Relational Infrastructure: How Research Enablers Build Cultures of Impact
Abstract
What is new? As financial pressures intensify and research becomes more complex and interdependent, universities are increasingly prioritising collaborative work within and beyond academia. This shift has revealed a significant gap in co-production and collaboration and a critical need for professional support in identifying stakeholders and developing and facilitating partnerships across disciplines and sectors. This paper addresses that gap by combining an evidence base grounded in academic literature with insights from practice to create a transferable framework for research-enabling staff. The framework provides the tools needed to drive the culture shift essential for universities to navigate complexity, strengthen collaboration, and remain competitive in a rapidly changing landscape. What was the approach? This work combines systems thinking, stakeholder theory, and qualitative, practice-based insights. The conceptual framing draws on a literature review of stakeholder theory from business and management, particularly Freeman’s foundational research, alongside Meadows’ concept of leverage points for systemic change, Wenger-Trayner & Wenger-Trayner’s systems convening as a leadership practice, Wheatley’s work on leadership in complex systems, and the UCL Co-Production Collective model for inclusive stakeholder engagement. The framing is further informed by 33 facilitated conversations conducted in summer 2024 with a diverse cross-section of the UK research ecosystem, including technicians, research managers, professional services staff, and others in research-enabling roles. These in-depth discussions explored power, leadership, recognition, and cultural dynamics in collaborative environments and illustrate emergent patterns that informed the theoretical framing and practical examples presented in this paper. What is the academic impact? Effective stakeholder engagement for co-production requires a systematic approach underpinned by the often-invisible infrastructure of research enablers. Achieving this frequently requires a culture shift within the institutions in which we operate. Universities therefore need to design and sustain systems that actively facilitate this culture shift. This paper gives evidence, a transferable framework, and applied examples to equip research enablers to participate fully in this structure by providing a framework and embedding co-production principles in theory and practice. What is the wider impact? Behind every successful collaboration is an invisible architecture: research enablers who build trust, connect systems, and create the cultural conditions for co-production. This research makes that architecture visible and actionable, driving a culture shift as institutions design and sustain the infrastructure needed to embed collaboration and co-production at scale.