The Wellcome Trust, Digital Science and the Universities of Sheffield and Leiden have joined forces to create Research on research institute (RoRI) – an international consortium of research funders, academics and technologists working to provide translational research on research. “The relentless drive for research excellence has created a culture in modern science that cares exclusively about what is achieved and not about how it is achieved”, identified Jeremy Farrar, one of the founders. The initiative’s aim is to provide data, analysis and intelligence on how to make research systems more strategic, open, diverse and inclusive.

As research is done in an ever-competitive environment, this initiative strives to eventually turn the tide towards a research culture that is grounded in a more supportive and collaborative working environment. To do so, one of the first endeavours will be to clarify how the nowadays all-encompassing term “excellence” is defined in different research settings. Excellence strategies are present in probably every call for research grants, public and private funding programmes and initiatives. Decoding and unpacking what stands behind the word should lead to future alignments of research environments starting in Europe and following worldwide where possible.

RoRI's outputs are expected to include academic articles, reports, working papers, commentaries and think-pieces.

RoRI

Nature