Exchange 2022

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Exchange made its debut on a sunny day in July 2022, with around 80 communications and research staff joining us at Coram, a few minutes walk from Euston and Russell Square stations in central London, for a day of discussions with guest speakers, panel discussions and networking.

Our guest speaker was James Wilsdon, Director of the Research on Research Institute and Professor of Research Policy at the University of Sheffield (since 2023, now at UCL). Professor Wilsdon authored the 2015 report The Metric Tide on the potential use of metrics in research assessment and chaired the European Commission panel which produced Next-generation Metrics in 2017. In the same vein, as part of the Future Research Assessment Programme looking at the future of REF and research assessment in the UK, he was part of the expert panel revisiting the discussion around metrics, which has since been published in December as Harnessing the Metric Tide.

With the results of REF2021 having been published just weeks before, James spoke about the future of the REF and the role of metrics in it, followed by a Q&A.

Our first panel event was on the thorny question of how to generate impact, how to record it, and how to ensure others learn about and use research. We heard from panellists Lucy Jowett, Research Impact Manager at Northumbria University, Lorna Pontefract, Senior Research Communications Manager at University of Manchester, and Claire Donovan, Professor of Education at the University of Greenwich, who brought their views on the issues from research, communications and academic perspectives.

For the breakout sessions, The Conversation's Investigations Editor Paul Keaveny introduced Insights, The Conversation's Research England-funded stream of long read articles that showcases new research containing a compelling public interest or personal narrative. His presentation explained how the articles were generated and produced alongside authors, and explained how member communications staff could get their researchers involved.

For our breakout second session we heard from Dharmesh Patel, Senior Editor Audience Engagement at Springer-Nature, who introduced social media techniques to maximise the reach and engagement with university research.

After lunch our final panel event was on finding the news value of research, featuring perspectives from communications officers Emma Matthews, Bournemouth University, Glenn Harris, University of Portsmouth, and the Editor of BBC Future, Richard Gray, in discussion with The Conversation's Membership Editor, Michael Parker, and with lively contributions from the floor.

To round off the afternoon, The Conversation's membership editor and Exchange organiser Michael Parker looked at some live feedback on the event via Mentimeter, and discussed some of the challenges communications teams said they faced in a survey. Finally, chief executive Chris Waiting spoke about the distance The Conversation had come in the last few years, and the direction of travel of the next five years.

The final part of the day is for attendees to have the opportunity to meet each other – colleagues from different departments of the same university, and opposite numbers from other institutions.

Thank you to everyone who attended Exchange. We look forward to seeing you again next year.