Following the conclusion of a highly competitive recruitment round, eight members have been appointed to the new UK Committee on Research Integrity (UK CORI).
The new members bring a wealth of complementary expertise and experience from a breadth of disciplines and sectors including:
- publishing
- government
- research at various career stages
- research integrity policy.
UK CORI is being hosted by UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) for three years with the first meeting scheduled for May 2022.
It will have a national role in promoting and championing research integrity.
Joining the UK CORI co-chairs
The new members will join UK CORI co-chairs Professor Rachael Gooberman-Hill and Professor Andrew George MBE.
Co-chair Professor Andrew George MBE said:
We are excited to be bringing together this diverse group of people who all share a genuine enthusiasm for contributing to a research environment that naturally promotes and recognises integrity, and which puts members of the public, the main beneficiaries of research, at the heart of the enterprise.
Co-chair Professor Rachael Gooberman-Hill added:
It was reassuring to see the depth of commitment to research integrity evidenced by the volume of interest in UK CORI membership. We were sorry that we could not appoint every skilled and committed candidate who applied to be on the committee.
As the work of UK CORI develops, we know that its success will depend on the ability to listen to the research community as a whole. We’re working now to bring together a network of individuals and organisations to form a wide community of interest that creates opportunities for discussion.
To sign up for updates on UK CORI, email secretariat@ukcori.org and request to be added to the mailing list.
Further information
Panel members
The new appointments are:
Professor Nandini Das
Nandini Das is Professor of Early Modern Literature and Culture at the University of Oxford.
She was a founding member of UKRI Research England Council from 2016 to 2022.
She has served on UK research committees and consultations across multiple areas, including:
- research excellence framework
- open access
- equality, diversity and inclusion
- research funding at national and international levels.
Professor Maria Delgado
Maria M Delgado is Professor and Vice Principal (Research and Knowledge Exchange) at Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, University of London.
She has published widely in areas of transnational theatre and film, and has a long track record of work in:
- research assessment
- editing
- collaboration with industry partners both nationally and internationally.
Louise Dunlop
Louise Dunlop is Head of Research Governance, Ethics and Integrity at Queen’s University Belfast.
She has considerable experience from working with academic, research and professional support services colleagues over the past 15 years at Queen’s. Prior to joining the University, she was involved in quality improvement within health and social care.
Louise has an MSc in primary care and general practice and a BA Hons in public policy and management.
Dr Suzanne Farley
Suzanne Farley is Editorial Director at the Public Library of Science (PLOS).
Prior to joining PLOS, Suzanne was:
- Research Integrity Director at Springer Nature
- Executive Editor at Scientific Reports
- Managing Editor of the Nature Reviews journals.
She has a degree in environmental science, and a PhD in plant physiology and molecular biology.
Professor Ian Gilmore
Professor Ian Gilmore is:
- Head of Science at the National Physical Laboratory (NPL)
- senior NPL fellow
- Visiting Professor in the School of Pharmacy at the University of Nottingham.
He is Founding Director of the UK’s National Centre of Excellence in mass spectrometry. Ian’s research goal is to achieve super-resolution label-free metabolic imaging.
Dr Ralitsa Madsen
Ralitsa Madsen is a Sir Henry Wellcome postdoctoral fellow at UCL Cancer Institute, where she studies cell signalling perturbations caused by genetic defects in the growth-promoting gene PIK3CA.
Alongside her research, Ralitsa is an advocate for open research, taking part in various grassroots activities aimed at promoting research integrity and reproducibility nationally as well as internationally.
Dame Jil Matheson
Following a career in social research and statistics, from 2009 until 2014 Dame Jil Matheson served as:
- national statistician
- Head of the Government Statistical Service
- Chief Executive of the UK Statistics Authority.
During that time Jil also chaired the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s committee on statistics and statistical policy and the UN Statistical Commission.
Since then, Jil has been involved in a number of activities including:
- leading a group for the British Academy on the need for improved quantitative skills in the UK
- carrying out a review of the BBC’s impartiality in its use and reporting of statistics, ‘Making Sense of Statistics’.
She was a trustee of NatCen Social Research from 2016 to 2022. Jil is currently Honorary Secretary of the Academy of Social Sciences and a fellow of the Royal Statistical Society.
She is a member of the Royal Society’s Advisory Committee on Mathematics Education, Economic and Social Research Council’s Grant Assessment Panel and a non-executive Director of the Sports Ground Safety Authority.
Jil is a graduate of the University of Sussex and has honorary doctorates from the universities of:
- Wolverhampton
- Sussex
- Bath.
She was appointed DCB in 2014 for services to official statistics.
Professor Miles Padgett FRS FRSE
Miles Padgett is a Royal Society Research Professor and holds the Kelvin Chair of Natural Philosophy in the School of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Glasgow.
He leads an optics research team covering a wide spectrum from blue-sky research to applied commercial development, funded by a combination of:
- government
- charity
- industry.
He is a fellow both of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and the Royal Society, in addition to various subject specific societies.
He is currently the Principal Investigator of the UK Quantum Technology Hub in Quantum Imaging (QuantIC). QuantIC is the UK’s centre of excellence for research, development and innovation in quantum enhanced imaging, bringing together eight universities with more than 40 industry partners.
During his five-year term as Vice-Principal for Research, he and his colleagues championed how an improved research culture was not an alternative to excellence. Instead, it is something that would allow more of us to excel.
He is now the academic co-lead of Glasgow’s Lab for Academic Culture.
Recruitment process
For their invaluable assistance in the UK CORI member recruitment process, Andrew and Rachael would like to extend their sincere thanks to:
- Dr Nadia Soliman
- Dr Rhys Morgan
- Dr Karen Salt.
For their participation, dedication, and assistance in the appointment of the UK CORI co-chairs Professor Dame Ottoline Leyser also extends her sincere gratitude to:
- Professor Sir Ian Boyd
- Professor Neena Modi
- Professor Janet Boddy.
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