research and data science projects work and the community management practices that they apply at different stages to enhance the impact of their research. Previous research and industry experience allow RCMs to apply leadership skills such as taking initiative as an independent researcher, proactively involving or mentoring community members, recognising challenges and opportunities, and proposing solutions in time to support their communities. Therefore, formal RCM positions should not be seen as stepping away from research but as stepping in from another perspective, to gain valuable additional and specialist research skills and deepen their leadership skills to progress further in their research career.

4.3.1 5.3.1 Community Champion Roles

To fulfil the foundational need of community management, researchers interested in RCM roles bring some experience in organising communities of different sizes, natures and formats in different capacities. For example, managing a journal club, maintaining an open source tool or coordinating a scientific network. Researchers can then choose to specialise in community management through learning and practical experience, for example, taking community management training, becoming a core maintainer of a public resource or leading the communication processes for their research network. These researchers make ideal candidates for RCM roles in a well-defined project-based CoP involving a limited number of partnering organisations or teams participating in well-scoped community-based activities. These RCMs act as community champions with clear operational responsibilities and opportunities to grow in their roles. Irrespective of their responsibility types or decision-making authority, RCMs apply open leadership skills in their roles in leading and nurturing their communities. Ideally, RCMs should have access to appropriate levels of supervision, for example, regular mentoring and support should be provided to those who don’t have previous experience in professionally managing research communities.

4.3.2 5.3.2 Strategic roles for multi-stakeholder and complex communities

With more experience, RCMs assume more advanced or independent leadership roles in their communities. An RCM can progress in their careers to take senior RCM roles working with more complex communities such as managing stakeholders at a department level or coordinating collaborations among multiple research groups and institutions. They can also provide mentorship and guidance to other community members or formally manage other RCMs. They design training programs focused on skills needed in their communities, offer consultation on community strategies, lead initiatives, and report on community progress, and engage in internal advocacy efforts. This often involves working more closely with senior leaders and therefore at a strategic level, providing direct leadership for the wider community. This progression emphasises continuous learning, strategic thinking, and the ability of RCMs to support others within the community management domain.

4.3.3 5.3.3 RCM’s role as the stepping stone for future leaders

Gaining more experience in various community roles is an excellent building block for progressing to senior leadership roles. As community leaders, experienced RCMs build a strong identity and knowledge in research and best practices, as well as bring a deep understanding of how collaborations in multiple contexts affect the project development, team’s growth and research culture, as well as its impact in the broader society. With experience, RCMs bring more strategic and leadership approaches into their work, expand their professional network and gain hands-on experience in dealing with new challenges. Increasingly, community management skills and expertise are becoming important for all kinds of leadership roles ( [ 44 ] , [ 160 ] ). With their broad range of expertise, an RCM’s career progression could be in academia as a senior RCM, senior researcher, team lead, or principal investigator role and programme director (such as the TPS programme at the Turing) working to advance community management or community-based research in their respective domains. As with any professional, it is important to recognise that the career goals for each RCM will differ based on their skill sets and personal interests. RCMs may stay in their roles or decide to move to different sectors, like industry, non-profit or independent research institutions. They may also assume roles like lead of community programmes, department head or director of a community organisation. With their exposure to a wide range of strategic and operational responsibilities, they can also switch job types or pursue consultancy careers. By stretching beyond the strict remit of research, silo-prone public sectors and administration are also examples of settings or professional environments that could strongly benefit from RCM expertise in their goals to improve public engagement in decision-making and public trust through participatory approaches ( [ 140 ] ). Based on their career aspirations, RCMs can prioritise what kinds of skills they strengthen in their community roles, how they grow in their profession and which career paths they take for themselves. Regardless of their future directions, RCMs, like in any secure job, should be given a good working environment, stable contract conditions and appropriate compensation with professional benefits.

4.4 5.4 Offering Prolonged Mentorship and Support

As highly connected members, RCMs often become direct points of contact for community members and frequently respond to their queries. They address various community requests, many involving repetitive tasks or context-switching throughout the day, such as offering onboarding and upskilling opportunities to different members at different timescales. At the same time, RCMs are responsible for engaging the community in ongoing work, producing community documentation and strategically updating their approaches across different stages of the research lifecycle in response to the maturation and evolving needs of the community. These responsibilities can significantly increase RCMs’ workload, making it a demanding and potentially stressful occupation ( [ 49 ] ), especially if RCMs are not provided with appropriate professional support to manage them. Therefore, long-term mentoring and institutional investment should be provided to effectively support RCMs in their roles.

4.4.1 5.4.1 Mentoring RCMs

Even the most experienced RCMs have to continuously improve their methods while keeping up with the changing requirements and trends of data science and communities. Community management training and resources can be offered at the initial stages of professional development, however, at the later stage, RCMs have to be mentored in identifying, learning and adapting new tools, practices and platforms for community management. Therefore, on an ongoing basis, an RCM should have access to advisory support for situation-specific strategic and management guidance from other experienced professionals. Peer-to-peer engagement with other RCMs can be particularly beneficial for the professional growth of individual RCMs. Meta-communities like interest groups, community forums and networking events especially focused on RCMs and other infrastructure roles provide a good source for informal learning, along with peer-to-peer learning within teams of RCMs. For example, many open source projects that manage large volunteer communities or dedicated networks of community professionals, provide informal support and opportunities for skill development around community management. Some non-profit and consulting organisations also offer targeted training, mentoring and coaching for individuals and teams supporting scientific communities ( [ 113 ] , [ 115 ] ). These spaces provide opportunities for peer-based learning through targeted collaboration, theme-based knowledge building and chance interactions with other individuals on shared and complementary skills. These can often become avenues for creative discussions and knowledge exchange with fellow community managers, enabling RCMs to gain second-hand experience on different challenges and identify appropriate approaches for their contexts.

4.4.2 5.4.2 Institutional Support Network for RCMs

Although external communities and networks of like-minded people become crucial for personal development, they often don’t respond to organisational complexity. There needs to be a more systematic solution for support for professionalising RCM roles within an organisation. In a traditional research team, senior members and leaders of projects are expected to offer general leadership guidance and advice, but in the case of RCMs, they may not always have the time, expertise or resources to professionally support their community management work. This can lead to individual RCMs working alone or feeling isolated when advocating for the community’s interests in their projects by themselves. This is where a dedicated RCM team can provide a more sustainable infrastructure for the professional development of RCM roles within the institution. An organisationally-supported RCM team offers structured mentorship, training and hands-on support to all RCMs at the organisation. As shared in the example from the Turing, the RCM team manages, supports and coordinates with other RCMs working on different projects. They apply general team management approaches, such as team onboarding, training and regular meetings to keep each other updated and offer ad-hoc support. They also engage in more targeted activities such as team development activities, shadowing and a regular reporting process to improve skills and support for RCMs. They offer need-based consultation on other projects, participate in strategic development discussions and communicate about the team’s work at institutional or external platforms to establish and advocate for their professional identities. We discuss this aspect in detail in the next section.

5 6 An RCM Team Can Respond to Institutional Barriers to Community Building

RCM roles are often designed to facilitate collaborations with different stakeholders within and beyond the project as needed. To engage different specialist groups from beyond the project team, they build a good understanding of what different departments and specialist groups at an organisation do, how they operate, where they should be involved and what expertise can be invited at different stages of a project. Despite their efforts to connect and engage across an organisation, there are systemic challenges that can pose barriers and restrict the success of the RCM roles, some of which include:

It is within the scope of RCM’s responsibilities to facilitate collaboration between the project team and other specialist groups including external stakeholders they can work with in addressing a research question. However, it is impossible for one person alone - even a skilled RCM - to build comprehensive knowledge about different specialist groups unless all members of the project participate in community building ( [ 64 ] , [ 139 ] ).

When the right collaborators are identified, RCMs are tasked with onboarding and actively involving them in the project. However, if researchers do not see direct values of open collaboration or lack the capacity to engage with new collaborators in the broader scope of the project, it can pose a major challenge for RCMs in achieving their goals in the project [ 29 ] , [ 47 ] .

A project team may be fully supportive of RCM work, but if they lack buy-in from institutional leadership and therefore other stakeholders of the institute, RCMs’ efforts may go unrecognised, unsupported or not credited appropriately for the project’s success ( [ 149 ] ).

Arbitrary classification of RCMs as non-research or ‘research support from the sidelines’ can result in their exclusion from discussions relating to project strategy or decision-making that impacts the broader community. This can prevent RCMs from advocating for community interests and lead to overlooked opportunities in research that effective community management could otherwise bring to the project ( [ 101 ] ).

Such challenges can lead to underutilisation of RCMs’ professional expertise, leaving them unmotivated, excluded and burned out. Addressing these organisational challenges is, therefore, crucial for ensuring that RCM roles are successful in their roles. An institutionally supported RCM team can become an organisational response and systemic solution for navigating organisational complexity in building research communities ( [ 94 ] , [ 174 ] ).

5.1 6.1 Advantages of RCM Teams as part of the Professionalisation of Community Management

A key advantage of operating as a team over isolated RCM roles lies in the ability to facilitate cross-community collaboration, retaining and enhancing institutional knowledge from across different projects. As a well-connected group, RCMs are also able to extend existing research-based solutions and partnerships from one context to another. Leveraging the existing knowledge of experienced members, RCMs can readily identify people and teams from beyond their respective projects, build on existing partnerships and engage with specialists on specific objectives. As part of a research project, RCMs are responsible for project-specific CoPs, and as a part of the RCM team they provide leadership in bringing alignments between different project-specific CoPs at the organisation level. By strengthening connections between different efforts, the RCM team promotes cross-exchange of reproducible and generalisable research outputs that may otherwise remain limited to individual projects. Members of an RCM team collectively maintain and re-use community resources, standardised practices and infrastructures that can be adapted across different projects. In the context of professionalisation, RCM teams exhibit institutional commitments to both building research communities and offering professional support for RCMs through prolonged mentoring, coaching and peer-to-peer support. RCMs in collaboration with other team members build standard approaches for community management across the organisation and improve efficiency by reusing existing resources, maximising the return on investment already made by the organisation. RCM teams improve accessibility, benefits, and impact of project outcomes, as well as facilitate continuous learning for all stakeholders. They transfer knowledge between projects, both scientifically and socially, facilitating new collaborations and interdisciplinary research ideas between groups that may otherwise depend on chanced interactions. Mentoring new RCMs, and eventually managing a team of RCMs is a natural career progression for experienced RCMs, such as in the case of the Turing’s Senior RCMs and leads of the RCM team (Figure 5). Senior members of the team are involved in recruiting, onboarding and training new members who may bring varying levels of domain expertise and different community management approaches. They guide other RCMs in their day-to-day tasks and support the team in exchanging resources and developing best practices at the institutional level. They also bring systems-level understanding, passing down institutional knowledge from their work and connecting RCMs to other opportunities that can help them gain new skills and recognition within the organisation. Beyond project-based obligations, members of the RCM team support and maintain theoretical and practical knowledge within a project in the form of shared documentation, tools, methods and technical or non-technical reports. Their leadership in sharing and dissemination of these resources through central repositories, open communication, publications and advocacy through professional networks should be supported and recognised like any other research output.

