Research is credible and has real-world benefits when you engage with those affected by and interested in it.
Learn how they can benefit your research and help to embed equitable and responsible practices in your project. If you follow these principles, you and your research will be on the right track.
Explore the principles
Our tool has been co-developed with the international research community and tested with over 100 academic and professional services staff at the University of York and Mahidol University. It supports you to design and deliver equitable and responsible research projects that place people and society at the forefront. It is tailored to help you fulfil responsible research and innovation requirements (RRI) and to enhance the quality and outcomes of your research overall.
You can apply the principles at any time during the lifecycle of your project, but the Valuing Voices tool is primarily designed to be used in the planning stages, which may include writing a grant application or having an initial conversation with your research team. Designing a project with equity and responsibility built in from the start is the best way to ensure that you deliver an equitable and responsible project.
The tool is designed to be used by a research team, but has proved equally helpful to individuals, especially to postgraduates and early career researchers who are planning projects independently for the first time. It can also be adapted to planning other research activities such as setting up a centre equitably or building an inclusive network. In all cases, it is important that initial planning is carried through to the delivery stage using a process of ongoing reflection, in which you revisit and reevaluate the outcomes set at the start.
Everyone involved in the research process is usually time-poor. This tool has been carefully designed with input from many different research team members to be as straightforward and easy to use as possible, while creating meaningful discussion, reflection and results. The tool is supported by layers of practical resources for you to dip into, depending on your prior knowledge, level of interest and available time. To help you put these resources into practice, the results-based planning method asks you to start your project with the end in mind by creating an ambitious vision for equitable and responsible research, then working backwards to identify how you will deliver and resource it.
“The Valuing Voices Tool made me think differently, especially for an ERC project which is so oriented around the PIs – we thought about the team and put in place some measures to ensure the benefits of the project are likely to be shared more equitably”.
“The Valuing Voices tool sent me down lots of new avenues to think about research in a totally different way”.
“The Valuing Voices Tool helped me in my first major research grant proposal, guiding me to see proposal design as not just a scientific process but a social one and encouraging me to think creatively about fair and responsible collaboration”.
Valuing Voices training provides “a complete acknowledgement of the reality of various situations, and a safe space to ask questions which were consistently answered sensitively and intelligently”.
Valuing Voices is a partnership project between colleagues from the University of York and Mahidol University.
Valuing Voices is a two-year project funded by Wellcome under the Institutional Funding for Research Culture grant.
