Category Archives: Research

To make science reproducible, focus on prevention not cure

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This post was written by Marcus Munafò, University of Bristol, Malcolm Macleod, University of Edinburgh, they are on the steering group of the UK Reproducibility Network and Malcolm Skingle, director of academic liaison at GlaxoSmithKline. 

Improved upstream quality control can make research more effective, say Marcus Munafò and his colleagues.

Science relies on its ability to self-correct. But the speed and extent to which this happens is an empirical question. Can we do better?

The Covid pandemic has highlighted existing fault lines. We have seen the best of scientific research in the incredible speed at which vaccines have been developed and trialled. But we have also seen a deluge of Covid-related studies conducted in haste, often reflected in their less-than-ideal quality.

Peer review, the traditional way of assessing academic research, occurs only after work has been done. Can we identify indicators of research quality earlier on in the process when there is more opportunity to fix things? And if we did, could scientific knowledge be translated into societal benefit more rapidly and efficiently?

In many ways, the cultures and working practices of academia are still rooted in a 19th-century model of the independent scientist. Many research groups are effectively small, artisanal businesses using unique skills and processes.

This approach can yield exquisitely crafted output. But it also risks poor reproducibility and replicability—through, for instance, closed workflows, closed data and the use of proprietary file formats. Incentive structures based around assessing and rewarding individuals reinforce this, despite the welcome shift to team-based research activity, management, dissemination and evaluation.

Lessons from industry 

Research needs a more coherent approach to ensuring quality. One of us has previously argued that one way to achieve this would be to take the concept of quality control used in manufacturing and apply it to scientific research.

Pharmaceuticals are one R&D-intensive industry that has worked hard to improve quality control and ensure data integrity. Regulatory frameworks and quality-assurance processes are designed to make the results generated in the early stages of drug development more robust.

Indeed, some of the early concerns about the robustness of much academic research—described by some as the ‘reproducibility crisis’—emerged from pharmaceutical companies.

For regulated work, major pharmaceutical companies must be able to demonstrate the provenance of their data in fine detail. Standard operating procedures for routine work, and extended description of less common methods and experiments, makes comparisons between labs easier and improves traceability.

Data constitute the central element of robust research. The integrity of the systems through which data are collected, curated, analysed and presented is at the heart of research quality. National measurement institutes, including the UK’s National Physical Laboratory and National Institute for Biological Standards and Control have a role to play, sharing best practice and developing protocols that contribute to international standards.

How well these systems perform depends on many factors: training in data collection and management; transparency to allow scrutiny and error detection; documentation, so that work can be replicated; and standard operating procedures to ensure a consistent approach.

Red-tape review

Academic researchers are increasingly keen to learn from industry, and vice versa—to identify best practice and ways to implement higher standards of data integrity. University and industrial research are very different, but academia can learn lessons and adopt working practices that might serve to improve the quality of academic research in the biomedical and life sciences.

Learning from other sectors and organisations is a central theme of the UK Reproducibility Network. The network, established in 2019 as a peer-led consortium, aims to develop training and shape incentives through linked grassroots and institutional activity, and coordinated efforts across universities, funders, publishers and other organisations. This multilevel approach reduces the cost of development and increases interoperability, for example, as researchers move across groups and institutions.

Given the likely future pressures on the UK’s R&D budget, effective and efficient ways to bolster research quality will be essential to maximising the societal return on investment. Simply encouraging, or even mandating, new ways of working is not sufficient—many funders and journals have data-sharing policies, for example, but adherence is uneven and often unenforced.

A coordinated approach will require a clear model of research quality; buy-in from institutions, funders and journals; infrastructure; training; the right incentives; and ongoing evaluation. Coordinating all these elements will be challenging, but it is essential to improving research quality and efficiency. We need to take a whole-system approach.

This also applies to the independent review into research bureaucracy recently announced by the UK government, charged with identifying how to liberate researchers from admin. This is laudable—academia should certainly not be regulated in the same way as the pharmaceutical industry—but the review should recognise that an ounce of prevention can save a pound of cure.

Developing and deploying systems that improve research quality might increase efficiency and reduce research waste, as well as securing greater value for our national research effort.

This blog post was originally posted on Research Fortnight, you can read the original article here.

To address ethnic inequalities in COVID-19, we must acknowledge the multifaceted influence of racism

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This blog post was written by Dr Saffron Karlsen, (Associate Professor in Sociology, University of Bristol). 

The evidence of ethnic inequalities in the number of COVID-related infections and deaths in the UK is compelling – yet discussions about how to address them remain somewhat simplistic. Dr Saffron Karlsen discusses five key issues that must be acknowledged if we are to establish a more complete picture of these inequalities and their drivers.

