RESEARCH INNOVATION

Imagine2030
Annual report 2024-25

A student taking a book off a shelf in Main Library

Growing our Open Research community

This year has seen significant growth in our Open Research community, marked by new initiatives, expanded programmes, and national recognition. The Office for Open Research launched an enhanced website and knowledge base, creating a central hub for guidance, resources, and updates to support researchers in embedding open practices across their work. This new platform strengthens visibility and accessibility, helping to sustain a culture of openness at the University.

At a national level, we successfully delivered the second Open Research Conference in June 2025, attracting wide participation and thought leadership from across the sector. The conference represented an expansion in scale and ambition from the previous year, spanning two days and attracting over 120 delegates. The programme featured two internationally renowned keynote speakers and offered delegates participation opportunities including interactive Research Culture Lab sessions. The event culminated in the Open Research Award, conferred by The University of Manchester’s Vice-President for Social Responsibility, Professor Nalin Thakker, celebrating outstanding contributions to open scholarship.

Our innovative Open Research Fellowship Programme expanded this year, with the appointment of five new Fellows joining the original eight to increase representation and advocacy for Open Research across the University. Our Fellows made significant contributions to the 2025 Open Research Conference, sharing how their projects are already advancing and embedding Open Research within their disciplines via posters, presentations and contributions to the Research Culture Labs. We were successful in securing Research England culture funding to sustain the Fellowship Programme into a third year, consolidating its role in developing leadership capacity for Open Research.

Together, these achievements highlight the Library's sustained commitment to shaping and supporting a thriving research culture.

Research excellence and responsible research metrics

The Office for Open Research (OOR) played a pivotal role in sustaining the University’s excellence in the Times Higher Education Impact Rankings by evidencing our impact against the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The Research Indicators Team’s work was recognised by Dr Julian Skyrme, Executive Director for Social Responsibility, who highlighted its instrumental role in securing the University’s world-leading position.

Over the past year, the Library has driven institutional strategies to strengthen the University’s standing in international rankings. The Research Indicators Team has provided expert insight to inform decision-making at the highest level, helping the University navigate an increasingly competitive global environment. Crucially, this leadership has been matched by our commitment to the use of responsible research metrics. The Library played a central role in the University’s signing of CoARA (Coalition for Advancing Research Assessment) in 2025, a milestone that reflects our values and influence in advancing more holistic and equitable approaches to recognising research quality and impact.

To improve access to data and insights, OOR launched the Research Indicators Gateway, a new platform that enables researchers and research leads to access metrics reports more easily. This innovation enhances transparency and empowers academic leaders to use evidence to guide planning and demonstrate research strengths.

Together, these achievements highlight the Library’s central role in advancing the University’s research reputation while modelling integrity in assessment practices.

Office for Open Research collaboration with the Research Lifecycle Programme

The Office for Open Research continues its close collaboration with the University's renewed 5-year Research Lifecycle Programme (RLP), leading the Open, Reproducible & Responsible Research programme theme. Current projects include:

Establishing a Research Software & Code Policy for The University of Manchester.
A Figshare showcase for the Manchester School of Architecture's large collection of architectural models.
A long-term archiving solution and infrastructure for "cold" research data.
Creating a service to facilitate and support the use of Electronic Research Notebooks.
A business case for an institutional Data Stewardship service.

Innovative support for Research Review Exercise (RRE)

The Library’s Digital Development Team has played a key role this year in supporting the University’s Research Review Exercise process. A major accomplishment was the bulk creation of around 3,400 publication records in the Library’s Open Access Compliance Platform. This was achieved with our new Application Programming Interface (API) which allows us to add information programmatically directly into Pure, the University’s research database. This innovative approach replaced what would have been a highly manual process, saving significant time and resources while ensuring accuracy.

Once created, these records were fed into the Library’s Open Research Tracker application, giving researchers early visibility of their Research Excellence Framework (REF)-eligible outputs. To further strengthen the dataset, the team curated the records by adding missing fields such as publication dates and Digital Object Identifiers (DOIs), improving both completeness and reliability.

This project highlights the impact of the Digital Development Team’s creative problem-solving and technical expertise. By automating previously manual processes, the team worked in partnership with colleagues in the Office for Open Research and reduced the administrative burden on researchers.

Through this work, the Digital Development Team have demonstrated how innovative digital solutions can directly enhance research support, improve data quality, and contribute to showcasing Manchester’s world-leading research.

Continental European Books in Early Modern England, 1500-1640: A new approach using bibliographic data science

The Digital Development Team acted as co-investigators on a ground-breaking Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC)-funded project for The John Rylands Library, which created the largest database of foreign books imported into England between 1500 and 1640.

This resource enables advanced visualisation and analysis using data science methods, transforming how scholars understand the circulation of Continental European books in early modern England.

The team provided technical leadership throughout the project, from the initial pilot phase to the successful grant application and delivery. They managed the development of the software using agile methodologies, coordinated the collaboration between academic researchers and technical specialists, and ensured the long-term sustainability of the database.

In addition to providing behind-the-scenes technical support, the team also contributed to public engagement, including presenting the research at academic events. Formal recognition of the team’s contribution highlights the increasing importance of digital expertise in driving innovative humanities research and demonstrates the Library’s capacity to combine bibliographic knowledge with cutting-edge data science in support of world-leading scholarship.