5.2 6.2 Routes to Formalising RCM Roles in Resource-Constrained Organisations

We recognise that cost constraints may hinder the hiring of dedicated RCMs in some organisations, especially in universities with limited resources and research institutions with restricted investments in emerging opportunities ( [ 168 ] ). However, research organisations can take various approaches to recognise and encourage community management skills, contributing to professionalisation efforts even when new RCM roles cannot be formalised. For example, using the RCM Skills and Competencies Framework (described in section 4.2), research teams can incorporate RCM skills and responsibilities into existing job descriptions for researchers. Researchers in a project can also share RCM responsibilities as part of their role within a project. Especially for projects that are interdisciplinary or should involve multiple stakeholders, different roles within a research team can integrate best practices from across core and peripheral aspects of RCM work even when RCM roles can’t be formally allocated. In the absence of institutional capacity to support teams of full-time RCMs, we discourage RCM responsibilities from being delegated only to a few willing researchers without appropriate recognition and compensation, or consideration for their career development ( [ 150 ] ). Institutions can provide mechanisms for researchers with an interest in community management to gain community management experience as part of a CoP such as an interest group. Participation in these spaces can be supported through paid roles such as project-based fellowship opportunities or through skill development support through professional training. Organisations can also create part-time or short-term community management roles. However, these roles should be designed with defined goals, for example, the development of non-traditional research outputs, implementing open source and reproducibility practices or specific community engagement opportunities.

5.3 6.3 Adopting Approaches for the RCM Profession from the RSE Movement

The RSE profession offers a strong model of professionalisation of emerging roles in data science ( [ 85 ] , [ 148 ] , [ 187 ] ). As an emerging profession with relatively new ways of working in socio-technical contexts of research and data science, RCMs can build on the approaches that have led to the success of the RSE movement. RCM teams can already draw enormously from established teams of RSEs, such as the Turing’s Research Engineering Group. They can also combine their efforts with the RSE community to exchange practices for the professionalisation of new RTPs and infrastructure roles in interdisciplinary research ( [ 143 ] , [ 157 ] ). In addition, research-based technical approaches and evolving practices of community management should be supported by organisations, funders and policymakers to support healthy, resilient and thriving CoPs instrumental for strengthening RRI nationally and internationally ( [ 73 ] , [ 116 ] ). In addition, RCMs should be supported as researchers in their own profession and practices contributing to the advancement of this profession. For example, members of the RCM team should be encouraged to engage with the national and international initiatives involved in the recognition and professionalisation of data science roles. In collaboration with other RTPs, RCMs can contribute to building sustainable resources, promote open source practices, and enhance training and career pathways, creating a more integrated and supportive environment for RTPs and infrastructure roles as part of team science. Turing’s RCM team members contribute to initiatives such as HiddenREF, People in Data (UKRI and EPSRC funded RTP project), UK Reproducibility Network, OSPOs for Good and Society of RSE, where they present their work advocating for RCM roles alongside other RTPs. Building on the momentum of the RSE movement, the Turing’s RCM team leads have also been researching the professionalisation of diverse data science roles (Table 1, project 5) and developing resources, including this article, for better recognition of the Research Community Management as an important data science profession ( [ 84 ] , [ 143 ] ).

6 7 Conclusion

Establishing RCM roles as a viable career path requires recognising community management as a dedicated occupation distinct from part-time or side jobs expected to be fulfilled by volunteer positions. RCMs take a broad spectrum of responsibilities in research teams and embed a diverse range of skills and competencies that part-time or incidental roles cannot fulfil. Research teams and organisations should, therefore, hold responsibility for prioritising community-related objectives to improve collaboration in their research. RCMs can lead on these objectives, while being fairly recognised, supported and compensated for their work in engaging research stakeholders including the community of users and beneficiaries appropriately with different aspects of research. Well-defined RCM roles as a professional option will broaden career opportunities for researchers including PhD students and postdocs beyond the traditional academic path. This article offers a Community Maturation Indicator and an RCM Skills and Competencies Framework for community management roles, conceptualised for research and data science organisations. These frameworks can be used for creating RCM roles and incorporating community management expertise in multi-stakeholder research projects and interdisciplinary initiatives on research and data science. In addition, we proposed a roadmap for professionalising RCM roles by building a shared understanding of their skills and competencies, recognition and rewards, career pathways and support infrastructure. Since the focus of RCM roles is different from traditional research roles, their work should not be measured in terms of traditional research activities, such as producing research articles that are typically used to assess a project’s success, but across different areas of research as discussed in this article. Alongside policies and initiatives supporting the improvement and reformation of academic incentives and rewards, this article aims to influence research assessment frameworks, so that different kinds of contributions to research, such as community building, are considered important for research career progression. The slow evolution of research assessment metrics and outdated measures of success should not hinder the professional recognition of RCMs and their career advancement. In this article, we have shared insights from The Alan Turing Institute, a national institute in the UK that leverages its convening role to foster communities of researchers, practitioners and decision-makers to navigate and address complex societal challenges with data science and AI. At the Turing, RCMs work alongside traditional research roles, such as project leads, postdoc and doctoral researchers and RTPs or infrastructure roles like RSEs, Data Wranglers and RAMs that constitute the institute’s core capabilities involved in the development of data science and AI solutions responsibly in the real-world contexts. With different frameworks and case studies from the Turing’s RCM team, we provide a working example of how institutions can integrate community management expertise across different projects and incentivise community collaboration as an important part of research goals. Evidence-based resources, such as this article, sharing insights from organisationally supported RCM teams will contribute to the broader professionalisation efforts of RTPs and infrastructure roles, especially in the contexts where RCM roles have yet to be formalised. With examples from the Turing, we strongly recommend that institutions invest in establishing RCM teams and formalising individual RCM roles. RCM teams provide RCMs with early feedback on their work, peer mentoring to support their professional development and share collaborative opportunities that they may otherwise not have in their specific project. As institutionally supported research groups, RCM teams can systematically dismantle the silos that traditionally exist in academic research, fostering more connected research teams and maximising the impact of their outcomes.

7 Authors Contribution Statement

Conceptualisation: MS, EK, AL, KW

Funding acquisition: KW, MS, EK, AB

Supervision: KW, MS, EK

Project Administration: KW, MS, EK, AB, AAA

Writing – Original Draft Preparation: MS, EK

Writing – Case studies from the Turing: VH, GK, AAA, SB, ALS, MS, EK

Writing – Original Draft Review: MS, EK, VH, CGVP, GK, AB, KW

Writing – Original Draft Editing: MS, KW

8 Acknowledgement

We, the authors of this manuscript, would like to express our sincere gratitude to the Tools, Practices, and Systems team, especially the Research Application Managers, Senior Researchers, and Research Project Managers for their invaluable support to the Research Community Management team. We also thank the Turing project teams, research staff and collaborators for their support and engagement with our team. We would like to thank Professor Rachel Hilliam for her discussions, encouragement, and valuable feedback on earlier versions of this paper as part of the Turing’s Skills Policy project, ’Professionalising Traditional and Infrastructure Research Roles in Data Science’. We express our gratitude to The Turing’s Skills team for their support in developing the related research outputs funded by the Skills Policy Award between 2023 and 2024. Finally, we extend our thanks to The Turing Way community and the members of the communities supported by the RCMs, whose contributions to various CoPs and engagement with community management have been essential to the development of the RCM roles.

9 Declarations of Conflict of Interest

The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

EK and MS’ work on this paper was supported by the Alan Turing Institute’s Skills Policy Award, supported by the Ecosystem Leadership Award under the EPSRC Grant EP/X03870X/1. This work was also initiated through Wave 1 of The UKRI Strategic Priorities Fund under the EPSRC Grant EP/T001569/1 and EPSRC Grant EP/W006022/1, particularly the “The Tools, Practices and Systems” theme” within those grants. All authors acknowledge support from the Alan Turing Institute. Members of the Research Community Management Team work on multiple data science and AI projects at the Alan Turing Institute, and therefore, we would also like to acknowledge the following funding sources that fund their positions:

MS and AAA’s roles in The Turing Way Practitioners Hub and BridgeAI are funded by Innovate UK BridgeAI. This project has also received funding and support from the Ecosystem Leadership Award under the EPSRC Grant EP/X03870X/1. KW is funded as the principal investigator for BridgeAI.

EK was an SRCM for the Turing-RSS Health Data Lab, funded by The Department for Health and Social Care (Grant Ref: 2020/045) with in-kind support from The Alan Turing Institute and The Royal Statistical Society.

VH is an RCM for the Turing-Roche Strategic Partnership; funded by Roche through a five-year strategic investment in this research partnership.

GK is an SRCM for Data-Centric Engineering Programme; funded under the Lloyd’s Register Foundation grant G0095.

CGVP is an SRCM for Environment and Sustainability Grand Challenge, funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (Grant number EP/Y028880/1)

EK and SB’s roles are funded by the NIHR Artificial Intelligence for Multiple Long-Term Conditions (AIM) Research Support Facility (NIHR202647). The views expressed are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the NIHR or the Department of Health and Social Care. KW is funded as the principal investigator for the AIM RSF.

