Leeds Beckett University - City Campus,
Woodhouse Lane,
LS1 3HE
Improving our Research Funding Success with Our Peer Review College
In April we launched our Pilot Peer Review College (pFPRC) at Leeds Beckett, to improve our bidding quality, increase skills in our research community and promote a vibrant and collative research environment. In this blog post Dr Shanta Coles, Associate Director for Research and Innovation, shares the success of the College so far, and our future plans for improving peer review.
Background
At LBU we have a strategic aim of Excellent Research and Innovation, part of which is developing a vibrant and active research environment, where our researchers are supported to achieve their potential. A key part of that agenda is securing £10M of research income by 2026, achieved through the submission of high-quality bids, which have an increased chance of being funded. To ensure our research bids are of the highest quality, we are piloting a robust, transparent and constructive peer review process in 2024, before launching a comprehensive process in January 2025.
Pilot overview
The pFPRC will be trialled in three schools – The Carnegie School of Sport, The School of Health and The School of Humanities and Social Sciences and will comprise a pool of existing academic and professional services staff, identified as having a level of experience and expertise in research that would be beneficial to other staff in enhancing their development.
The pFPRC will integrate previous feedback from funders, key metrics and lived experience of our research community and will be fully evaluated to ensure best practice is embedded in the full FPRC process. Proposed funding applications in scope will be limited to those submitted to UKRI Research Councils, National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) and Horizon Europe bids, where the University is listed as lead partner.
This process is being managed by the Research Development Team (RDT), under leadership from the Associate Director Research and Innovation and the Director of Research and Knowledge Exchange.
Who are peer reviewers in the Pilot?
The cohort of peer reviewers that will be part of the pilot programme have been identified from those already peer reviewing, and recommendations of those with the right expertise from the academic and professional services communities. This pool of expertise will increase in the full College set up via active recruitment of candidates from Schools and Services.
What are the benefits of being a peer reviewer?
Membership of the pFPRC is voluntary, and there are many professional and personal benefits to being a part of this process, including the development of evaluation and expert reviewer skills, building an understanding of what funders are looking for, evidence of undertaking a key internal role and supporting the University’s research vision.
How is the pilot process being improved?
To ensure our proposed process is fit for purpose, we ran two workshops in April to provide pilot peer reviewers with further information on the proposed scheme and the opportunity to ask questions and suggest improvements for the process, which we have embedded into the process.
How can I be involved?
We want to increase our peer review college membership, so if you are interested in joining, please email us.
Where can I found out more?
For further information on the Pilot please visit our Research and Enterprise intranet.
Shanta Coles
I am the Associate Director of Research Services at Leeds Beckett University.
My role is to lead a brilliant team of Business Development and Research Development Managers to enhance our research culture and reputation through supporting schools to achieve their research and innovation ambitions. This includes supporting schools with the development of bids from a range of funders to increase our income, training and development of academics and building partnerships with a range of external organisations across a range of mutually beneficial collaborations.
