The Neuroscience Strategic Oversight Committee (NSCOC) meets termly and includes representatives from NDCN, the Department of Psychiatry, Experimental Psychology, Department of Physiology, Anatomy and Genetics (DPAG), Pharmacology and Paediatrics. Relevant members of the Division of Medical Sciences support team also attend.
We spoke to Professor Kevin Talbot, Head of Department, NDCN and Chair of the Committee, about the group’s purpose and his aims as incoming chair.
What is the Neuroscience Strategic Oversight Committee and why does it exist?
In this university, neuroscience is spread across multiple departments – primarily the Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences, Experimental Psychology and Psychiatry, but also in Pharmacology the Department of Physiology, Anatomy and Genetics (DPAG), as well as Paediatrics, Biochemistry and Engineering. We don’t have a fixed boundary as to what we think neuroscience is. We have an overarching group of people – the Neuroscience Strategic Oversight Committee - who are involved, engaged and bring together ideas and create common strategies to strengthen brain and mental health research and teaching at Oxford.
What are those common strategies?
Firstly, we have world class neuroscience going on in Oxford but the problem with 200+ neuroscience PIs, is understanding who's doing what. Working across departmental and divisional boundaries is where we can maximise our strengths, so the first strategic priority is coordination: to break down those boundaries and bring people together. That might be simply identifying overlapping areas, that would strengthen what we're doing, or coordinating to apply for large strategic funding grants
The other priority is education and training. The Neuroscience Strategic Oversight Committee is a strong supporter and developer of new educational projects like the cross-departmental MSc Neuroscience and other Master’s programmes that might develop that next generation of Principal Investigators (PIs) and bring people together.
Lastly, we have coordination in communication and engagement across the three main neuroscience departments. In terms of solving the problems of the world, the brain and its maladies are understood to be a global priority. We want to communicate all of the things about neuroscience that might capture the imagination of the public and potential supporters and help us make a real impact. The annual neuroscience day is an example of how we showcase what we're doing, both for internal and external audiences.
How does this strategy sit alongside departmental priorities?
I think it's alongside, rather than above. The Neuroscience Strategic Oversight Committee is not empowered to tell departments what to focus on, but it's about putting people in a room who are in leadership roles across those departments, and getting them talking to each other so that we can all recognise where the opportunities lie.
Neuroscience at Oxford now has a reputation for being extremely well integrated and having the power to put together successful cross-departmental grant applications. That’s a real testament to the integration that's, in part, due to the Neuroscience Strategic Oversight Committee.
Who sits on the committee, and how do you ensure that you've got the right voices to represent the different parts of the departments?
The committee includes:
- The Heads of Departments for NDCN, EP, Psychiatry, DPAG
- Heads of large units or major cross departmental resources, for example OxCIN and BNDU
- Directors of the Master's programmes because we feel very strongly that those needs need to be protected and nurtured and supported.
- Early career researchers
- Key cross departmental roles such as the Oxford Neuroscience coordinator, the neuroscience lead for the REF, the University Development Officer for Brain Health, and the committee secretary.
- Each department then has one or two other key people such as Associate Heads for Research or for People & Culture and representatives from the departmental Communications teams.
At each meeting we have potentially 20 or 30 people in attendance, so we have to try not to become too large. But we want the right voices in the room.
Going forward it’ll be very important that we have early career researcher engagement as we are talking about how to support careers and we want to have a common approach to this. We particularly want to identify people who hold fellowships, so that we can understand their particular perspective at that career point. There may also be an opportunity for student representation in future.
The Research Excellence Framework (REF) is always on the agenda – how does it fit into the committee’s work?
The lead for the REF is part of the committee and again, it's back to creating a community of people who understand the importance of REF and are willing to commit time to making Oxford’s submission the best.
The Unit of Assessment (UoA) 4 is well represented in the committee, so it's a very useful framework to apply to the REF process. REF is a core part of the strategy, not least because ultimately it does determine how much block grant funding might come from the University, in addition to that from external funders. We've got to work together to maximise it.
What are your priorities for the next few years?
The committee's been very good for communication, oversight and bringing people together to discuss specific topics of common interest. What I would like to see it do now is take a more active approach to thinking about new initiatives and strategy. I’d like every meeting to have time set aside for a particular topic, for example master's programmes and graduate education, to have a proper strategic conversation so we come out of every meeting having moved something forward.