101 [2024] ResearchOps 101. Researchops 101, 2024. URL https://web.archive.org/web/20240616083719/https://www.nngroup.com/articles/research-ops-101/ .
Abbott [1991] ANDREW Abbott. The order of professionalization. Work and occupations , 18(4):355–384, Nov 1991. 10.1177/0730888491018004001 .
AIM-RSF [2024] AIM-RSF. Ai for multiple long term conditions - research support facility, 2024. URL https://www.turing.ac.uk/research/research-projects/ai-multiple-long-term-conditions-research-support-facility .
Allen and Mehler [2019] Christopher Allen and David M A Mehler. Open science challenges, benefits and tips in early career and beyond. PLoS Biology , 17(5):e3000246, May 2019. 10.1371/journal.pbio.3000246 .
Ambler [2000] Scott Ambler. Reuse through internal open source — dr dobb’s, Dec 2000. URL https://www.drdobbs.com/reuse-through-internal-open-source/184414685 .
AOSP [2024] AOSP. Aosp – african open science platform, 2024. URL https://web.archive.org/web/20240803103351/https://aosp.org.za/ .
Arnstein [2020] Sherry Arnstein. “A ladder of citizen participation” , page 290–302. Routledge, May 2020. ISBN 9780429261732. 10.4324/9780429261732-36 .
Arpino [2022] Sam Arpino. Identifying strategies for event professionals to incorporate dei (diversity, equity, and inclusion) practices into their work: Faculty digital archive: Nyu libraries, 2022. URL http://hdl.handle.net/2451/63974 .
ASG [2024] ASG. Ai for science and government, 2024. URL https://www.turing.ac.uk/about-us/impact/asg .
Bacon [2009] Jono Bacon. The Art of Community: Building the New Age of Participation (Theory in Practice) . O’Reilly Media, 1 edition, Aug 2009. ISBN 9780596156718.
Baier [1997] Annette C. Baier. Doing things with others: the mental commons , page 15–44. Palgrave Macmillan UK, 1997. ISBN 978-1-349-25602-0. 10.1007/978-1-349-25602-0_2 .
Baker [2016] Monya Baker. 1,500 scientists lift the lid on reproducibility. Nature , 533(7604):452–454 (GSM 2024 h5–index 488), May 2016. 10.1038/533452a .
Bammer et al. [2020] Gabriele Bammer, Michael O’Rourke, Deborah O’Connell, Linda Neuhauser, Gerald Midgley, Julie Thompson Klein, Nicola J. Grigg, Howard Gadlin, Ian R. Elsum, Marcel Bursztyn, Elizabeth A. Fulton, Christian Pohl, Michael Smithson, Ulli Vilsmaier, Matthias Bergmann, Jill Jaeger, Femke Merkx, Bianca Vienni Baptista, Mark A. Burgman, Daniel H. Walker, and George P. Richardson. Expertise in research integration and implementation for tackling complex problems: when is it needed, where can it be found and how can it be strengthened? Palgrave communications , 6(1):5, Dec 2020. 10.1057/s41599-019-0380-0 .
Barker Scott and Manning [2024] Brenda A. Barker Scott and Michael R. Manning. Designing the collaborative organization: A framework for how collaborative work, relationships, and behaviors generate collaborative capacity. The Journal of applied behavioral science , 60(1):149–193, Mar 2024. 10.1177/00218863221106245 .
Base [2024] ADViCE Knowledge Base, 2024. URL https://www.turing.ac.uk/research/research-projects/advice/knowledge-base-0 .
Beckham et al. [2023] Tira L. Beckham, Bethany B. Cutts, Louie Rivers, Kathie Dello, Laura A. Bray, and Olivia Vilá. Bridge builders – leadership and social capital in disaster recovery governance. International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction , 96:103942, Oct 2023. 10.1016/j.ijdrr.2023.103942 .
Benishek and Lazzara [2019] Lauren E Benishek and Elizabeth H Lazzara. Teams in a new era: some considerations and implications. Frontiers in Psychology , 10:1006, May 2019. 10.3389/fpsyg.2019.01006 .
Birhane et al. [2022] Abeba Birhane, William Isaac, Vinodkumar Prabhakaran, Mark Diaz, Madeleine Clare Elish, Iason Gabriel, and Shakir Mohamed. Power to the people? opportunities and challenges for participatory ai. In Equity and Access in Algorithms, Mechanisms, and Optimization , page 1–8. ACM, Oct 2022. ISBN 9781450394772. 10.1145/3551624.3555290 .
Birnholtz [2006] Jeremy P. Birnholtz. What does it mean to be an author? the intersection of credit, contribution, and collaboration in science. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology , 57(13):1758–1770, Nov 2006. 10.1002/asi.20380 .
Boaz and Ashby [2003] Annette Boaz and Deborah Ashby. Fit for purpose? assessing research quality for evidence based policy and practice. researchgate , Jan 2003.
Bonney et al. [2014] Rick Bonney, Jennifer L Shirk, Tina B Phillips, Andrea Wiggins, Heidi L Ballard, Abraham J Miller-Rushing, and Julia K Parrish. Next steps for citizen science. Science , 343(6178):1436–1437, Mar 2014. 10.1126/science.1251554 .
Borghi and Van Gulick [2022] John Borghi and Ana Van Gulick. Promoting open science through research data management. Harvard Data Science Review , Jul 2022. 10.1162/99608f92.9497f68e .
Borzillo et al. [2011] Stefano Borzillo, Stéphane Aznar, and Achim Schmitt. A journey through communities of practice: How and why members move from the periphery to the core. European Management Journal , 29(1):25–42, Feb 2011. 10.1016/j.emj.2010.08.004 .
Botto [2008] Francesco Botto. A socio-technical infrastructures framework for community networks. In 2008 Third International Conference on Communications and Networking in China , page 1342–1347. IEEE, Aug 2008. ISBN 978-1-4244-2373-6. 10.1109/CHINACOM.2008.4685275 .
Brandmaier et al. [2024] Andreas Markus Brandmaier, Maximilian Ernst, and Aaron Peikert. Commentary: “responsible research assessment ii: A specific proposal for hiring and promotion in psychology”. Molecular Pathogens , 8, Mar 2024. 10.15626/MP.2023.3715 .
Bratman [2014] Michael E. Bratman. Shared agency: A planning theory of acting together . Oxford University Press, Jan 2014. ISBN 9780199897933. 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199897933.001.0001 .
Braňka and Organization [2016] Jiří Braňka and International Labour Organization. Understanding the potential impact of skills recognition systems on labour markets: research report . ILO, 2016., 2016. ISBN 9789221313540.
BridgeAI [2024] Turing BridgeAI. Turing - bridgeai, 2024. URL https://web.archive.org/web/20230718233859/https://www.turing.ac.uk/partnering-turing/current-partnerships-and-collaborations/bridgeai .
Brocke and Lippe [2015] Jan vom Brocke and Sonia Lippe. Managing collaborative research projects: A synthesis of project management literature and directives for future research. International Journal of Project Management , 33(5):1022–1039, Jul 2015. 10.1016/j.ijproman.2015.02.001 .
Broussard [2024] Meredith Broussard. More than a Glitch: Confronting Race, Gender, and Ability Bias in Tech . The MIT Press, 2024. ISBN 9780262548328.
Brown [2024] Gavin Brown. A broader view of research contributions: Necessary adjustments to dora for hiring and promotion in psychology. Molecular Pathogens , 8, Mar 2024. 10.15626/MP.2022.3652 .
Buolamwini [2023] Joy Buolamwini. Unmasking AI: My Mission to Protect What Is Human in a World of Machines . Random House, first edition, Oct 2023. ISBN 9780593241837.
Camerer et al. [2018] Colin F Camerer, Anna Dreber, Felix Holzmeister, Teck-Hua Ho, Jürgen Huber, Magnus Johannesson, Michael Kirchler, Gideon Nave, Brian A Nosek, Thomas Pfeiffer, Adam Altmejd, Nick Buttrick, Taizan Chan, Yiling Chen, Eskil Forsell, Anup Gampa, Emma Heikensten, Lily Hummer, Taisuke Imai, Siri Isaksson, and Hang Wu. Evaluating the replicability of social science experiments in nature and science between 2010 and 2015. Nature Human Behaviour , 2(9):637–644, Sep 2018. 10.1038/s41562-018-0399-z .
Chakravorty et al. [2022] Nishant Chakravorty, Chandra Shekhar Sharma, Kutubuddin A. Molla, and Jitendra Kumar Pattanaik. Open science: challenges, possible solutions and the way forward. Proceedings of the Indian National Science Academy , Sep 2022. 10.1007/s43538-022-00104-2 .
Charitsis and Lehtiniemi [2023] Vassilis Charitsis and Tuukka Lehtiniemi. Data ableism: ability expectations and marginalization in automated societies. Television & New Media , 24(1):3–18, Jan 2023. 10.1177/15274764221077660 .
Claerbout and Karrenbach [1992] Jon F. Claerbout and Martin Karrenbach. Electronic documents give reproducible research a new meaning. In SEG Technical Program Expanded Abstracts 1992 , page 601–604. Society of Exploration Geophysicists, Jan 1992. 10.1190/1.1822162 .
Clauss [2018] Alexander Clauss. How to train tomorrow’s corporate trainers – core competences for community managers. In 2018 17th International Conference on Information Technology Based Higher Education and Training (ITHET) , page 1–8. IEEE, Apr 2018. ISBN 978-1-5386-4623-6. 10.1109/ITHET.2018.8424806 .
CoARA [2024] CoARA. Coara - coalition for advancing research assessment, 2024. URL https://web.archive.org/web/20240722161541/https://coara.eu/ .
Cohn [2008] Jeffrey P. Cohn. Citizen science: Can volunteers do real research? Bioscience , 58(3):192, 2008. 10.1641/B580303 .
Collaboration [2015] Open Science Collaboration. Estimating the reproducibility of psychological science. Science , 349(6251):aac4716, Aug 2015. 10.1126/science.aac4716 .
Commitment [2024] Technicians Commitment. Technicians commitment, 2024. URL https://web.archive.org/web/20240725070152/https://www.techniciancommitment.org.uk/ .
Community [2024] The Turing Way Community. Research infrastructure roles, the turing way, https://book.the-turing-way.org/collaboration/research-infrastructure-roles, 2024. URL https://zenodo.org/doi/10.5281/zenodo.3233853 .
Council [2002] National Research Council. Scientific research in education . National Academies Press, 2002. ISBN 978-0-309-08291-4. 10.17226/10236 .
Crawford et al. [2006] Lynn Crawford, Peter Morris, Janice Thomas, and Mark Winter. Practitioner development: From trained technicians to reflective practitioners. International Journal of Project Management , 24(8):722–733, Nov 2006. 10.1016/j.ijproman.2006.09.010 .
CSCCE [2024] CSCCE. Cscce, 2024. URL https://www.cscce.org/ .
de Bayser et al. [2015] Maximilien de Bayser, Leonardo G. Azevedo, and Renato Cerqueira. Researchops: The case for devops in scientific applications. In 2015 IFIP/IEEE International Symposium on Integrated Network Management (IM) , page 1398–1404. IEEE, May 2015. ISBN 978-1-4799-8241-7. 10.1109/INM.2015.7140503 .
Delgadillo [2016] Lucy M. Delgadillo. Best practices for collaboration in research. Family and Consumer Sciences Research Journal , 45(1):5–8, Sep 2016. 10.1111/fcsr.12175 .
Dewi et al. [2022] Ni Wayan Kurnia Dewi, I Made Dwi Jendra Sulastra, and I Made Agus Putrayasa. Effectiveness of pay for performance incentive system on projects performance. Medicolegal and Bioethics , 14(2):159–166, Sep 2022. 10.34208/mb.v14i2.1662 .
