Updates from the Research Finance Forum

The BUFDG team were enthused by the first ever Research Finance Forum, which took place on Wednesday 21 June 2023 online and had nearly 130 people tuning in to take part.

The session included:

• Compliance considerations for international fellowships
• UK Reproducibility Network-Jisc report on open research collaboration across diverse professions
• New Introduction to Tax on Research e-learning
• BUFDG review
• Roundtable discussion with other members.

For those unable to join on the day/keen to review any of the session/share with colleagues, a recording of the information sections delivered by BUFDG can be found here (feedback and forum sections were not recorded to encourage free discussion), along with a along with a copy of the full presentation including the poll results from the interactive sections which may be particular of interest if you were not present. 

Please find a summary of highlights and take-aways below: 

• There was widespread support for a continuation of this group gathering in some way. We will look at how we can support this with a view to kicking something off in the new academic year. In the meantime, if you have any interest in helping shape or chair this group, please email Joni 
• Future plans for this group will also consider the widely supported suggestion of a Teams group, providing a channel to instantly reach out to research finance professionals for networking, interesting updates, queries re. specific calls etc. 
• There was a keen interest in a potential sub group forming specifically around Governance, Assurance and Compliance. Sebastian Ashenden-Field, Head of Research Funding Assurance and Compliance at Cambridge University, has kindly offered to chair this, and a number of you have already indicated that you would like to be involved. Please contact Joni directly if you would like to be updated on any progress in this area
• There was strong support for an initial one off discussion regarding timesheets and reporting, following lots of discussion on this and an acknowledgement some more time and targeted sharing of challenges based and best practice would be useful. In the first instance James Sole, Deputy Finance Director at London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine has offered to host a one off meeting on this topic for those struggling in this area. Please contact Joni directly to be involved in this 
• If you have any case study scenarios that would help bring the role research enabling finance staff play in embedding open research practices to life, whether those stories be good news tales or reflections on challenges faced, the UKRN working group would be grateful to hear from you. Please contact Joni for more information
• There were numerous suggestions for future topics, training requirements, and enhanced collaboration with other sector orgs and funders which we have captured and will be fed into the wider BUFDG review we are currently undertaking. The review timeline takes us to the end of 2023, and will inform projects and priorities 2024 and beyond, so we are grateful to have been able to gather this important feedback from the research finance community
• A number of attendees expressed an interest in seeing the results of the Structure of Finance Teams survey, which was open Nov 22 to Feb 23 and includes some data on the nature of research finance within different HEPs
• The Intro to HE Finance and Intro to Research Finance general finance e-learning courses both came up in relation to those newer to the sector and are highly recommended, so please do feel free to share with colleagues. All courses can be found on our e-learning portal, log in using BUFDG pro membership (applies to the vast majority of members but please ask if not sure). If you have any issues accessing the e-learning portal Rachel provides a quick run through from 32’33” on the recording, or please contact her directly. The link to the new Introduction to Tax on Research course highlighted in the session can also be found here, under the Tax section, along with many more