New UKRI plan commits to strengthening statistical skills

UK Research and Innovation, the body that brings together the UK’s seven Research Councils plus Innovate UK and Research England, has announced plans to work with the Royal Statistical Society to strengthen statistical skills in UK research.

UKRI, the non-departmental government body that oversees the government’s science budget of more than £7 billion has just published its Delivery Plan 2019. One of the actions it commits to for 2019-20 is to ‘Collaborate with the Royal Statistical Society on a plan, led by ESRC, to boost the statistical competencies of researchers in the UK,’ (see p28).

The commitment was made after acknowledging a ‘number of causes for concern’ regarding research integrity that were raised by the Science and Technology Committee in 2017, and to which the RSS submitted written evidence (PDF).

The RSS has begun work with UKRI to help it think about ways in which it could strengthen the statistical underpinning of UK scientific research.

'The RSS supported the creation of UKRI as a body that could look across the research councils and disciplinary areas to important cross-cutting issues such as statistical competencies and multi-disciplinary statistical research,’ says RSS vice president for academic affairs, Guy Nason. ‘We are pleased UKRI recognises that statistics is one such thematic issue, and we look forward to working with them on this agenda.'

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