With the addition of three new members – Cambridge, Edge Hill and Portsmouth – the UK Research Network (UKRN) now includes 46 diverse institutional members. These range from specialized institutions like the Royal Veterinary College (RVC), Cancer Research UK Scotland, and the Babraham Institute, to internationally recognized universities such as Edinburgh, UCL, and Oxford. The network also includes universities with a strong civic focus, such as Oxford Brookes, Leeds Beckett, and Wolverhampton. This broad and inclusive community, alongside our Local Network Leaders (LNLs) and stakeholders, enables us to explore and share good practice, collaborate, and inform both national and international decisions that shape the research landscape. As we celebrate our growth, we remain committed to ensuring the value we offer and the sustainability of our work, which will continue to be a priority in 2025.
From our new members:
Matt Miller-Dicks, new institutional lead at Portsmouth said, “I’m delighted that the University of Portsmouth has joined the UKRN. As the new UKRN institutional lead, my remit will be to promote rigour and transparency by working across the institution. In particular, I will bring together professional service staff and academics from all faculties whilst also working in tandem with senior staff such as the Head of Research, Head of Research Culture and the University Executive Board including the Pro-VC Research. Our membership of UKRN means that we will learn and share with other institutions on the same journey.”
Nik Bessis, Edge Hill University’s new institutional lead, said, “At Edge Hill University we have benefited from the excellent work of our Local Network Lead, Michel Belyk. This has given us the confidence to take the next step and join UKRN as an institutional member. As the new UKRN institutional lead, I look forward to joining this community of institutions committed to improving the quality of the UK’s research.”
For the University of Cambridge, Amy Orben, new institutional lead and director of Reproducible Research Cambridge, said, “Cambridge is a large and complicated university, and there is a huge amount going on that support’s UKRN’s aims. Examples include the network of data champions, the Octopus publishing platform (supported by UKRN), and the Cambridge Open Research Conference. With our new institutional membership of UKRN, I’m delighted that I will also be leading a new Reproducible Research Cambridge network, that will coordinate the University’s work in this area.”
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