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Management consultants in healthcare do more harm than good, but keep getting rehired – new research

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This blog post was written by Andrew Sturdy, Chair in Organisation and Management, University of Bristol and Ian Kirkpatrick, Chair in Management, University of York. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license, read the original article here.

The use of management consultants has grown enormously in recent years. In the UK, consultancy brings in around £10 billion a year in fees across the public and private sectors. And while not totally recession-proof, the numbers grew in the run-up to Brexit and then COVID-19. (Remember test and trace? Consultants played a major role.)

Consulting firms can provide advice and extra resources at short notice and can be very effective for the right task and client. But their use often brings controversy, especially when public money is at stake, over the value of outsourcing, for instance. This raises a number of questions. Does consultancy bring improvements such as increased efficiency? If not, how can we explain its huge growth?

In the NHS, there is a remarkable lack of clarity and transparency over how much consultancy is used and with what effects. This falls within broader concerns noted in a recent National Audit Office report on procurement across public services.

In our ongoing research on management consultancy in the NHS, we have started to address these issues.

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What’s yours is mine …. Assumptions about couples in means-tested benefits

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This blog post was written by Marilyn Howard, Honorary Research Associate and Doctoral student in the School of Policy Studies, University of Bristol

Couples living together are often assumed to share income and manage finances jointly. This assumption underpins means-tested benefits, which treat a couple as if they were one unit, so that one partner’s income and assets affects the couple’s overall benefit entitlement.

Summarising existing research into money management and control in a briefing for the Women’s Budget Group , Marilyn Howard from the University of Bristol, and Fran Bennett  from the University of Oxford, use these insights to explore the implications for how social security benefits are designed and delivered.

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COVID-19 school closures are threatening children’s oral language skills: but whole-school based interventions could help.

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Oral language skills are critical for learning, and they matter now more than ever

Dr Ioanna, Bakopoulou, Lecturer in Psychology in Education, School of Education, University of Bristol

Capabilities such as vocabulary knowledge, narrative skills and active listening are foundational for young children’s learning. Developed both at home and in school, these capabilities are known as oral language. Oral language is essential for young children’s learning, in particularly their literacy development and their ability to access the curriculum.

Oral language skills have always mattered, but they matter now more than ever.

The Covid-19 pandemic has widened the already stubborn ‘language gap’, that is the difference between the language levels of children from poorer backgrounds vs their more affluent peers. Ofsted have raised concerns that children hit hardest are ‘regressing in basic skills and learning, including language, communication and oral fluency’1. Recent research found that 92 per cent of teachers think school closures due to the Covid-19 pandemic have contributed to a widening of the ‘word gap’ and that 94 per cent found it challenging to support pupils’ vocabulary development while teaching remotely during the first national lockdown2.

This suggests that the inequalities facing children in our school system are being exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic. Pupils from poorer backgrounds have suffered the most and face a greater loss of learning as a result of school closures3.

The likely increase in the disadvantage gap highlights the importance of school-based, early language interventions. Support for oral language offers an important means by which we can address the injustices worsened by the pandemic.

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Learning loss: the National Tutoring Programme for England is a valuable step – but may not go far enough

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Authors:
Simon Burgess, Professor of Economics, University of Bristol
Hans Sievertsen, Senior Lecturer in Economics, University of Bristol

UNESCO estimates that around 1.5 billion children were unable to attend school in the spring of 2020. Closed schools mean lost learning, lower skills and reduced life chances and wellbeing.

A strategy for closing this learning gap needs to be rapid, school-based rather than online, and provided in addition to regular school. Given the size of the learning gap, it requires significant investment. Most importantly, there must be evidence of its effectiveness.

The policy that best fits these criteria is small-group tutoring, based in schools. This is the focus of the UK government’s new flagship catch-up programme, available to state schools in England.

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The critical role of schools in protecting vulnerable children: why schools and social workers need immediate support to respond to the effects of lockdown

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Dr Victoria Sharley
Lecturer in Social Work with Children and Families

With the majority of children returning to schools this week, referrals to Children’s Services are expected to substantially rise. As Peter Walker reported in the Guardian, schools will play ‘a pivotal role in spotting neglect and abuse’.

After nearly six months away from the classroom, children who would have previously been identified as needing help and support have been invisible to staff in schools.  According to the Department for Education, the number of referrals received by Children’s Services since schools closed due to the Covid19 outbreak, has seen a dramatic reduction of 18% (compared to the last three years).

The NSPCC states that schools are vital partners in the safeguarding and protection of our children. Staff in schools have the opportunity to observe children in a range of settings, inside and outside of the classroom. Teachers and other school staff can monitor children’s behaviour daily, over an extended period of schooling, whilst observing their interactions with peers and members of their families. They are uniquely positioned to detect concerns at an early point and share information which ensures children receive the support they need at the right time.