deWinter et al. [2017] Jennifer deWinter, Carly A. Kocurek, and Stephanie Vie. Managing community managers. Communication Design Quarterly Review , 4(4):36–45, Mar 2017. 10.1145/3071088.3071092 .
Di Benedetto et al. [2019] C. Anthony Di Benedetto, Adam Lindgreen, Marianne Storgaard, and Ann Højbjerg Clarke. How to collaborate really well with practitioners. Industrial Marketing Management , 82:1–8, Oct 2019. 10.1016/j.indmarman.2019.08.001 .
DORA [2024] DORA. Dora, 2024. URL https://web.archive.org/web/20240730175804/https://sfdora.org/ .
Draper and Maguire [2023] Steve Draper and Joseph Maguire. The different types of contributions to knowledge (in cer): all needed, but not all recognised. ACM Transactions on Computing Education , 23(1):1–36, Mar 2023. 10.1145/3487053 .
Eder et al. [2012] Milton Eder, Jonahan N Tobin, Michelle Proser, and Peter Shin. Special issue introduction: building a stronger science of community-engaged research. Progress in community health partnerships: research, education, and action , 6(3):227–230, 2012. 10.1353/cpr.2012.0040 .
EOSC [2024] EOSC. Eosc-a task forces - eosc association, 2024. URL https://web.archive.org/web/20240629204809/https://eosc.eu/eosc-task-forces/ .
EPSRC [2024] UKRI & EPSRC. Uk funding to support research technical professionals, 2024. URL https://www.ukri.org/news/new-funding-to-support-research-technical-professionals/ .
EUROPEAN COMMISSION [2016] Directorate-General for Research & Innovation EUROPEAN COMMISSION. H2020 Programme Guidelines on FAIR Data Management in Horizon 2020 . EC, Jul 2016.
F. Amauchi et al. [2021] Juliana F. F. Amauchi, Maeva Gauthier, Abdolzaher Ghezeljeh, Leandro L. L. Giatti, Katlyn Keats, Dare Sholanke, Danae Zachari, and Jutta Gutberlet. The power of community-based participatory research: Ethical and effective ways of researching. Community Development , page 1–18, Jul 2021. 10.1080/15575330.2021.1936102 .
Fadel and Durcikova [2014] Kelly J. Fadel and Alexandra Durcikova. Enhancing the motivation, opportunity, and ability of knowledge workers to participate in knowledge exchange. In 2014 47th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences , page 3605–3614. IEEE, Jan 2014. ISBN 978-1-4799-2504-9. 10.1109/HICSS.2014.449 .
FEVERBEE [2024] FEVERBEE. Feverbee, 2024. URL https://www.feverbee.com/ .
Garbers and Konradt [2014] Yvonne Garbers and Udo Konradt. The effect of financial incentives on performance: A quantitative review of individual and team-based financial incentives. Journal of occupational and organizational psychology , 87(1):102–137, Mar 2014. 10.1111/joop.12039 .
Gardner [2015] Ian Gardner. Governance of the project team How to set up and organise the project team , page 58–61. Routledge, May 2015. ISBN 9781315743349. 10.4324/9781315743349-12 .
Glerup and Horst [2014] Cecilie Glerup and Maja Horst. Mapping ‘social responsibility’ in science. Journal of Responsible Innovation , 1(1):31–50, Jan 2014. 10.1080/23299460.2014.882077 .
Goffi [2021] Emmanuel Goffi. Escaping the western cosm-ethical hegemony: The importance of cultural diversity in the ethical assessment of artificial intelligence. AI Ethics Journal , 2(2), Jul 2021. 10.47289/AIEJ20210716-1 .
Golenko et al. [2012] Xanthe Golenko, Susan Pager, and Libby Holden. A thematic analysis of the role of the organisation in building allied health research capacity: a senior managers’ perspective. BMC Health Services Research , 12:276, Aug 2012. 10.1186/1472-6963-12-276 .
Gould van Praag [2024] Cassandra Gould van Praag. E&s gc stakholder mapping. Zenodo , 2024. 10.5281/zenodo.10687525 .
Governance [2024] EARMA Governance. Earma governance, 2024. URL https://web.archive.org/web/20240801093416/https://earma.org/about/governance/ .
Grahe [2021] Jon Grahe. A Replication Crisis , page 1–13. Routledge, Jul 2021. ISBN 9781003033851. 10.4324/9781003033851-1 .
Haeussler and Sauermann [2013] Carolin Haeussler and Henry Sauermann. Credit where credit is due? the impact of project contributions and social factors on authorship and inventorship. Research Policy , 42(3):688–703, Apr 2013. 10.1016/j.respol.2012.09.009 .
Held [2023] Mirjam Held. Decolonizing science: undoing the colonial and racist hegemony of western science. Journal of multidisciplinary evaluation , 19(44), Jul 2023. 10.56645/jmde.v19i44.785 .
Hettrick [2018] Simon Hettrick. A not-so-brief history of research software engineers, Jan 2018. URL https://zenodo.org/records/10076740 .
HiddenREF [2024] HiddenREF. The hidden ref – celebrating all research outputs, 2024. URL https://web.archive.org/web/20240613235129/https://hidden-ref.org/ .
Hislop et al. [2018] Donald Hislop, Rachelle Bosua, and Remko Helms. The Influence of Socio-cultural Factors in Motivating Workers to Participate in Knowledge Management Initiatives . Oxford University Press, Mar 2018. ISBN 9780198724018. 10.1093/hebz/9780198724018.003.0016 .
Hoeven et al. [2013] Jeroen Hoeven, Klaus Jacob, Linda Nielsen, Francoise Roure, and Jack Stilgoe. Options for strenghtening responsible research and innovation - report of the expert group on the state of art in europe on responsible research and innovation. researchgate , Jan 2013.
Holcombe [2019] Alex O. Holcombe. Contributorship, not authorship. OSF , Apr 2019. 10.31234/osf.io/dt6e8 .
Horn [2016] Klaus-Peter Horn. Profession, professionalisation, professionality, professionalism — historical and systematic remarks using the example of german teacher education. British Journal of Religious Education , 38(2):130–140, May 2016. 10.1080/01416200.2016.1139888 .
Horta and Li [2023] Hugo Horta and Huan Li. Research funding and academics’ scholarly performance , page 322–338. Edward Elgar Publishing, Mar 2023. ISBN 9781800883079. 10.4337/9781800883086.00027 .
Hughes et al. [2018] David J. Hughes, Allan Lee, Amy Wei Tian, Alex Newman, and Alison Legood. Leadership, creativity, and innovation: A critical review and practical recommendations. The leadership quarterly , 29(5):549–569, Mar 2018. 10.1016/j.leaqua.2018.03.001 .
Institute [2024] The Alan Turing Institute. The alan turing institute, 2024. URL https://www.turing.ac.uk/ .
Institute and Hellon [2023] The Alan Turing Institute and V Hellon. The turing-roche scholar scheme, 2023. URL https://web.archive.org/web/20240629174630/https://book.the-turing-way.org/collaboration/ambassador-schemes .
Ioannidis [2019] John P.A. Ioannidis. Why most published research findings are false. CHANCE , 32(1):4–13, Jan 2019. 10.1080/09332480.2019.1579573 .
Izquierdo-Cortazar et al. [2022] Daniel Izquierdo-Cortazar, Jesus Alonso-Gutierrez, Alberto Perez Garcia-Plaza, Gregorio Robles, and Jesus M. Gonzalez-Barahona. Starting the innersource journey: Key goals and metrics to measure collaboration. In Proceedings of the 19th International Conference on Mining Software Repositories , page 105–106. ACM, May 2022. ISBN 9781450393034. 10.1145/3524842.3528044 .
Jimenez Santamaria [2021] Ana Jimenez Santamaria. How can ospos & collaboration accelerate innovation and digital transformation?, Nov 2021. URL https://todogroup.org/blog/how-can-ospo-accelerate-innovation-and-digital-transformation/ .
Kaisler and Missbach [2020] Raphaela E Kaisler and Benjamin Missbach. Co-creating a patient and public involvement and engagement “how to” guide for researchers. Research Involvement and Engagement , 6:32, Jun 2020. 10.1186/s40900-020-00208-3 .
Karoune and Sharan [2024] Emma Karoune and Malvika Sharan. Data science team personas: case study from the alan turing institute. Zenodo , 2024. 10.5281/zenodo.11658994 .
Katz and Hettrick [2023] Daniel S. Katz and Simon Hettrick. Research software engineering in 2030. In 2023 IEEE 19th International Conference on e-Science (e-Science) , page 1–2. IEEE, Oct 2023. ISBN 979-8-3503-2223-1. 10.1109/e-Science58273.2023.10254813 .
Kavianpour et al. [2022] Sanaz Kavianpour, James Sutherland, Esma Mansouri-Benssassi, Natalie Coull, and Emily Jefferson. Next-generation capabilities in trusted research environments: Interview study. Journal of Medical Internet Research , 24(9):e33720, Sep 2022. 10.2196/33720 .
Khedhaouria and Jamal [2015] Anis Khedhaouria and Arshad Jamal. Sourcing knowledge for innovation: knowledge reuse and creation in project teams. Journal of Knowledge Management , 19(5):932–948, Sep 2015. 10.1108/JKM-01-2015-0039 .
King et al. [2024] Simmy King, Renee Roberts-Turner, and Tara Taylor Floyd. Inclusive leadership: A framework to advance diversity, equity, inclusion, and cultivate belonging. Nurse leader , 22(2):132–139, Apr 2024. 10.1016/j.mnl.2023.11.006 .
Klandermans [1985] Bert Klandermans. Individuals and collective action. American Sociological Review , 50(6):860, Dec 1985. 10.2307/2095510 .
Kulkarni et al. [2000] Rajendra G Kulkarni, Roger R Stough, and Kingsley E Haynes. Towards modeling of communities of practice (cops). Technological forecasting and social change , 64(1):71–83, May 2000. 10.1016/S0040-1625(99)00071-2 .
Landi et al. [2020] Annalisa Landi, Mark Thompson, Viviana Giannuzzi, Fedele Bonifazi, Ignasi Labastida, Luiz Olavo Bonino da Silva Santos, and Marco Roos. The “a” of fair – as open as possible, as closed as necessary. Data Intelligence , 2(1–2):47–55, Jan 2020. 10.1162/dint_a_00027 .
Lave and Wenger [1991] Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger. Situated Learning . Cambridge University Press, 1991. ISBN 9780511815355. 10.1017/CBO9780511815355 .
Leavy [2018] Susan Leavy. Gender bias in artificial intelligence: The need for diversity and gender theory in machine learning. In Proceedings of the 1st International Workshop on Gender Equality in Software Engineering - GE ’18 , page 14–16. ACM Press, May 2018. ISBN 9781450357388. 10.1145/3195570.3195580 .
Leonelli and Ankeny [2015] Sabina Leonelli and Rachel A Ankeny. Repertoires: How to transform a project into a research community. Bioscience , 65(7):701–708, Jul 2015. 10.1093/biosci/biv061 .
Lesser and Prusak [2000] Eric Lesser and Laurence Prusak. Communities of practice, social capital and organizational knowledge , page 123–131. Elsevier, 2000. ISBN 9780750672931. 10.1016/B978-0-7506-7293-1.50011-1 .
Li et al. [2009] Linda C Li, Jeremy M Grimshaw, Camilla Nielsen, Maria Judd, Peter C Coyte, and Ian D Graham. Evolution of wenger’s concept of community of practice. Implementation Science , 4:11, Mar 2009. 10.1186/1748-5908-4-11 .
Lohr [2004] Kathleen N Lohr. Rating the strength of scientific evidence: relevance for quality improvement programs. International Journal for Quality in Health Care , 16(1):9–18, Feb 2004. 10.1093/intqhc/mzh005 .
