Developing Fundamental Research Practice Training at the University of Oxford

The adoption of up-to-date research practices is the foundation of reliable and trusted academic research. Yet researchers are often left to piece together increasingly more complex and ever-evolving guidance on how to design, plan, execute, and report their research findings or sources. Higher educational institutions have a responsibility to develop more coherent ways to assist researchers to access the latest policies, guidance, and tools, e.g. for establishing equitable partnerships, managing research data, ensuring information security, choosing open and reproducible publication models. At the University of Oxford, enabling and promoting good research practice is one of three key pillars in our research culture strategy. To deliver on the institutional ambitions for Research Practice, we are designing and implementing a comprehensive training and support programme, which includes running digital transformation projects and defining organisational guidance and policies. This paper focuses on the training component and the creation of a set of short, e-learning modules on topics which include: Research Integrity and Governance; Open Research Practices; Research Design; Collaboration; Data; Authorship, Publication and Peer Review; and Research Impact and Public Engagement. We share the criteria we have developed to help us map, assess and integrate pre-existing training and resources. The central aim is to deliver researcher-centred educational material that is applicable to any discipline and career stage. We also discuss how we are engaging key domain experts across the university through membership of small working groups for each of the modules. Once the core modules have been finalised, the materials will be publicly released under an open licence. Funding Acknowledgement The Research Practice Programme is funded by the University of Oxford with support from the Enhancing Research Culture Fund from Research England.