How you can help UKRI help make your job easier

In this guest blogpost, Mark Wilson, Senior Engagement Manager at UKRI, talks about how you can get involved in the new UKRI Funding Service.

UKRI’s Simpler and Better Funding is seeking 1-2 hours of your time to help shape the new UKRI Funding Service. Find out how you can help below.

The Simpler and Better Funding (SBF) programme is a UKRI initiative that does exactly what its name implies: it seeks to make applying, assessing, deciding, awarding, managing and reporting on Government research funding simpler and better. One way it is doing so is by replacing Je-S with a new UKRI Funding Service.

Some of you may have already used the new Service to help researchers in your organisations apply for funding, but whether you’ve had this chance or not, we’re asking now for volunteers to help us with our user research.

What’s so special about the new UKRI Funding Service?
The short answer is “You!” The new service is built around the principle of User Centred Design (UCD). This puts the needs of the user –applicants, research officers, finance professionals and reviewers – at the heart of what is being designed, developed and delivered.

“During one of our user research sessions, panellists were shown a prototype containing our early designs for assessment panels. We observed the actions they took while going through the prototype. The panellists provided useful feedback based on their experience and, as a result, we were able to update our designs.”
Blessing Mbipom, Senior User Researcher, UKRI

“Researchers have told us that: ‘Over the years things have only been added to the Je-S application, never taken away!’ For the new UKRI Funding Service, our principle is to only ask for what we need, when we need it. The application should not be used to capture information that we ‘might’ need if awarded.” Damien Hatton, Service Design Lead, UKRI

To do this we have been working closely with members of the research community like you to understand your experience of the funding application and management processes. We need to find out what you need to do, work out how we can make that simpler and better, and then make those changes happen.

UCD obviously makes development of new systems and services quicker and better. It also saves money by making sure what we design and build solves the right problem, and does so in a future-proofed way.

Help us shape the next developments in the Funding Service

User research enables us to understand user needs, pain points and processes, and helps us identify functionality we need to develop. In SBF, while we are making good progress on digital tools for the funding application process, and are beginning the post-decision journey, we still have some way to go.

So, we need more users – applicants, reviewers and panellists, and research management and finance professionals – to help us with user research.

Just the odd hour, now and then.

Whatever your role in the research community you can help shape the new UKRI Funding Service. We need more volunteers to help us design the service to meet your requirements.

All we need is an hour of your time, once or twice a year, either on a phone call or online video chat. Sign up here if you are interested.

About author:

Mark Wilson is Senior Engagement Manager at UKRI, working on the Simpler and Better Funding Programme. Before joining UKRI, he worked at UCAS, supporting the re-development of the undergraduate admissions service and the build and launch of other digital application tools.