The Research Environment

Abstract

This chapter focuses on the author's experiences of the conditions under which externally funded research is done by looking at a particular research workplace, the work practices that predominated, and the significance of research teams and mentors. There appear to be few references in the literature to the significance of the research workplace and its environs, even in texts devoted to the topic of researcher careers. Yet the research workplace — the organisational structures and cultures (which includes formal employment conditions) in which the researcher and the research project are embedded — is critical to the conduct of research, its quality, and its ethical practice. Most externally funded research is team based. Research teams are organised in different ways even within a research unit or department, with some more hierarchical in structure and culture than others. The chapter then explains that team leaders are crucial in determining whether team members are able to make an input into the study's ideas, methodological practices, written outputs, and the oral communication of the research findings.