CAHSS Strategic Action Plan

Discovery Research and Capabilities / Missions and Challenge Areas 

Seedcorn funding: we have two routes to encourage research ideas: Challenge Investment Fund and Research Themes Fund. Both funds are designed to support capacity building for interdisciplinary research and there is an expectation that by enabling researchers to reach out and make connections,  this activity will lead to an external funding application.    

Themed networking: through our CAHSS Research Themes, we support regular networking eventsand an annual Themes Showcase. 

Interdisciplinary links: supported by our Research Development Manager, we organise regular sandpits for interdisciplinary funding calls and support the University’s Major Initiatives-funded projects. We also identify opportunities via a University-wide Expression of Interest process.  

Digital upskilling: we have surveyed CAHSS Schools to gauge understanding and use of GenAI in research, and held an event for Directors of Research to enhance their skills and knowledge to better support researchers. The College Research Office encourages an ethos of continuous improvement and digitalisation of processes. 

Outputs workshops: we hold ad hoc Outputs workshops to support Schools in their REF-readiness, providing a space for Directors of Research/REF to share best practice. 

All new members of staff are offered an induction to manage their profiles in the institutional repository, Pure and open access. We also run monthly open access session open to all CAHSS staff and postgraduate students that include compliance with REF requirements. 

As part of the Diverse Output working group, we are identifying issues and developing ways to support researchers with their diverse outputs. We will develop guidance and workshops tailored to our disciplines. 

EDI in outputs: working with the College EDI Committee and the REF EDI Group, we will ensure our outputs reflect the diversity of our staff across the College.  

Application support: we work closely with the University’s Strategic Research Proposals  Team to provide support for demand-managed funding calls. 

Bid development: our Research Development Manager works closely with researchers and research support colleagues to develop bids, particularly those in strategic challenge areas. 

Proposal coordination: we work closely with Schools to coordinate large/interdisciplinary proposals, ensuring effective demand-management is in place to ensure the highest quality proposals are submitted. 

Cross-College collaboration: we work closely with the other Colleges, particularly for interdisciplinary cross-College funding calls, ensuring College and University panels are in place to provide feedback to applicants. 

Horizon scanning: we work closely with Edinburgh Research Office (ERO) to ensure we know what opportunities are out there for our researchers, particularly those with full Economic Cost (fEC). 

Targeted dissemination: we work with Schools to ensure opportunities get to the right researchers, and ensuring opportunities are easy to find on SharePoint and in regular updates. 

Industry / Public and Policy / Global Partnerships 

Awareness raising: through College Research Committee, College KEI Committee, and via School Research and Impact Managers, we ensure Schools are aware of engagement opportunities. We have created a new space on our Research and Engagement Office Sharepoint – the CAHSS Impact Hub - dedicated to sharing relevant information such as training resources, events, and internal funding opportunities for KEI projects as well as to showcasing engagement activity taking place across the College. 

Edinburgh Innovations/Schools nexus: we work with Edinburgh Innovations (EI)and Schools to develop skills for commercial and industry engagement and identify  opportunities  for involvement in strategic partnerships in these areas . We also support Schools to identify a growing number of researchers with industry engagement interests/expertise and who might fit the Innovation Pathway. 

Targeted/Strategic funding: we support Schools to make informed decisions about the diverse funding opportunities available to them (based on e.g. success rates, actual cost etc). 

Public engagement: working with the Public Engagement with Research team in ERO to support researchers often making their first steps in engaging with different publics.  The team facilitates the delivery of UoE’s contributions to the ESRC Festival of Social Science, Science Festival, and the Fringe programme. Going forward further support is planned for enabling researchers to participate in the Being Human Festival thus providing a dedicated space for Arts and Humanities colleagues to develop new skills and showcase their research to a wider audience… 

Policy leadership Communities of Practice: working with the Policy Engagement with Research Manager (ERO) to support, build relationships, and target opportunities for policy engagement and influence across the College. We are developing a strategic initiative to build a Policy Leaders Network that will combine opportunities expanding existing expertise and build capacity for a future generation of policy leader. 

Decolonising impact: we invested in a project gathering best practice on the decolonial  thought   and the impact agenda, moving away from scholars ‘solving’ problems for communities, and to provide support for those whose impact work focuses on decolonisation itself. Work is ongoing to produce materials and share learnings.  

Embed impact support: the Research Impact Manager for CAHSS works closely with our Associate Dean (Research Impact) to support CAHSS Schools, as well as leading on Impact networks across the College and the University. RIM and ADRI have developed a number of strategic initiatives in response to shared needs and interested across the College, focusing on creating recourses and communities of practice across subject areas.  

Impact/ICS training: with colleagues in ERO, we provide all levels of Impact training for researchers and professional services staff, as well as hosting a SharePoint hub with training materials.  

KEI funding: our Knowledge Exchange and Impact Grant allows academics within the College to engage with policy, practice, industry, or community audiences to increase the impact of research through mutual exchange. There are three levels of awards, depending on maturity of project (from identifying partners to accelerating well-established partnerships) and the discipline of the underpinning research. 