Love P [2006] Irani Z Love P, Fong P. Co-creation of knowledge by multidisciplinary project teams , page 56–71. Routledge, Aug 2006. ISBN 9780080455358. 10.4324/9780080455358-9 .
Lusk [2019] Bradley G. Lusk. The importance of the democratic and multidirectional exchange of values between scientists, stem educators, and historically underrepresented members of the community. Journal of Responsible Innovation , 6(2):248–254, May 2019. 10.1080/23299460.2019.1571894 .
Luthans [2000] Kyle Luthans. Recognition: A powerful, but often overlooked, leadership tool to improve employee performance. Journal of Leadership Studies , 7(1):31–39, Jan 2000. 10.1177/107179190000700104 .
Macaulay et al. [1999] A C Macaulay, L E Commanda, W L Freeman, N Gibson, M L McCabe, C M Robbins, and P L Twohig. Participatory research maximises community and lay involvement. north american primary care research group. BMJ (Clinical Research Ed.) , 319(7212):774–778, Sep 1999. 10.1136/bmj.319.7212.774 .
Margherita et al. [2022] Alessandro Margherita, Gianluca Elia, and Claudio Petti. What is quality in research? building a framework of design, process and impact attributes and evaluation perspectives. Sustainability , 14(5):3034, Mar 2022. 10.3390/su14053034 .
Maria Rosaria [2000] CARILLO Maria Rosaria. The effect of professionalisation and the demand for social status on the adoption of new technologies. Rivista italiana degli economisti , (3):473–502, Feb 2000.
Martin et al. [2018] James Martin, Kathryn Cormican, Suzana C.B. Sampaio, and Qiong Wu. Shared leadership and team performance: An analysis of moderating factors. Procedia Computer Science , 138:671–679, 2018. 10.1016/j.procs.2018.10.089 .
Medeiros [2023] Yasmin Medeiros. Community management and ai: Navigating the future, Jun 2023. URL https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/community-management-ai-navigating-future-yasmin-medeiros .
Mensah [2023] George Benneh Mensah. Artificial intelligence and ethics: A comprehensive review of bias mitigation, transparency, and accountability in ai systems. Unpublished , 2023. 10.13140/rg.2.2.23381.19685/1 .
Michlmayr [2009] Martin Michlmayr. Community management in open source projects. The European Journal for the Informatics Professional , x(3):22–26, Jun 2009.
Morehouse et al. [2024] Kirsten N Morehouse, Benedek Kurdi, and Brian A Nosek. Responsible data sharing: Identifying and remedying possible re-identification of human participants. The American Psychologist , May 2024. 10.1037/amp0001346 .
Munir and Mols [2021] Hussan Munir and Carl-Erik Mols. The rise of open source program office. IT professional , 23(1):27–33, Jan 2021. 10.1109/MITP.2020.3019961 .
Nabatchi [2012] Tina Nabatchi. Putting the “public” back in public values research: designing participation to identify and respond to values. Public administration review , pages no–no, Mar 2012. 10.1111/j.1540-6210.2011.02544.x .
Nation [2024] United Nation. Un ospo for good, 2024. URL https://web.archive.org/web/20240803154717/https://www.un.org/techenvoy/content/open-source-digital-transformation .
Oliver [1984] Pamela Oliver. “if you don’t do it, nobody else will”: active and token contributors to local collective action. American Sociological Review , 49(5):601, Oct 1984. 10.2307/2095418 .
OLS [2024] OLS. Ols (open life science), 2024. URL https://web.archive.org/web/20240723110544/http://we-are-ols.org/ .
Oluikpe [2015] Paul Ihuoma Oluikpe. Knowledge creation and utilization in project teams. Journal of Knowledge Management , 19(2):351–371, Apr 2015. 10.1108/JKM-06-2014-0214 .
Openscapes [2024] Openscapes. Openscapes, 2024. URL https://web.archive.org/web/20240730221558/https://openscapes.org/ .
Owen et al. [2012] R Owen, P Macnaghten, and J Stilgoe. Responsible research and innovation: From science in society to science for society, with society. Science and Public Policy , 39(6):751–760, Dec 2012. 10.1093/scipol/scs093 .
Ozerturk and Yildirim [2021] Saltuk Ozerturk and Huseyin Yildirim. Credit attribution and collaborative work. Journal of economic theory , 195:105264, Jul 2021. 10.1016/j.jet.2021.105264 .
O’Neil [2016] Cathy O’Neil. Weapons of Math Destruction: How Big Data Increases Inequality and Threatens Democracy . Crown, 1 edition, Sep 2016. ISBN 978-0-553-41881-1.
Peck [1998] M. Scott Peck. The Different Drum: Community Making and Peace . Touchstone, 2nd touchstone edition, Jan 1998. ISBN 9780684848587.
Pompper [2024] Donnalyn Pompper. Future directions for developing competence as a DEI change manager , page 226–257. Routledge, Apr 2024. ISBN 9781003279129. 10.4324/9781003279129-11 .
Pownall et al. [2023] Madeleine Pownall, Flávio Azevedo, Laura M König, Hannah R Slack, Thomas Rhys Evans, Zoe Flack, Sandra Grinschgl, Mahmoud M Elsherif, Katie A Gilligan-Lee, Catia M F de Oliveira, Biljana Gjoneska, Tamara Kalandadze, Katherine Button, Sarah Ashcroft-Jones, Jenny Terry, Nihan Albayrak-Aydemir, Filip Děchtěrenko, Shilaan Alzahawi, Bradley J Baker, Merle-Marie Pittelkow, and FORRT. Teaching open and reproducible scholarship: a critical review of the evidence base for current pedagogical methods and their outcomes. Royal Society Open Science , 10(5):221255, May 2023. 10.1098/rsos.221255 .
PRISM [2024] PRISM. Prism network, 2024. URL https://web.archive.org/web/20240523121331/https://www.pris-managers.ac.uk/aboutprism .
R. Carter-Sowell et al. [2023] Adrienne R. Carter-Sowell, Gabe H. Miller, Asha Ganesan, Kimberle A. Kelly, Ran Wang, and Jaren D. Crist. Vol. 24 no. 1 (2023): Journal of stem education: Innovations and research — journal of stem education: Innovations and research, Sep 2023. URL https://www.jstem.org/jstem/index.php/JSTEM/issue/view/160 .
Racherla and Mandviwalla [2012] Pradeep Racherla and Munir Mandviwalla. Moving from access to use of the information infrastructure: A multi-level socio-technical framework. SSRN Electronic Journal , 2012. 10.2139/ssrn.2187042 .
Rai et al. [2018] Alka Rai, Piyali Ghosh, Ragini Chauhan, and Richa Singh. Improving in-role and extra-role performances with rewards and recognition. Management Research Review , 41(8):902–919, Aug 2018. 10.1108/MRR-12-2016-0280 .
Ratcheva [2009] Violina Ratcheva. Integrating diverse knowledge through boundary spanning processes – the case of multidisciplinary project teams. International Journal of Project Management , 27(3):206–215, Apr 2009. 10.1016/j.ijproman.2008.02.008 .
Recognition and Rewards [2024] Recognition and Rewards. Recognition and rewards programme, 2024. URL https://web.archive.org/web/20240721075406/https://recognitionrewards.nl/ .
Recommendation [2024] ICMJE Recommendation. Icmje — recommendations — defining the role of authors and contributors, 2024. URL https://www.icmje.org/recommendations/browse/roles-and-responsibilities/defining-the-role-of-authors-and-contributors.html .
Rennie [1997] Drummond Rennie. When authorship fails. The Journal of the American Medical Association , 278(7):579, Aug 1997. 10.1001/jama.1997.03550070071041 .
Repo [2024] RCM GitHub Repo. The turing’s rcm team - github, 2024. URL https://github.com/alan-turing-institute/open-research-community-management .
Rethlefsen et al. [2022] Melissa L. Rethlefsen, Hannah F. Norton, Sarah L. Meyer, Katherine A. MacWilkinson, Plato L. Smith, and Hao Ye. Interdisciplinary approaches and strategies from research reproducibility 2020: Educating for reproducibility. Journal of Statistics and Data Science Education , page 1–9, Sep 2022. 10.1080/26939169.2022.2104767 .
Rosado [2020] Ralph Rosado. Rethinking Arnstein’s Ladder , page 148–164. Routledge, Sep 2020. ISBN 9780429290091. 10.4324/9780429290091-13 .
Roundtable [2014] The Community Roundtable. Community skills framework (tm). The Community Roundtable , 2014.
Roundtable [2024] The Community Roundtable, 2024. URL https://communityroundtable.com/ .
Ruff [2022] Nithya Ruff. The rise of the open source program offices (OSPO) , page 395–407. Oxford University PressOxford, Oct 2022. ISBN 0198862342. 10.1093/oso/9780198862345.003.0019 .
Rushforth and De Rijcke [2024] Alexander Rushforth and Sarah De Rijcke. Practicing responsible research assessment: Qualitative study of faculty hiring, promotion, and tenure assessments in the united states. Research Evaluation , Mar 2024. 10.1093/reseval/rvae007 .
Saltzer [2020] Jerome H. Saltzer. The origin of the “mit license”. IEEE Annals of the History of Computing , 42(4):94–98, Oct 2020. 10.1109/MAHC.2020.3020234 .
Sansing and Cabunoc Mayes [2019] Chad Sansing and Abigail Cabunoc Mayes. Mozilla open leadership, 2019. URL https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/initiatives/mozilla-open-leaders/ .
Santos et al. [2021] José M. R. C. A. Santos, Carolina Varela, and Simon Kerridge. Professionals at the interface of science: is there more than meets the eye? Perspectives: Policy and Practice in Higher Education , 25(3):100–105, Jul 2021. 10.1080/13603108.2021.1881842 .
Scher et al. [2023] Benjamin D Scher, Juliet Scott-Barrett, Matthew Hickman, and Benjamin W Chrisinger. Participatory research emergent recommendations for researchers and academic institutions: A rapid scoping review. Journal of participatory research methods , 4(2), Jun 2023. 10.35844/001c.74807 .
Shafiq [2009] Farhat Shafiq. Performance management: rewarding employee performance. SSRN Electronic Journal , 2009. 10.2139/ssrn.2250011 .
Sharan [2020] Malvika Sharan. Ten arguments against open science that you can win, Dec 2020. URL https://www.software.ac.uk/blog/ten-arguments-against-open-science-you-can-win .
Sharan and Karoune [2024] Malvika Sharan and Emma Karoune. Evolving professional roles in data science across industries and academic research. Zenodo , 2024. 10.5281/zenodo.13242360 .
Sharan et al. [2023] Malvika Sharan, Vicky Hellon, Emma Karoune, Arron Lacey, Eirini Zormpa, Anne Lee Steele, and Gabin Kayumbi. Research community management team at the turing. Zenodo , 2023. 10.5281/zenodo.7848677 .
Shibuya and Tamai [2009] Bianca Shibuya and Tetsuo Tamai. Understanding the process of participating in open source communities. In 2009 ICSE Workshop on Emerging Trends in Free/Libre/Open Source Software Research and Development , page 1–6. IEEE, May 2009. ISBN 978-1-4244-3720-7. 10.1109/FLOSS.2009.5071352 .
Sholler et al. [2019] Dan Sholler, Igor Steinmacher, Denae Ford, Mara Averick, Mike Hoye, and Greg Wilson. Ten simple rules for helping newcomers become contributors to open projects. PLoS Computational Biology , 15(9):e1007296, Sep 2019. 10.1371/journal.pcbi.1007296 .
