When research ambition outgrows the systems designed to support it

Research office leaders are being asked to deliver complex, mission-led outcomes under sustained cost pressure — using systems designed for a research era with very different expectations and risk tolerance.

The result is that strain once absorbed through goodwill and informal workarounds is now surfacing as delivery risk.

Winning competitive funding increasingly depends on complex, mission-led research.

Across policy, funding calls, and institutional strategy, the direction is clear: productive cross-disciplinary work, multi-partner collaboration, and demonstrable societal impact.

But many research offices are being asked to deliver this future using operating models designed for a different research era.

As ambitions grow, the systems intended to support delivery are being stretched in ways they were never designed for.

This is where delivery risk begins to accumulate – and where its consequences are becoming harder to ignore.

You are being asked to enable ambitious outcomes under intense cost pressure, shrinking margins for error, and rising reputational stakes – while working with operating models shaped when research success was defined more narrowly around individual excellence and generating knowledge.

As a result, performance has become a property of the system that researchers operate in – not just the capability of individual researchers.

Research offices are increasingly expected to act as strategic enablers of institutional outcomes, while remaining equipped primarily for assurance, coordination, and compliance.

You may recognise this tension in strained relationships, fractured collaboration, or programmes that look strong on paper but struggle once delivery begins.

This isn’t a new problem. Many leaders describe it as building over a decade or more.

What’s different now is the pressure profile.

Expectations around mission-led outcomes and cross-disciplinary delivery are rising, while cost constraints and margins for error are shrinking.

The result is that strain once absorbed through goodwill and heroic effort is increasingly surfacing as operating risk.

In many institutions, these signals are still subtle – but becoming harder to ignore.

The reflection below is designed to help you test whether these risk signals are already present – or quietly emerging – in your own context.

Does this match what you’re seeing in your institution?

Test whether the way research is currently enabled is quietly becoming a delivery risk – before it shows up in missed potential, strained collaboration, or fragile execution.

A short, focused read for research office leaders working with complex, mission-led research.

What you’ll gain from this reflection

This short reflection will help you:

Recognise early signals that collaborative ambition is creating delivery risk – not as visible failure, but as under-powered partnerships, fragile execution, or bids that fall short of their potential.
Distinguish systemic constraints from capability gaps, so you can move beyond reactive compensation and think more strategically about where research office intervention makes the biggest difference.
Clarify what protecting and nurturing excellence now requires, rather than continuing to stretch operating models that were never designed for this type of research.

Many leaders find this clarity useful before decisions are forced by constraint.

This is not about adding more work.
It is about seeing the work you are already doing more clearly.

Grounded in the systems that shape research outcomes

I work with research leaders who want to optimise how research is motivated, supported, and sustained in their institutions – so that effort translates into outcomes, not just activity.

My career began as a researcher, with academic training at the Universities of Oxford, Leiden, and Edinburgh, before moving into senior change roles at Elsevier. Much of that work focused on the infrastructure that defines and benchmarks research performance – including the development and use of decision-informing metrics many research leaders will recognise from Scopus, SciVal, and the Snowball Metrics framework.

Today, my focus is on helping institutions evolve how complex research is enabled in practice – particularly where ambitions for cross-disciplinary, mission-led, and high-impact research are running ahead of the systems designed to support them.

A defining thread through this work is a commitment to rigour and relevance through co-creation: strengthening shared understanding, widening access to insight, and recognising that there are multiple legitimate ways of contributing to valuable research.

The reflection I’m inviting you to download and read draws directly on that experience, and on ongoing conversations with research office leaders across the UK – each encountering a different version of the same underlying system-level challenge.

Want a clearer view of what’s driving delivery risk – and where research offices are best placed to intervene?

If this resonates, your next step is to read this reflection.

It will help you think more clearly about your institution’s current operating model, the risks it may be quietly accumulating, and where well-placed shifts could protect and amplify future outcomes – without obligation and without committing to a programme.

Receive the reflection and signals