An East-West university collaboration is testing the proposition that equitably conducted research produces better results, in the latest cross-border effort to improve scientific integrity.

¡°¡±, a joint project between the University of York and Mahidol University in Bangkok, has produced an online ¡°checklist¡± to help academics instil research projects with ¡°principles of inclusiveness¡± at the design stage.

York vice-chancellor Charlie Jeffery said the Wellcome Trust-funded partnership was about ¡°challenging, understanding and dismantling persistent hierarchies which pervade the research process¡±. They included hierarchies which privileged seniority over inexperience, academics over professional staff and technicians, STEM over social sciences and 51³Ô¹Ï North over 51³Ô¹Ï South.

¡°Our ultimate aim¡­is that this becomes a widely used tool across research organisations internationally,¡± Jeffery told the Worldwide Universities Network annual general meeting at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. ¡°We hope it will¡­expand the impact of research projects and help to dismantle those hierarchies in research.

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¡°[We want] to equip researchers to produce stronger deliverable plans that distribute responsibility ethically and align with the kind of priorities that many funders now expect to be reflected in the work that they fund. This is an idea supported by a very wealthy foundation that¡¯s wanting to do health research better. We¡¯re extending that way beyond the health domain.¡±

The project has parallels with other efforts to stamp out ethical shortcomings in global research, from the unintended consequences of metrics-based assessment practices to rampant exploitation and fraud.

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They include the 2020 development of guidelines for institutions in assessing and rewarding their researchers¡¯ efforts, known as the Hong Kong Principles, and a 2022 published by the Coalition for Advancing Research Assessment (CoARA).

The Africa Charter on Transformative Research Collaborations, launched the following year, aimed to redress the ¡°multi-layered power imbalances¡± in the continent¡¯s contribution to science.

Mahidol and York universities¡¯ , which has been released in ¡°beta¡± version ahead of its final launch in December, has been tested with over 100 academics and professional services staff at both institutions. It promotes reflection on what the team has identified as ¡°five key principles¡± of inclusive research: engagement and impact, equity and diversity, strategic risk mapping, environmental sustainability, and reflection and learning.

¡°Users are asked to map what success might look like in their project for each of those key principles,¡± Jeffery said. ¡°They¡¯re asked to identify the outputs, actions and resources needed to make that vision happen.¡±

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But he said the team intended to move carefully in developing the resource, partly because of nerves around equity metrics being used to allocate public research funding. And perceptions of inclusive research cultures as ¡°a challenge to equality¡± had produced reactions like the US crackdown on diversity, equity and inclusion.

¡°There is a bit of a danger that it gets put in that kind of box and¡­used wrongly,¡± he said. ¡°I think we¡¯ll be very careful [that] we don¡¯t produce antibodies too early in the process.¡±

john.ross@timeshighereducation.com