Silva Robles [2017] Carmen Silva Robles. The community manager: responsibilities assigned by companies , volume 503 of Advances in intelligent systems and computing , page 271–277. Springer International Publishing, 2017. ISBN 978-3-319-46066-6. 10.1007/978-3-319-46068-0_35 .
Sims [2021] Benjamin Sims. Research software engineering: Professionalization, roles, and identity . Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), Feb 2021. 10.2172/1845242 .
Smith et al. [2022] Tianqi G Smith, Hamid Norasi, Kelly M Herbst, Michael L Kendrick, Timothy B Curry, Teodor P Grantcharov, Vanessa N Palter, M Susan Hallbeck, and Sean P Cleary. Creating a practical transformational change management model for novel artificial intelligence-enabled technology implementation in the operating room. Mayo Clinic proceedings. Innovations, quality & outcomes , 6(6):584–596, Dec 2022. 10.1016/j.mayocpiqo.2022.09.004 .
Smithers et al. [2022] Kathleen Smithers, Nerida Spina, Jess Harris, and Sarah Gurr. Working every weekend: The paradox of time for insecurely employed academics. Time & Society , page 0961463X2211441, Dec 2022. 10.1177/0961463X221144136 .
Snyder and Wenger [2010] William M. Snyder and Etienne Wenger. Our World as a Learning System: A Communities-of-Practice Approach , page 107–124. Springer London, 2010. ISBN 978-1-84996-132-5. 10.1007/978-1-84996-133-2_7 .
Society [2024] Royal Society. Royal society’s resume for researchers, 2024. URL https://web.archive.org/web/20240413123403/https://royalsociety.org/news-resources/projects/research-culture/tools-for-support/resume-for-researchers/ .
SocRSE [2024] SocRSE. International rse communities - society of research software engineering, 2024. URL https://web.archive.org/web/20240522175107/https://society-rse.org/international-rse-organisations/ .
Sormani et al. [2022] Eva Sormani, Thomas Baaken, and Peter van der Sijde. What sparks academic engagement with society? a comparison of incentives appealing to motives. Industry and Higher Education , 36(1):19–36, Feb 2022. 10.1177/0950422221994062 .
SSI [2024] SSI. Software sustainability institute, 2024. URL https://web.archive.org/web/20240802124403/https://www.software.ac.uk/programmes/fellowship-programme .
Stilgoe et al. [2013] Jack Stilgoe, Richard Owen, and Phil Macnaghten. Developing a framework for responsible innovation. Research Policy , 42(9):1568–1580, Nov 2013. 10.1016/j.respol.2013.05.008 .
STP [2024] UKRI STP. New funding to support research technical professionals – ukri, 2024. URL https://web.archive.org/web/20240613000600/https://www.ukri.org/news/new-funding-to-support-research-technical-professionals/ .
Sumo et al. [2023] Jen’nea Sumo, Beth A Staffileno, Kirsten Warner, Maryan Arrieta, Marquita Cross, and Meghan O’Malley. Initial outcomes and lessons learned from implementation of an online diversity & inclusion community. Nursing Outlook , 71(4):101989, Jun 2023. 10.1016/j.outlook.2023.101989 .
Sørensen et al. [2021] Mads P. Sørensen, Tine Ravn, Ana Marušić, Andrea Reyes Elizondo, Panagiotis Kavouras, Joeri K. Tijdink, and Anna-Kathrine Bendtsen. Strengthening research integrity: which topic areas should organisations focus on? Humanities and Social Sciences Communications , 8(1):198, Dec 2021. 10.1057/s41599-021-00874-y .
TCR [2020] TCR. The community manager handbook - the community roundtable, 2020. URL https://web.archive.org/web/20240523085753/https://communityroundtable.com/what-we-do/research/community-manager-handbook-2/ .
team [2024a] DW team. The turing’s data wranglers, 2024a. URL https://www.turing.ac.uk/research/data-for-research .
team [2024b] RAM team. Research application managers, 2024b. URL https://www.turing.ac.uk/research/research-programmes/tools-practices-and-systems/research-application-management .
Team [2024] RCM Team. The turing’s rcm team, 2024. URL https://www.turing.ac.uk/research/research-programmes/tools-practices-and-systems/community-management-and-open-research .
team [2024] REG team. The turing’s research engineering group, 2024. URL https://www.turing.ac.uk/work-turing/research/research-engineering-group .
Team [2024] TPS Team. The turing’s tools, practices and systems research programme, 2024. URL http://web.archive.org/web/20240813110600/https://www.turing.ac.uk/research/research-programmes/tools-practices-and-systems?__cf_chl_rt_tk=Il9Uuvb7vEoAVpYKzuU8sjIXriWBB13oUiaPWQUwoK0-1723547160-0.0.1.1-4778 .
The Alan Turing Institute [2023] 2.0 The Alan Turing Institute. Our strategy . 2023.
The Turing Way Community [2024] Contributors The Turing Way Community. The turing way: A handbook for reproducible, ethical and collaborative research, 2024. URL https://zenodo.org/doi/10.5281/zenodo.3233853 .
Trevors and Saier [2010] J T Trevors and M H Saier. Excellent research: challenging and expensive. The Environmentalist , 30(2):99–100, Jun 2010. 10.1007/s10669-010-9258-9 .
Tritter and McCallum [2006] Jonathan Quetzal Tritter and Alison McCallum. The snakes and ladders of user involvement: Moving beyond arnstein. Health Policy , 76(2):156–168, Apr 2006. 10.1016/j.healthpol.2005.05.008 .
Tuckman [1965] B W Tuckman. Developmental sequence in small groups. Psychological Bulletin , 63:384–399, Jun 1965. 10.1037/h0022100 .
UNESCO [2021] UNESCO. UNESCO recommendation on open science . UNESCO, 2021. 10.54677/MNMH8546 .
Urton and Murray [2021] Danielle Urton and Dan Murray. Project manager’s perspectives on enhancing collaboration in multidisciplinary environmental management projects. Project Leadership and Society , 2:100008, Dec 2021. 10.1016/j.plas.2021.100008 .
Varsha [2023] P S Varsha. How can we manage biases in artificial intelligence systems – a systematic literature review. International Journal of Information Management Data Insights , 3(1):100165, Apr 2023. 10.1016/j.jjimei.2023.100165 .
Vasileiadou [2012] Eleftheria Vasileiadou. Research teams as complex systems: implications for knowledge management. Knowledge Management Research & Practice , 10(2):118–127, Jun 2012. 10.1057/kmrp.2012.4 .
Vasilevsky et al. [2021] Nicole A Vasilevsky, Mohammad Hosseini, Samantha Teplitzky, Violeta Ilik, Ehsan Mohammadi, Juliane Schneider, Barbara Kern, Julien Colomb, Scott C Edmunds, Karen Gutzman, Daniel S Himmelstein, Marijane White, Britton Smith, Lisa O’Keefe, Melissa Haendel, and Kristi L Holmes. Is authorship sufficient for today’s collaborative research? a call for contributor roles. Accountability in research , 28(1):23–43, Jan 2021. 10.1080/08989621.2020.1779591 .
Vasoo [1991] S Vasoo. Grass-root mobilisation and citizen participation: Issues and challenges. Community development journal , 26(1):1–7, 1991. 10.1093/cdj/26.1.1 .
Vaughn and Jacquez [2020] Lisa M. Vaughn and Farrah Jacquez. Participatory research methods – choice points in the research process. Journal of participatory research methods , Jul 2020. 10.35844/001c.13244 .
Verma et al. [2024] Sarvachan Verma, Neha Paliwal, Kanchan Yadav, and P C Vashist. Ethical considerations of bias and fairness in ai models. In 2024 2nd International Conference on Disruptive Technologies (ICDT) , page 818–823. IEEE, Mar 2024. ISBN 979-8-3503-7105-5. 10.1109/ICDT61202.2024.10489577 .
Von Schomberg [2011] Rene Von Schomberg. Prospects for technology assessment in a framework of responsible research and innovation. SSRN Electronic Journal , 2011. 10.2139/ssrn.2439112 .
von Schomberg [2013] René von Schomberg. A vision of Responsible Research and Innovation . 2013.
Wenger and Snyder [2006] Etienne C Wenger and William M Snyder. Communities of practice: the organizational frontier , page 259–269. Oxford University PressOxford, Aug 2006. ISBN 9780199291793. 10.1093/oso/9780199291793.003.0017 .
Wenger-Trayner and Wenger-Trayner [2015] Etienne Wenger-Trayner and Beverly Wenger-Trayner. Introduction to communities of practice, Jun 2015. URL https://www.wenger-trayner.com/introduction-to-communities-of-practice/ .
Wilkinson et al. [2016] Mark D Wilkinson, Michel Dumontier, I Jsbrand Jan Aalbersberg, Gabrielle Appleton, Myles Axton, Arie Baak, Niklas Blomberg, Jan-Willem Boiten, Luiz Bonino da Silva Santos, Philip E Bourne, Jildau Bouwman, Anthony J Brookes, Tim Clark, Mercè Crosas, Ingrid Dillo, Olivier Dumon, Scott Edmunds, Chris T Evelo, Richard Finkers, Alejandra Gonzalez-Beltran, and Barend Mons. The fair guiding principles for scientific data management and stewardship. Scientific data , 3:160018, Mar 2016. 10.1038/sdata.2016.18 .
Wilson [2022] Clare Wilson. The replication crisis has spread through science – can it be fixed? NewScientist , Apr 2022.
Winker et al. [2023] Margaret A Winker, Theodora Bloom, Sandersan Onie, and James Tumwine. Equity, transparency, and accountability: open science for the 21st century. The Lancet , 402(10409):1206–1209, Oct 2023. 10.1016/S0140-6736(23)01575-1 .
Woodley et al. [2021] Lou Woodley, Katie Pratt, Malin Sandström, Elisha Wood-Charlson, Jennifer Davison, and Andreas Leidolf. The cscce skills wheel – five core competencies and 45 skills to describe the role of the community engagement manager in stem. Zenodo , 2021. 10.5281/zenodo.4437294 .
Woolston [2022] Chris Woolston. Why science needs more research software engineers. Nature , May 2022. 10.1038/d41586-022-01516-2 .
Yildiz [2022] Zeynep Yildiz. Understanding the role of socio-technical infrastructures on the organization of access for the mixed-ability collaborators. In Jon Froehlich, Kristen Shinohara, and Stephanie Ludi, editors, Proceedings of the 24th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility , page 1–6. ACM, Oct 2022. ISBN 9781450392587. 10.1145/3517428.3550410 .
Young [2013] Colleen Young. Community management that works: how to build and sustain a thriving online health community. Journal of Medical Internet Research , 15(6):e119, Jun 2013. 10.2196/jmir.2501 .
Zaccaro and Klimoski [2002] Stephen J. Zaccaro and Richard Klimoski. The interface of leadership and team processes. Group & Organization Management , 27(1):4–13, Mar 2002. 10.1177/1059601102027001002 .
Zajko [2021] Mike Zajko. Conservative ai and social inequality: conceptualizing alternatives to bias through social theory. AI & society , Feb 2021. 10.1007/s00146-021-01153-9 .
Zajko [2022] Mike Zajko. Artificial intelligence, algorithms, and social inequality: Sociological contributions to contemporary debates. Sociology compass , 16(3), Mar 2022. 10.1111/soc4.12962 .
Zwart et al. [2014] Hub Zwart, Laurens Landeweerd, and Arjan van Rooij. Adapt or perish? assessing the recent shift in the european research funding arena from “elsa” to “rri”. Life sciences, society and policy , 10:11, Dec 2014. 10.1186/s40504-014-0011-x .