EDI in Impact Case Studies: we are monitoring representation across our REF2029 Impact Case Studies, ensuring this reflects our diverse community of researchers. 

Arts and Humanities involvement: our KEI Grant has an award restricted to Arts and Humanities researchers, as we recognise that these areas can be under-represented (for example because the University holds ESRC Impact Acceleration Account for social scientists).  

Facilitating global collaborations: we disseminate partnership opportunities from Edinburgh Global to CAHSS researchers.  

Challenging research: we invested in a project to identify what resources are currently available for researchers carrying out research or impact work in challenging contexts, mapping support for staff before they travel, while away, and upon return, including support for those publishing and receiving hostile messages from within or outside the University. This project will generate a resource which is easily accessible to researchers and staff who support them.  

Cultures & Careers / Training & Support / Ethics & Integrity 

Research Office pathways: we have representation on the University’s Research Support Operational Executive, which aims to enhance the process of consistent career development and opportunities for research support staff. 

Early Career Researcher (ECR) Network: our Associate Dean (Research Cultures) facilitates the CAHSS ECR Network, where ECR Champions/representatives from all Schools attend regular meetings.  

Recognising research staff: we collaborate with other Colleges to develop and run Postdoc Appreciation Week (PAW) activities. 

Technician pathways: CAHSS is represented on the University’s Research Support Operational Executive, which also covers career paths for technicians.  

ECR recruitment: College Research Committee considers how to support postdoctoral fellowships across the College, with Schools having differing mechanisms and resource.   

PGR inclusion: Post-Graduate Researchers are welcome to attend our researcher development and information events. 

Fixed-term contracts: CAHSS was represented on a short life working group considering pooling of fixed-term research contract staff. Schools have also provided input regarding postdoctoral fellowships.  

PCE data: we developed a CAHSS Research Cultures Catalogue to help Schools identify activities and data sources to be used in REF2029. It is a living document, schools are encouraged to update the information in the catalogue and reminders are sent twice a year.  

Principal Investigator skills: we work closely with Institute for Academic Development (IAD) to review and promote researcher training opportunities. 

Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) mapping: we are reviewing our internal awards and mapping characteristics of recipients, to ensure there is representation of our diverse research community.  

Transparency: our Committee membership and papers are openly available on our SharePoint site. We provide examples of successful applications for CAHSS internal funding schemes and invite ECRs to observe internal review panels for funding schemes.  

Nurturing/developing: our ECR network is contributing to developing materials and resources to make tacit knowledge more visible to all researchers. We provide detailed guidance for our internal awards, a place for an ECR on our IAA award panel, and Early Career Academics have the opportunity to shadow decision-making panels for grant shortlisting and other opportunities.  

Research leadership: we promote and support the University’s Strategic Leadership in Research Programme, as well as offering individual induction sessions for new Directors of Research.  

Share best practice: We have a ‘Hot Topic’ item on our College Research Committee agenda, where Schools can raise and discuss issues facing researchers, as well as a KEI Best Practice section on our KEI Committee and a ‘Thorny Issue’ item on our Research Ethics Committee. We also ensure our Directors of Research away day provides an open and honest arena for sharing of concerns and best practice. At the Open Research Committee, schools share initiatives and best practice activities that have taken place since the previous meeting. 

Ethics processes: we are supporting the development and roll-out of the University’s new online ethics system, ensuring Schools have the information, training and resource they need. 

Sustainability: CAHSS was represented on the University’s short life working group on sustainable travel (concordat mention?) 

Narrative CVs: CAHSS is leading a University-wide working group on the use of narrative CVs.  

Open Research: Our Open Research Committee ensures that CAHSS researchers are aware of any changes to policy/REF requirements. The committee will be updating the CAHSS open research strategy in line with the University research and innovation strategy 2030.  The College Research Office supports Schools to ensure Open Access compliance rates remain high. The CAHSS Pure User Group is a network of research administrators that meet monthly to discuss open research updates, policy implementation and any issues and concerns.  

CAHSS has an Open Research strategy from 2018 which will be updated in 2026. Schools have also strategies highlighting disciplinary challenges.  

Our Open Research discussion series launched in 2025 with events at Good Research Practice week, and a half-day event on issues and prospects in CAHSS disciplines. 

Misconduct: The Associate Dean (Research Ethics and Integrity) is the Named Person for the investigation of alleged research misconduct. There is CAHSS representation on a Misconduct Policy Review Group, Schools have been asked to confirm contacts for misconduct cases, and a focus group in CAHSS is responding to draft misconduct policy.  

Good Research Practice Week: CAHSS hosted 7 successful events in the 2025 Good Research Practice Week, covering issues such as ECR representation, reasonable adjustments for researchers, and open research. Some sessions were so of such interest that they were later repeated. We will continue to support this programme and ensure CAHSS is represented.