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<b><h4>What is your role at your institution?</h4></b>

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<b>Sarah Priston, Head of Research Support Office, Bath Spa University</b>

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So at Bath Spa University, I'm the Head of the Research Support Office. So that means I support our Pro-Vice Chancellor for Research and Enterprise with operationalisation of our strategy. So we work very closely with our head of schools and our research leaders in schools, to develop our research environment, to work with academic staff in terms of embedding cultures, in things like research integrity, in leadership of research. So I review and evaluate our progress against a Concordant to Support Research Integrity, against our HR Excellence in Research Award, and that's all about supporting the culture of our researchers and making sure that they have the systems, and processes and procedures in place, to help them develop their research. 
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<b><h4>What are the goals of your research office?</h4></b>

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<b>Sarah Priston:</b> So the goals for our research office very much tie in with our key performance indicators, that are part of our research strategy. So we want to increase the amount of research income, both internationally and the UK, increase our research collaborations and partnerships, especially globally, but also support our academic staff. So our ethos in the office is very much helping academic staff to deliver what they need to deliver. 

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So we work with them very closely on their research applications, do all of the financial management for them, the approval processes, we complete the financial sections on the electronic forms, if they need it. So they can very much just focus on the research questions, and actually the delivery of the research, if they get the grants. So it's very much about working very closely with and for our academics, and making sure that they have the tools and the support that they need to deliver the research.
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<b><h4>How do you promote good research conduct at your institution?</h4></b>

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<b>Sarah Priston:</b> We promote good research conduct through a variety of different ways. We've just established an internal ethics peer review college. And the idea is to train up those people within the schools that can then support and lead research ethics in their areas. We've also got mandatory, online ethics training for all staff. 

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And that's been a bit of a challenge to implement. But we're now up to 95% completion, which means that the awareness of ethical issues has really raised across the academic staff, which has helped. And also within our researcher development programme, we run a series of courses, for example, The Effective Researcher, which is tied into the Vitae Research Development Framework. And again, that covers a whole range of areas to do with research good conduct, and research integrity and ethics.
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<b><h4>What challenges do you face in meeting your goals or providing the services you are expected to provide?</h4></b>

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<b>Sarah Priston:</b> So as a small institution at Bath Spa, the main challenge for us is actually providing enough resource to be able to support the academic staff and the student community. So we don't have a centralised online ethics system, which means it is very much a paper-based exercise. But what we have tried to do is to put a much truncated, and light-touch process in place for our undergraduate students. So we're rolling out a series of light-touch forms, and data management plans, and training for our program leaders, to help them facilitate the undergraduate ethical processes. 

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The data management aspect of it has also being quite challenging for us with the onset of GDPR. So we've been working very closely with our compliance office in providing training, and also developing checklists, so that academic staff know what they're looking for when they're reviewing the data requirement issues of the ethics forms.