11 Supplementary Files

Following Supplementary Tables and Figure have been provided, which start on the next page.

Supplementary 1 (Table)

Supplementary 2 (Table)

Supplementary 3.1 (Table)

Supplementary 3.2 (Table)

Supplementary 4 Figure

C̈olumns: Levels of Community Participation” / ”Rows: Stages of Community Building”	Level 1: Inform Community	Level 2: Invite Feedback	Level 3: Engage and Involve	Level 4: Mobilise and Connect	Level 5: Empower Groups	Level 6: Decentralise Power
Stage 1: Initiation	Information about the project	Community /stakeholder awareness plan	Knowledge share activities	Open communication strategy	User engagement data	Reusable resources for community members
Stage 2: Planning and Design	Project roadmap created by project team	Community /stakeholder feedback process	Feedback activities	Feedback on ongoing and future plans	Feedback and community interest data	Onboarding new teams and members
Stage 3: Implementation	Roadmap created with collaborators	Community /stakeholder engagement process	Active engagement activities	Involving the community in delivering project objectives	Feedback and community impact data	Creating new leadership opportunities
Stage 4: Growth and Scaling	Roadmap created with community groups	Community /stakeholder collaboration process	Collaborative process for group engagement	Mobilising community-led initiatives in line with project objectives	Reporting and Impact data from community initiatives	Groups connected and led towards shared goals
Stage 5: Monitoring and Evaluation	Roadmap draft created and revised by community groups	Community /stakeholder involvement in decision-making	Multiple collaborative group activities	Community groups involved in decision-making	Reporting and impact data from community initiatives	Connected groups shaping future goals and directions
Stage 6: Sustainability or Sunsetting	Roadmap draft created and iteratively updated by community	Community-led decision-making process	Activities to delegate responsibilities to groups	Community groups making decisions in benefit of the community	Independent reporting from connected groups	Connected groups working independently and collectively with agency

Supplementary Table 1: Community Maturation Indicator . This table provides the raw data used in Figure 1b of the article, showcasing an example of a community-building strategy that can be applied at both Stage 1 and Stage 6 across all Levels of Participation. Additionally, it includes examples of community-building strategies for all other Maturation Statuses, spanning Stages 2-5 in the community-building process for all Levels of Community Participation.

#	Project name	Project Start Year	RCM start year and current status	Community Status on the Community Maturation Indicators	Relevant links	Manuscript authors working on this project
1		2019	2019 - Ongoing	Empower Groups (Level 5) - Monitoring & Evaluation (Stage 5)	, ,	2022-Present: Anne Lee Steele (ALS), 2020-2021: Malvika Sharan (MS), Kirstie Whitaker (KW), Arielle Bennett (AB), Previous RPM Alexandra Araujo Alvarez (AAA) (2022-2023)
2	The Turing-Roche Strategic Partnership	2021	2021 - Ongoing	Engage and Involve Members (Level 3) - Growth and Scaling (Stage 4)	, ,	2021-Present: Vicky Hellon (VH)
3	Turing-RSS Health Data Lab	2021	2021 - Concluded in 2023	Engage and Involve Members (Level 3) - Implementation (Stage 3)	,	2021-2023: Emma Karoune (EK)
4	AI For Multiple Long-term Conditions -Research Support Facility (AIM-RSF)	2021	2021 - Ongoing	Invite Community Feedback (Level 2) - Implementation (Stage 3)	, ,	2021-Present: Sophia Batchelor (SB), 2024-Present: Emma Karoune (EK), 2021-2023: Eirini Zormpa, Kirstie Whitaker (KW)
5	Professionalising Data Science Roles - Turing’s Skills Policy Award	2023	2023 - Concluded in 2024	Invite Community Feedback (Level 2) - Implementation (Stage 3)	,	2023-2024: Emma Karoune (EK), Malvika Sharan (MS)
6	Turing’s Partnership in Innovate UK BridgeAI Programme	2023	2024 - Ongoing	Engage and Involve Members (Level 3) - Implementation (Stage 3)		2024-Present: Alexandra Araujo Alvarez (AAA), Kirstie Whitaker (KW)
7	Practitioners Hub	2023	2023 - Ongoing	Invite Community Feedback (Level 2) - Growth and Scaling (Stage 4)	,	2023-Present: Malvika Sharan (MS), Kirstie Whitaker (KW), Arielle Bennett (AB), Previous RPM Alexandra Araujo Alvarez (AAA) (2022-2023)
8	Data-Centric Engineering (DCE)	2018	2023 - Ongoing	Inform Community/ Invite Community Feedback (Level 2) - Planning and Design/ Implementation (Stage 3)		2023-Present: Gabin Kayumbi (GK)
9	Environment and Sustainability (E&S) Grand Challenge	2023	2024 - Ongoing	Inform Community/Invite Community Feedback (Level 2) - Planning and Design (Stage 2)		2024-Present: Cassandra Gould Van Praag (CGVP)
10	People in Data	2024	2024 - Ongoing	Inform Community/ Invite feedback (Level 2) - Initiation (Stage 1)		2024-Present: Emma Karoune (EK)

Supplementray 2 : This table summarises various projects at the Turing in which RCM team members are involved as shared in Table 1. The last column provides additional details about the manuscript authors who are /were RCM/SRCMs, Senior Researchers and project leaders with a community focus on the project as of August 2024.

Project lifecycle stage	RCM’s Core Competencies - High proficiency		RCM’s Peripheral Competencies - Responsibilities shared
Skills mapped to project stage	Communications	Engagement	Strategic contributions	Technical skills	Accountability
Initiation	Creating community participation guidelines and templates for community use	Stakeholder mapping and creating engagement plan	Horizon scanning, identifying opportunities and sharing those through the implementation of communication and engagement strategies	Supporting the adoption of reproducibility practices such as through the adoption of appropriate license types, version control system and communications platforms (often led by Research Software Engineers/RSEs and Research Data Scientists/RDSs)	Following project timeline and budget, identifying risks and creating mitigation plan for a community project
Initiation	Communication planning and community content development	Establishing community engagement strategies	Facilitating the development of community vision and priorities in line with the project strategy	Establishing and maintaining community infrastructure and identifying skills needs for the community involvement	Sharing operational plans for project and community
Planning	Developing technical documentation	Providing project roadmap for community engagement	Establishing team and community-wide ways of working	Planning and supporting the adoption and implementation of open science strategy (open source, open access, open data)	Contributing to the planning of team and community meetings to make them inclusive and collaborative
Planning	Open research communication and dissemination plans	Organising knowledge sharing activities and workshops for training/skill building	Implementing institutional policy, Code of Conduct and conflict resolution approaches	Contributing to the development and implementation of best practices for data access and management practices (often led by data stewards and data wranglers)	Contributing to task and resource prioritisation in community in line with project’s priorities and ensuring Information management for community access
Design	Community infrastructure such as process documentation, authorship guidelines, and writing templates	Designing feedback strategy to engage and gather inputs from the community	Establishing benchmarks to evaluate the success and effectiveness of the project’s efforts in engaging with and benefiting the community	Testing and identifying ideal tools for the use in the project, introducing the use through technical training and upskilling workshops (alongside RSEs and Skills team)	Coordinating with the community and contributing to the project-wide reporting
Design	Curation of project resources and sharing them openly with others	Designing onboarding, mentoring and upskilling opportunities for community members, elevating them to visible roles	Consulting other communities and establishing collaboration where possible (to avoid doing the same work)	Supporting the reuse of software / code / infrastructure (alongside RSE/RDS)	Contributing to the development and implementation of ethics documentation in line with the institutional process (researchers and ethicist)
Design	Internal communication channel and social media management guidelines	Advocating for and integrating EDIA in community and organisational policies	Contributor, user, stakeholder and public advocacy in the project	Maintaining software/code/infrastructure for future usage (alongside RSE/RDS)	Leading community event planning and coordinating logistical requirements with different teams (event teams)

Project lifecycle stage	RCM’s Core Competencies - High proficiency		RCM’s Peripheral Competencies - Responsibilities shared
Skills mapped to project stage	Communications	Engagement	Strategic contributions	Technical skills	Accountability
Implementation	External and social platform management and monitoring	Improving visibility and recognition for the community members	Creating opportunities and improving rewards, incentives and support structure for the community	Promoting best practices for data analysis and visualisation (alongside RSE/RDS)	Raising awareness of resources, financial and budget plans that impact the community (project management team)
Implementation	Implementation of best practices for communication in and about the project	Creating opportunities for leadership and onboarding diverse community members on those roles	Identifying growth opportunities and establishing connections between different projects	Contributing to platform/product management and technology transfer (alongside RAM)	Planning stakeholder meetings, managing calendars for community access and inviting contributors from the community
Implementation	Organising community opportunities and events to allow better communications within the community	Creating multiple engagement paths to collaboration, providing community spaces and opportunities for discussions	Promoting open leadership practices in the community, and managing interns, staff or teams in senior community roles	Providing technical Support such as for code Review (alongside RSE/RDS) Sharing project Organogram (team structure), project governance and project stakeholder engagement opportunities
Growth	Establishing community-level governance, in reach and outreach process	Applying open collaboration and participatory approaches	Co-creating sustainability plans for the community such as by contributing to funding applications, resource identifications and future development opportunities	Promoting design approaches for improving user experience (alongside UX specialist and RSE)	Contributing to the recruitment of community members and upholding community participation and involvement policies, as well as following legal requirements and data protection processes (project manager)
Monitoring/ optimisation	Organisation level impact assessment and reporting	Establishing community survey, data analysis and reporting (measuring and improving community engagement, health and infrastructure)	Promoting the project externally and supporting strategic partnerships	Supporting the development and use of reproducible workflows/research process	Contributing to internal and external project reporting
Sustainability	Supporting translation of community resources, sustainability plans, localisation in multiple languages and communications for new users	Facilitating community involvement in the project	Supporting the project and community sustainability or sunsetting plans	Supporting community members in managing, sharing and archiving data and project outputs (alongside data stewards)	Updating Content Resource Management records for auditing and future references

Supplementray 3.1 : RCM Skills and Competency Framework with a detailed version of 65 skills across all competencies.

