The Moral Dimension to Developing Research Culture

Advocating for caught, taught and sought approaches

Abstract

The paper seeks to justify a moral dimension to research culture, both in terms of the moral commitment to pursuing a shared sense of purpose by researchers, and a moral obligation to provide a positive environment for researchers to flourish in by the employer. The paper draws on synergies and comparisons with work on character education, in schools and professions, and which has found prominence in education policy and practice since 2012. Where work on character education in higher Education Institutions (HEIs) is in its infancy in the UK, there are both examples from overseas (USA, Singapore) and transferable elements from work in schools that can help to demonstrate that focussing on moral development is beneficial to all. This paper views the cultivation of research culture not as a ‘fix’ for negative experiences that researchers encounter, nor as a means to correct perceptions that see culture as inherently bad. By viewing research culture through a moral lens, it is possible to approach its development and cultivation in holistic and encompassing ways which seek to allow researchers to become the best versions of themselves.

In establishing what the moral dimension to research culture is, I suggest that we can learn from work on character education to further explore frameworks for embedding provision within HEIs for morally focussed research culture initiatives. The paper draws insights from successes in how character education has been embedded in schools and professional education, with a particular focus on a framework for character and constitutive of four categories of virtue, embracing individual moral development with collective, communal citizenship. Further, I present three approaches for a framework for how it can be developed; where culture is ‘caught’ through a positive and collegial ethos, ‘taught’ through a combination of discrete teaching and learning activities, which, in combination, can encourage researchers and those supporting research to ‘seek’ out their own opportunities to develop research culture more actively.

The paper concludes with two main recommendations to view culture as more than a ‘nice to have’, but as means to facilitate positive, impactful research; and to actively cultivate culture through caught and taught approaches that will lead to researchers seeking opportunities to do so themselves.