The Wellcome Trust, the universities of Sheffield and Leiden, and Digital Science, have announced the launch of the Research on Research Institute (RoRI) – an international consortium of research funders, academic institutions, and technologists working to champion the latest approaches to research on research.
The RoRI consortium will undertake transformative and translational research on research (also known as meta-research, science of science or meta-science). By analysing research systems and experimenting with decision and evaluation data, tools and frameworks, the aim is to advance more strategic, open, diverse and inclusive research.
In support of its overall vision for transformative and translational research on research, RoRI has five objectives: to support, expand and build capacity for interdisciplinary, mixed-methods research on research (RoR) in the UK and internationally; to connect academic capabilities to the data and analytical resources of Wellcome, Digital Science and RoRI’s wider consortium of strategic partners;
to co-design, experiment and apply new tools, indicators, funding modes, prioritisation and evaluation frameworks; to critically evaluate RoR methods and support engagement with data and evidence about research systems by decision makers and society; and to create an independent space for learning, networking and collaboration between researchers, policymakers, funders & technologists.
RoRI will be based for an initial two-year incubation phase at Wellcome’s offices in London. To date, eleven strategic partners have expressed their interest in becoming part of the RoRI consortium, including private foundations, academic research institutions, and public funding agencies from eight countries – Austria, Canada, Denmark, Germany, India, Netherlands, Switzerland, and the USA – and one pan-African partner, the African Academy of Sciences.
Together, the consortium will codesign projects and share data to inform comparative analysis of research systems and cultures, and develop, test and apply novel approaches to decision-making, prioritisation, allocation and evaluation.
RoRI’s activities will include partnership projects, a rolling programme of research seminars and webinars, as well as regular reports, working papers and think-pieces. All of its research methodologies and findings will be made openly available. Within RoRI, funders and academic research institutions will also be able to access and use a secure data platform, hosted and managed by Wellcome as a neutral convenor and broker. This will provide a trusted space, where funders and academic research institutions can securely share data, policies and practices for primary research and experimentation.
The following have expressed their interest in becoming part of the RoRI consortium; Austrian Science Fund; a consortium of Canadian funders including British Columbia’s Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research and Canadian Institutes of Health Research; Dutch Research Council (NWO); Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI); Novo Nordisk Foundation; Alfred P. Sloan Foundation; Swiss National Science Foundation; Wellcome Trust/DBT India Alliance; and Volkswagen Foundation. Over the coming months, RoRI hopes to expand the consortium to include additional funders, publishers, and learned and professional societies as partners.
RoRI has also announced the publication of its first of what will become a regular series of working papers. Additionally, a RoRI research funding landscape tool has also been launched. The tool has been developed by Ludo Waltman and colleagues at CWTS-Leiden, together with a report that discusses how the tool can be used to support priority setting.
Working papers and further information about RoRI is available at http://www.researchonresearch.org/.
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