Research and Innovation (R&I) is welcoming staff into new roles as it completes the first phase of a transition to a new operating structure. 

Director Pip Peakman is leading on the restructure, which is designed to strengthen support to academics and allow R&I to be more agile in anticipating and seizing funding opportunities. 

R&I’s restructure aligns with delivery of the university’s renewed research strategy for 2022-27 and will further enhance Nottingham’s ability to be strategic and focused in response the challenges facing the UK and societies around the world. 

Pip said: “I am delighted that we have successfully enhanced our resources within Research and Innovation. We have achieved this with a combination of external recruitment, internal promotion and changes in roles for some staff. This establishes a strong position for us to provide a more agile and sustainable approach to delivering the Research and KE Strategic Delivery Plans and associated key performance indicators. These changes will improve cross team-working, and enable us to focus on outcome-driven, evidence-based working.  

“I recognise this has been an unsettling time for R&I staff and I would like to thank all of you for your patience and professionalism throughout the past few months. I hope that colleagues will join me in looking forward to a new and refreshed division where we can be more focused and strategic as we work towards supporting the delivery of the university’s research and KE strategies.”  

Following consultation on a new operating structure in January 2022, an extensive recruitment process culminated in 27 appointments to new roles. Some existing roles changed and others remain the same, with the number of R&I posts overall increasing in the new structure. 

Pip added: “We congratulate staff who have been promoted and welcome our new recruits. Niall O’Loughlin will be joining us from Durham University at the end of November as our new Director of RKE Excellence and Strategy. 

Niall O’Loughlin

 “Niall has worked in UK higher education for the past 14 years and at Durham University since 2016, latterly as Co-Director of Research & Innovation Services, where he led a specialist multidisciplinary team responsible for research and KE performance, policies and systems across Durham’s 29 academic departments and 10 interdisciplinary research institutes, as well as supporting Durham’s submission to the Research Excellence Framework, Knowledge Exchange Framework and the Higher Education Business and Community Interaction Survey.”  

Niall said: “I am very excited to come Nottingham as Director of RKE Excellence and Strategy, where I’ll be leading the newly formed Research and Knowledge Exchange Strategy Directorate. Our key objectives are to develop, implement and monitor the university’s Research and Knowledge Exchange Strategic Delivery Plans, support high performance, provide accurate information and analytics to support evidenced based decision making, and ensure that the Researcher Academy continues to effectively contribute to the university’s RKE strategies.”  

Also joining Research and Innovation in senior new posts are: 

• Victoria Crossley – Strategic Lead (UKRI) 
• Catherine Allford – Head of RKE Strategic Management & Performance 

Congratulations also to R&I colleagues moving into senior roles: 

• Catherine Jew – Head of Research & KE Development 
• Ali Alshukry – Head of Research Integrity, Risk & Compliance 

Pip added “This is a really exciting time for R&I as we come to the completion of the recruitment part of phase 1 of the roadmap. We will now be focusing our research culture, people development processes, management leadership training across R&I and business partnering with Faculties to breakdown silo working to support research delivery and KPIs.

In phase 2 we will be looking in more detail at how we deliver the objectives of IP & Commercialisation and the Researcher Academy. In addition, we will continue the work started in phase 1 to develop a quality management and continual improvement framework within Research Operations”. 

Please visit Research and Innovation’s pages for more on the changes, including new roles.  

For questions and comments, please contact: bb-regs@exmail.nottingham.ac.uk