Skills Area 1		Skills Area 2		Skills Area 3		Skills Area 4		Skills Area 5
Content	Communi-cation	Engage-ment	Interperso-nal	Strategic	Program development	Technical	Technical	Business	Program management

Comms planning	Content planning	Listening & analysing	Engagement	Community strategy	Strategy development	Systems admin & configuration	Media production	Program management	Operational planning & implementation
Writing	Content creation & curation	Response & Escalation	Collaboration	Roadmap development	Analysis	Data collection & analysis	Data analysis	Business Model development	Time management
Graphics & Design	Editorial	Moderation & Conflict facilitation	Training & teaching	Policy & guideline development	Synthesis	Tool evaluation & recommendation	Data visualisation	Budget & Financial Management	Record-keeping
Multimedia production	Marketing and branding	Promoting productive behaviours	Networking	Needs & Competitive analysis	Proposal development	Technical support	Data Management	Team Hiring & Management	Reporting
Narrative development	Knowledge brokering	Empathy & member support	Coaching & mentoring	Measurement, benchmarking & reporting	Advancement, growth & sustainability	Member Database Management	Systems administration & maintenance	Contractor hiring and management	Evaluation & assessment
Editing	Media relations	Facilitating connections	Moderation, mediation & intervention	Trendspotting & Synthesizing	Advocacy	Platform architecture & integration	Platform product management	Selling, influencing & evangelizing	Event planning
Curation	Outreach	New member recruitment	Emotional integration	Consulting	Program design	Technology issue resolution	Web and UI design	Community advocacy & promotion	Financial management
Program & event planning	Speaking & Presenting	New member welcoming	Cultural competence	Content strategy development	Change management	Software & application programming	Content management system admin	Training development & delivery	Community governance
Taxonomy & Tagging Management	Social Media Member	Advocacy	Consultation & Listening	Evaluating engagement techniques	Recruitment	UX & Design	Technical Support	Vendor management	Meeting facilitation
SEO or internal search optimisation	-	Behaviour change & gamification	-	-	-	Algorithm design & Data Manipulation	-	Governance management	-
-	-	Training development & delivery	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
-	-	Meeting facilitation	-	-	-	-	-	-	-

Supplementray 3.2 : Comparative analysis of skills across two reference frameworks used in the article. Reference 1: The Community Roundtable Community Skills Framework . Reference 2: CSCCE Woodley, Lou, Pratt, Katie, Sandström, Malin, Wood-Charlson, Elisha, Davison, Jennifer, & Leidolf, Andreas. (2021). The CSCCE Skills Wheel – Five core competencies and 45 skills to describe the role of the community engagement manager in STEM. Zenodo. doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4437294

Spotlight on: COVID-19

UKHSA has conducted over 150 research and surveillance studies, most in collaboration with academics, to better understand SARS CoV-2 virus and its transmission.

We have published or submitted over 200 new research papers, commentaries and editorials on all aspects of the SARS CoV-2 virus, the illness it causes and how to mitigate the impacts of the pandemic.

Below is one of many studies contributing to the scientific knowledge base for the virus.

COVID-19 - SIREN study

SIREN (Sarscov2 Immunity & REinfection EvaluatioN): The impact of detectable anti SARS-COV2 antibody on the incidence of COVID-19 in healthcare workers

What is the SIREN study?

The purpose of this study is to understand whether prior infection with SARS-CoV2 (the virus that causes COVID-19) protects against future infection with the same virus.

The study has received approval from the NHS Health Research Authority Berkshire Research Ethics Committee and is funded by the National Institute of Health Research and Public Health England.

Terms & conditions
Privacy policy
Accessibility statement
Go to main UKHSA website

All content is available under the Open Government Licence v3.0, except where otherwise stated.

IMAGES

UKHSA invests in new system to support response to health threats
UK Health Security Agency
Ukhsa Conference 2024
UKHSA strategic plan: Addressing health threats, saving lives
UKHSA invests in new system to support response to health threats
About us

VIDEO

Customer Service in Research Administration
ERA Group UK Business Support (Susan Shelbrooke
How do children’s immune systems respond to COVID-19 compared to adults?
STRUGGLING WITH LOW CLIENT ACQUISITION? HERE'S A SOLUTION
r_k Manager: ABC-анализ
NIHR's Research Support Service Animation

COMMENTS

UK Health Security Agency
The Research Support and Governance Office is the central point of contact for enquires regarding research and collaboration opportunities and offers from academia and other research-active organisations [email protected]
UK Health Security Agency
UKHSA is a research active organisation. Research, and the translation of its findings into innovations both inform and support public health policy, practice and services.
Working for UKHSA
Working for UKHSA Learn about the UK Health Security Agency, including who we are, what we do, available opportunities, the benefits of a career with us and how to apply.
UK Health Security Agency
Email General enquiries: [email protected] Research enquiries: [email protected] Industry enquiries: [email protected] Integrity and governance: FAO Elizabeth Coates [email protected] For additional contact details including Freedom of Information (FOI) requests please go to the main UKHSA website:
Catherine Manley
Research Information Manager at UKHSA · I graduated from Durham University with a BA (Hons) and Master's degrees in Social Science Research I have specialised in all forms of community work, specifically working with excluded people and those experiencing social and cultural disadvantages in relation to access to education. I went on to complete my PGCE in Health and Social Care and worked ...
Research Management & Knowledge
Fingerprint Dive into the research topics where Research Management & Knowledge is active. These topic labels come from the works of this organisation's members. Together they form a unique fingerprint. Public Health Medicine and Dentistry Systematic Review Medicine and Dentistry COVID-19 Medicine and Dentistry Mycobacterium Tuberculosis (M. tb) Keyphrases Public Health England Keyphrases ...
Welcome to the UK Health Security Agency Research Portal
The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) protects our communities from infectious diseases and the impact of chemical, radiological and other environmental health hazards. Our work depends on generating and applying the best scientific evidence.
UK Health Security Agency
UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) prevents, prepares for and responds to infectious diseases, and environmental hazards, to keep all our communities safe, save lives and protect livelihoods. We ...
Our governance
Framework agreement The Framework agreement between the Department of Health and the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) sets out UKHSA 's overarching governance arrangements.
UK Health Security Agency
Research Facilities UKHSA is also a member of the National Laboratory Alliance (NLA), one of 10 Public Sector Research Establishments (PSRE) forming part of the Government's wider science capability. Some our facilities are also open to research scientists and engineers working in the public and commercial sectors in the UK and internationally.
Knowledge and Library Services Manager
The KLS team provides UKHSA with library and knowledge management expertise to support research and development, evidence-based public health, management and business services, with the overall aim of facilitating the translation of knowledge into practice.
UK Public Health Rapid Support Team (UK-PHRST)
The UK-PHRST is a high-profile collaboration between the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) and Public Health England (PHE), with a 5-year £20m grant from the UK government to support a triple mandate of outbreak response, outbreak-related research, and capacity building in low and middle-income countries (LMICs).
Job Search Results
Job Title - Business Manager Profession - Business Manager Directorate - Data & Cyber Security Full Time equivalent - 37.5 hours No of Roles - 1 Contract Type - Permanent Location - The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) offers hybrid working - this means...
UK Health Security Agency
UK Health Security Agency's research annual review The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) research annual review will include information about strategy, funding, impact and peer reviewed publications.
UK Health Security Agency
UK Health Security Agency's research annual review The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) research annual review will include information about strategy, funding, impact and peer reviewed publications.
Job Search Results
Job Type. Contract. Posted. 12 Aug 2024. Project Support Officer Salary & Grade: HEO (Inner), £34,463 - £41,478 Location: UKHSA Canary Wharf, Hybrid working Type and term of contract : FTC - 12 month contract We have an exciting opportunity for a PMO Project Support officer to join the MaPS... View and Apply.
UKHSA strategic plan 2023 to 2026: executive summary
UKHSA strategic plan 2023 to 2026: summary. Changing threats need new responses. Threats to the security of our health are rising across the world. Our world is changing in multiple, compound ways ...
Computer Systems Validation Project Manager
The Vaccine Development and Evaluation Centre at UKHSA Porton is a cutting-edge research facility focused on developing and testing vaccines and therapeutics for COVID-19 and other health threats. The Validation Project Manager will oversee computer systems validation project delivery for GxP regulated operations within the Centre.
UK Health Security Agency
Research integrity. UKHSA recognises and endorses the Concordat to Support Research Integrity as published by Universities UK, and is committed to maintaining the highest standards of integrity in all aspects of research. Scientific integrity is essential for the conduct and planning of research, the recording and reporting of results, and the ...
PDF UKHSA Business Support Manager Job Description
UKHSA Business Support Manager Job Description UKHSA Business Support Manager Job Description This form is used as an advert template for all advertising including Expressions of Interest (EOIs). It will be shared with potential applicants (attached to the advert).
UKHSA jobs
Salary. £38,724 to £48,068. Job Type. Permanent. Posted. 6 Dec 2023. Job Title - Business Manager Profession - Business Manager Directorate - Data & Cyber Security Full Time equivalent - 37.5 hours No of Roles - 1 Contract Type - Permanent Location - The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) offers hybrid working - this means...
Professionalising Community Management Roles in Interdisciplinary
In collaboration with the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA), the Data Lab provided independent statistical modelling and machine learning expertise for pandemic response. ... ), PRISM network (Professional Research Investment and Strategy Manager) and ResearchOps ... Uk funding to support research technical professionals, 2024. URL https: ...
UK Health Security Agency
COVID-19. UKHSA has conducted over 150 research and surveillance studies, most in collaboration with academics, to better understand SARS CoV-2 virus and its transmission. We have published or submitted over 200 new research papers, commentaries and editorials on all aspects of the SARS CoV-2 virus, the illness it causes and how to mitigate the ...