Research infrastructure roles: perspectives, paths and lived experiences

This session was run as a workshop at Software Sustainability Institute's Collaborations Workshop 2023 on 3rd May 2023. 

This session explores the career paths, opportunities, and lived experiences of people who are working in and around research infrastructure. People performing these types of roles come from varied backgrounds, but will often have some research experience, although not necessarily in the field they are now working in. At the Alan Turing Institute, the Tools, Practices, and Systems (TPS) programme is developing several of these roles including: Community Managers and Research Application Managers, alongside the more established Research Software Engineers, Data Stewards, and Research Project Managers. 

These roles are called research infrastructure roles because the work they perform is primarily to support the work of researchers, although research can also be a significant proportion of these roles as well. Because these roles may exist in other forms and under other names, it can be challenging to identify best practices, build collaborative relationships, and capture the impact of these roles across different institutions and fields. The specifics of these roles will vary but can include handling administrative work, managing data storage, stakeholder engagement, community management, communications, software engineering, events coordination, and a lot more. As these roles have emerged, their career paths have increasingly been recognised as “alternative academic” or “Altac” roles.

Drawing from their experiences, participants in this session will discuss what the career landscape currently looks like from their perspectives in research infrastructure, why recognition for unconventional roles matters to them, and how we can work towards a culture that provides better opportunities for individuals who take the non-traditional academic route. We will also facilitate open discussions with attendees to learn about their perspectives on the topic.