It is therefore essential that school staff are fully supported to recognise children who are in need of additional support, and be ready to respond to those who have been living with abuse or neglect, and are in need of protection.

A new policy report by Dr Vicky Sharley (University of Bristol) highlights findings from a recent study funded by Welsh Government through Health and Care Research Wales. The report looks at how school staff identify and respond to children they suspect are living with neglect (the most common reason for a child to be on a child protection plan in England). The report sets out key recommendations for best practice across schools and child protection services, and calls for policymakers to support schools and social workers in their unique but closely related roles within the safeguarding system.

The report also outlines a new approach for the development of effective inter-agency relationships to improve safeguarding outcomes. It is essential for children’s welfare that any concerns are raised at the earliest point possible. This requires more support for school staff and social workers to develop close working relationships and excellent communication channels. Recommendations are particularly pertinent at a time when children are returning to the classroom, having been ‘hidden’ from services for more than five months and referrals are expected to soar.

You can read the full report here. The key recommendations include the following:

  • Head Teachers should be supported to establish effective learning communities within their schools so staff develop context-specific knowledge and expertise on how to respond to child neglect effectively within a school setting.
  • Schools should recruit strategic staff who demonstrate commitment to developing expertise in child neglect to promote children’s wellbeing within the school setting.
  • School staff who know the local community well should have opportunities to provide insights into the lives of children who are suspected of living with neglect.
  • Social workers should routinely provide feedback to schools on the outcome of referrals made to child protection services and the rationale for their decision not to intervene.
  • Social workers should ensure that Child Protection Conferences are not planned during school holidays, and that information is shared with new schools where children are transitioning to secondary education.
  • Informal and formal opportunities should be made available to all staff to spend time in partner agencies to support development of knowledge and expertise about service provision.
  • The local authority’s threshold guidance document should be used as a tool for reflective discussion across services, to inform professional decision making and foster a ‘shared language’, so school staff can more effectively articulate concerns in their referrals.
  • The role of the School Social Worker responds to many interprofessional barriers between schools and child protection services, and should be established in all local authorities.

This study forms the basis of Dr Sharley’s ongoing research investigating interprofessional safeguarding practices across the United Kingdom. She would be happy to answer any questions about this study or discuss her ongoing and future work in this area.

The Brazilian Education Fracture and COVID-19: A Historical Perspective

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André Hedlund, Chevening Alumnus, MSc in Psychology of Education from the School of Education at the University of Bristol

“Challenging. The Brazilian Educational System is Huge”

This is written on the website of Todos Pela Educação (All for Education), an NGO that provides information about the Brazilian educational scenario in order to help boost quality and access to basic education.

Brazil has a history of elitism and oppression. Education was used as an evangelisation tool by the Jesuits to convert Indigenous Brazilians in the early colonial years, between the 16th and the 19th centuries. Till this day, many schools are run by religious institutions. In the 19th century, the elite either had the luxury of private tutors or sent their children abroad, particularly Portugal, for their studies while slaves traded in from Africa were not allowed any type of education at all. Black people are still marginalised as a consequence of structural racism.

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Coronavirus: have we already missed the opportunity to build a better world?

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Martin Parker Professor of Organisation Studies University of Bristol

Many people like to say that the coronavirus is teaching us a lesson, as if the pandemic were a kind of morality play that should lead to a change in our behaviour. It shows us that we can make big shifts quickly if we want to. That we can build back better. That social inequality is starkly revealed at times of crisis. That there is a “magic money tree”. The idea that crisis leads to change was also common during the financial crunch over a decade ago, but that didn’t produce any lasting transformations. So will post-COVID life be any different?

At the start of lockdown, in the middle of the anxiety and confusion, I started to notice that I was enjoying myself. I was cooking and gardening more; the air was cleaner, my city was quieter and I was spending more time with my partner. Lots of people started to write about the idea that there should be #NoGoingBack. It seemed that we had taken a deep collective breath, and then started to think about coronavirus as a stimulus to encourage us to think how we might address other big issues – climate, inequality, racism and so on.

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Maximum cigarette pack size: a neglected aspect of tobacco control

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Written by Anna Blackwell, Senior Research Associate

Follow Bristol Tobacco and Alcohol Research Group (TARG) on twitter

The manufacturing or importing of packs of cigarettes with fewer than 20 cigarettes per pack was prohibited in the UK when the EU Tobacco Products Directive and standardised packaging legislation were fully implemented in May 2017. This change was aimed at reducing the affordability of cigarettes and thereby discouraging young people from smoking. This directive also required the removal of branding and established a standard shape and dark green colour for packaging, including pictorial health warnings, which prevented the use of packaging for promotion and reduced its appeal.

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