When research ambition outgrows the systems designed to support it

Research office leaders are being asked to demonstrate impact in new ways – while working with delivery infrastructure built for a different era

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

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

But your reality inside the research office is different.

You are expected to deliver these outcomes under intense cost pressure, shrinking margins for error, and rising reputational stakes – while operating with models and processes shaped in a period when research success was defined more narrowly around generating theory and knowledge.

Performance has become a property of the system that researchers operate in – not just the capability of individual researchers.

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

You might notice this tension between ambition and reality when relationships are strained, collaboration is fractured, and when programmes that look strong on paper struggle once delivery begins.

That tension is now becoming an operating risk.

Does this match what you’re seeing in your institution?
Test whether your current operating model is quietly becoming a delivery risk.

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 your institution’s collaborative ambition is creating delivery risk – showing up not as failure, but as under-powered partnerships, underwhelming execution, or bids that fall short of their potential.
Separate systemic constraints from capability gaps, so you can stop compensating reactively and think 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 – to carry the load.

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 impact, not just activity.

I began my career as a researcher, with academic training at the Universities of Oxford, Leiden, and Edinburgh, and later held 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 the decision-informing metrics that 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 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 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 is quietly accumulating, and where well-placed shifts could protect and amplify future outcomes – without obligation and without committing to a programme.

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