Capturing Creativity Week 2024: Event 3: Presentation 1: Research is about more than publications
Presentation given as part of Capturing Creativity Week 2024. Event 3: Panel session, Friday 13th September, 2024.
Presentation by Prof. Simon Hettrick, University of Southampton.
Presenter Biography: Professor Simon Hettrick is Director of Strategy at the Software Sustainability Institute and a Director of the Southampton Research Software Group.
Simon is a passionate advocate for Research Software Engineers. He orchestrated a campaign to gain recognition for this community, which grew from a handful of people to an international community numbering in the tens of thousands. Building this community showed him the power of recognition and how a small change in research culture can allow the growth of a vital new community to empower research.
Simon is the Chair of the Hidden REF: a national campaign that looks to recognises all research outputs and every role that makes research possible. In this role, Simon campaigns for a broader interpretation of how people can contribute to the conduct of research. The Hidden REF campaign takes some credit for the inclusion of all roles, including non-academic roles, in the 2029 REF.
Presentation Synopsis: The problem with using publications as the only metric to measure success in research is that they overlook most of the people who are vital to the conduct of research. If we continue to use only publications to measure success, then we overlook everyone from technicians, to research software engineers, to librarians and a host of other roles. Without these people, there would be no research. How have we ended up with a research culture that acts against the people it relies on and what can we do to change it?
In this talk, I will reflect on my experiences with growing a new role in research: the Research Software Engineer. A small change in research culture allowed the growth of this role from a handful of people to an international community in the tens of thousands. The success of the community led me and a group of volunteers to start the Hidden REF to throw a spotlight on the diverse range of roles on which research relies. I’ll talk through our experiences and successes in raising awareness of the problems that arise from using publications as the only metric of success in research. I’ll end with some views on what changes could make the research community both more equitable and more effective.
The slides are available via the URL given below.
This item contains: the recording of the presentation.
