Faculty part of successful £4.9M bid to lead research skills hub for social scientists

The Open University’s (OU’s) Faculty of Business & Law (FBL), PolicyWISE and the Institute of Educational Technology have worked collaboratively to successfully win an award of £4.9M from the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC). 

The award has been given to lead the delivery of an exciting new Research Capability Hub for social scientists over the next five years. It represents a major investment in the UK's social science research infrastructure and will support researchers at all career stages across academia, government, business, and the third sector.

The Hub will support ESRC’s commitment to sustain a world-class, diverse and inclusive research base that promotes talent across the entire research career and powers the best research across the breadth of the social sciences. It will use the OU’s innovative technology infrastructures to transform research skills training from a traditional, often quite rigid, approach to an innovative programme.

Stian Westlake, ESRC Executive Chair, said: 

This investment demonstrates our commitment to maintaining the UK's position as a world leader in social science research. By developing and coordinating research skills training and capacity building provision across sectors, the new hub will ensure our social scientists have the cutting-edge skills needed to address complex societal challenges and support evidence-based policy making.

 

Bart Rienties, Professor of Learning Analytics at the OU’s Institute of Educational Technology (IET), Project Lead for the Hub said:

I am absolutely delighted that the ESRC has selected the OU to deliver this transformative initiative over the next five years. With over 15,000* social scientists across the UK, we look forward to engaging with the community to understand their evolving training needs and to co-create high-quality personalised learning through OpenLearn Create*, our innovative, leading open educational platform.

Led collaboratively by teams across IET, the OU’s Faculty of Business & Law, and PolicyWise, this initiative will enhance training and capacity-building through scalable, co-created, and personalised learning pathways, leveraging the OU’s longstanding strengths in innovation, pedagogy, and digital delivery.

Dewi Knight, Director of PolicyWise which is based in the Business School, said:

We are delighted to be working with our policy research partners in a way that recognises the divergent policy structures of the UK and to support improved policy and societal engagement and impact as part of this exciting initiative.

*Academy of Social Sciences. (2024). Research funding in the UK social sciences: summary data report for 2013/14 to 2021/22. 

*OpenLearn Create an educational platform where individuals and organisations can publish their open content, open courses and resources. It is Moodle based and has tools for collaboration, reuse and remixing.