Thread by @alison_phipps

20 November 2020

⁦#UKRI announced award of 141 new projects under #GCRF all addressing #SDGs

Global challenges being tackled by projects include [d]:
👉🏼environmental disasters
👉🏼education for children living through conflict
👉🏼malnutrition.” #odacuts ukri.org/news/ukri-anno…

Many of these 141 #GCRF award holders had been under strict @beisgovuk imposed embargo on #UKRI for over a year. I know, I was one of them. Delivering during the pandemic meant constant requests to ‘reprofile’ our grants meaning using resource to make projects Covid compliant

Between and in secret because of the embargo we worked out how to ensure partners had access to good enough internet for our partner meetings. This meant investing in and rapidly learning g about mobile technologies #odacuts #gcrfcuts #ukricuts

Mobile technology infrastructure is not my area of academic expertise but we managed it. Team members in partner countries in #LMICs have diligently attended every meeting and hard to install tech for their workers & research participants #odacuts #gcrfcuts #ukricuts

We needed to ensure health and safety & Covid compliance during embargo phase. I learned about poly tanks and water supplies and boreholes and spoke with other experts in other fields. Project partners worked hard with tmany levels of due diligence #odacuts #gcrfcuts #UKRIcuts

A stream of cultural works made with by and for women and girls has been streaming from our @CUSP_Network #ukri #GCRF project for over a year. It tells stories of gender based violence, #femicide cultural education in situations of protracted conflict during pandemic #gcrfcuts

The #UKRI 141 projects announced on 20 November 2020 have similar stories to tell. Investments for projects listing 4-5 years to ensure sustainability and legacy. A critique of old style aid is that it doesn’t look to legacy; infrastructures rot without sustainability #odacuts

So at last on 20 November 2020 with just 2 days notice we are able to breathe. Our internal managers can sign with relief and celebrate the success these awards represent for HEIs and their work towards #SDGs At @UofGlasgow this also means #Cop26 as host city #gcrfcuts #ukricuts

The timing was a bit weird and very sudden yet in the same week the FCDO in 🇬🇧Govt announced increased spending on arms, was getting push back from many Conservatives who support return of #ODA to 0.7 in their own party, and clearly needed some good news. Enter #UKRI 141 projects

The 141 projects were amazing. Absolutely cutting edge, gold standard peer-reviewed projects up to two years in active development & incubation, with pump prime #UKRI funds. Three levels of assessment. At least 5 long detailed peer reviewers examined each in minute detail. #GCRF

That’s at very least 705 academics volunteering their Labour usually during their actual holidays to assess their peers work and ensure value for money and public accountability for their work, for 141 projects. And this system whilst not perfect improves our research World-wide.

Over the 800 projects subject to #GCRDcuts #UKRIcuts that’s around 4,000 peer reviews; hours of #UKRI civil servant time invested in what 🇬🇧 Government have repeatedly declared to be global flagship projects. Just Google what Minister say in their announcements not least for SDG5

Those 4,000 reviews are tip of the iceberg as many more applications are unsuccessful than successful.

Peer reviewing is hard work. It requires integrity, impartiality, expertise and commitment. Each grant application will be between 60 and 120 pages in my experience #odacuts

Reading the grant as a peer reviewer is not a skim read. The questions asked of reviewers include academic literature, governance, leadership and standing, fit to call, fit to ODA, gender equity, management structures, track record in research, non academic beneficiaries, ratings

In short, it’s at least a day’s voluntary work drawing on scientific (in the broadest sense) expertise and knowledge as a good citizen of the academy. You do the work mindful that you could destroy hopes, dreams and with #oda vital capacitating infrastructure if you get it wrong

Remember those 141 #UKRI #GCRF projects announced on 20 November 2020 to great acclaim. Well just one, relatively minor consequence is that the work of their first year set up is the utter disregard for all those days of peer reviewing & investment in the research infrastructure

Remember that infrastructure we worked flat out to enable because the embargoed grants also had to set themselves up during the early stages of the global pandemic - for me the poly tanks and mobile tech - it is at risk of just not being used for its #oda purpose #gcrfcuts

As PIs and Co-Is we are powerless in this. The cuts are deep & many mortally wounding to our partners overseas & our own careers. I worry for the many researchers I mentor and nurture into Co-I & PI roles and into the peer review status. #ukricuts #gcrfcuts #odacuts

I cannot in good conscience be a volunteer peer reviewer for a system so cavalier, disrespectful and wasteful of good will as the cuts now make it. Sheer duty of care prohibits it as does public accountability #odacuts #ukricuts

Those 141 projects announced in November 2020 received notices of 70% cuts or termination in March 2021. They went from the exact same government praising their place in meeting the #SDGs to axing in the course of 3 months. #odacuts #gcrfcuts

If you have persevered with this 🧵 on drama of peer reviewing, are peer reviewer for research councils making these cuts & wish to join us - until such time as repair is made, tangibly - please read & sign our letter of resignation as peer reviewers👇

bit.ly/3dlyxFX