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+# Royal Society: Culture Award Application 2023
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+Submission prepared by Malvika Sharan (The Turing Way project Co-lead, Senior Researcher - The Alan Turing Institute), Alexandra Arauzo Alvarez (The Turing Way Project Manager - The Alan Turing Institute), Arielle Bennett (Programme Manager - Tools. Practices and Systems, The Alan Turing Institute)
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+**Cite as:** Sharan, M., Araujo Alvarez, A., & Bennett, A. (2024). Royal Society: Culture Award Application 2023. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10935588
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+**1. Why should the candidate be considered for this medal?**
+
+I am nominating _The Turing Way _team to be considered for this medal for their valuable contributions to democratising access to data science skills and changing the research culture globally. The Turing Way is an open science and community-led project on data science practices, hosted at The Alan Turing Institute. Recognised for its high-quality online handbook, The Turing Way has been co-created by a global community – dedicated to fostering open, reproducible and collaborative practices across all sectors utilising data science. Over 350 chapters are written across five guides on _Reproducible Research, Project Design, Communication, Collaboration and Ethical Research_, as well as a _Community Handbook_. It aims to provide all the information that all stakeholders of research need throughout the project’s life cycle to ensure that their work is ethical, inclusive and easy to reproduce from conception to conclusion. 
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+In addition to ensuring technical reproducibility and transparency, The Turing Way_ _project focuses on topics that are fundamentally linked to principles of Equity, Diversity, Inclusion and Accessibility (EDIA) and belonging. The_ Guide for Collaboratio_n provides recommendations for researchers on how to build diverse teams and create inclusive workspaces spanning topics from remote working to running inclusive events and participatory co-creation. The_ Guide to Research Ethics_ grapples with the realities of ethical research, and shares key principles from Responsible Research and Innovation and Research Integrity, as well as sections on activism and internal policy advocacy. 
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+The book is just half the story. The power of The Turing Way is transmitted through its growing, global community of like-minded advocates who want to build an equitable, kind and collaborative research culture that enables fair participation in knowledge production -- reducing harm and enhancing benefits for the vulnerable and marginalised communities. Co-led by Malvika Sharan (Senior Researcher and lead of the Community Management Team) and Kirstie Whitaker (Programme Director of the Tools, Practices and Systems Programme) at the Turing, the core team draws 25+ experts and community champions from both within the Turing and from international organisations. Together, they support various Communities of Practice through a range of activities such as professional training, mentored contributions to open source, upskilling workshops, translation of resources and community events. All resources are hosted openly on GitHub and interactions with the resources are supported through dedicated working groups leading on governance, peer review, training, localisation and infrastructure support. 
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+Significantly, _The Turing Way_ team hasn’t produced these resources by choosing a select group of people to decide what “best practices” look like in different contexts. Instead, their collaborative approaches have empowered diverse individuals from different backgrounds, identities, and lived experiences to express their viewpoints, represent different realities in research and amplify voices from communities that are traditionally marginalised in STEM. Since 2019, The Turing Way team has involved and supported more than 425 international contributors as co-authors representing domain expertise and professional backgrounds as researchers, engineers, educators, learners, administrators, and policymakers in the UK and internationally. They have provided a working example of team science, defining the standards, practices and pathways for conducting responsible research across sectors such as academia, industry, government and public sectors and fields including engineering, humanities and science.
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+**2. List of key achievements**
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+_The Turing Way _(TTW) has fully embraced transparency and EDIA principles to change scientific and research culture for the better, both by influencing research processes at the Turing Institute and through collaboration with national and international organisations. In 2022, TTW received an OpenUK Award for Belonging [in research and community] and a HiddenRef Award in 2021 for practices to improve acknowledgement and incentives for hidden labour in research.
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+At the institute, TTW acts as a tool for embedding open source, reproducibility and collaborative practices in data science and AI projects, and a platform to share knowledge generated/learned in the project openly. Projects such as [The Environmental Data Science Book](https://the-environmental-ds-book.netlify.app/welcome.html), [Turing Data Stories](https://www.turing.ac.uk/research/research-projects/turing-data-stories) and [Turing Commons](https://www.turing.ac.uk/research/research-projects/turing-commons) utilise TTW practices in establishing and maintaining resources as public goods. 
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+Nationally, TTW is at the forefront of a shift in how data science is done, influencing[ UK government strategy on reproducibility in data analysis](https://analysisfunction.civilservice.gov.uk/policy-store/reproducible-analytical-pipelines-strategy/) and informing the[ Health Foundation](https://medium.com/healthfdn-data-analytics/towards-open-health-analytics-our-guide-to-sharing-code-safely-on-github-5d1e018897cb) as it adopts open practices. TTW was prominently referenced in the Mayor of London’s[ Emerging Technology Charter](https://www.london.gov.uk/publications/emerging-technology-charter-london), [Goldacre Review commissioned by the Secretary of State for Health and Care](https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1067053/goldacre-review-using-health-data-for-research-and-analysis.pdf) and the Innovation Scholars funding call by [UKRI](https://www.ukri.org/). The handbook and community model have inspired several similar resources, including the[ Quality Assurance of Code for Analysis and Research](https://faircookbook.elixir-europe.org/content/home.html) by the Office for National Statistics, [FAIR Cookbook](https://faircookbook.elixir-europe.org/content/home.html) for the life sciences, and a [citizen science guide](https://libereurope.eu/working-group/liber-citizen-science-working-group/citizen-science-guide/) for research libraries.
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+TTW team and community members have informed high-profile reports and policies, as well as serve as core advisors and leaders on global initiatives around open science and reproducibility, including [NASA’s Transform to Open Science](https://science.nasa.gov/open-science/transform-to-open-science), Society of RSE, Software Sustainability Institute, [Open Life Science](https://openlifesci.org/), [The Carpentries](https://carpentries.org/), MetaDocencia (Latin America), RSE Association Asia and Open Science Saudi Arabia. 
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+TTW's achievements are also recognised through the diversity of contributions and the impact seen on the wider STEM sector. Our current author list boasts over 425 international colleagues, including researchers, open science practitioners, educators and data experts across academia, government and industry, in various domains, at all levels of seniority, representing countries including Australia, Argentina, Brazil, Germany, India, the Netherlands, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Turkey, Uganda, UK, USA, Venezuela and beyond. 
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+They have written 300+ subchapters and given over 150 talks and workshops globally covering topics such as open science, data management, research software, communication, collaboration, ethics and diversifying professions. Our community members have also localised several resources in languages including Arabic, Chinese, Portuguese, Spanish and Turkish. Based on web analytics, the book engages 1,500 monthly users with 3500 monthly page views, cumulative 50,000 downloads of resources (from Zenodo) and hundreds of citations in online articles.
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+This year, TTW is establishing the **Practitioners Hub**, a forum for cross-sector engagement, knowledge exchange and strategic collaboration with Institutions leading data science research and policy initiatives. Through the involvement of domain experts, the Practitioners Hub will enable systematic approaches for building a shared understanding of open science, reproducibility, accessibility and ethics to enhance quality, rigour and integrity in data science and AI.
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+**3. Provide a brief summary of the Nominee’s career history**
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+In 2018, The Alan Turing Institute – the UK’s National Institute for Data Science and Artificial Intelligence (AI) – was awarded funding to undertake and apply data science and AI research that can transform four key areas of science, industry and government. _TTW_ guide was founded by Kirstie Whitaker who was a Research Fellow leading on reproducible approaches, one of the core requirements for translating research into cross-disciplinary innovation. 
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+Dr Whitaker now is the director of the Tools, Practices and Systems (TPS) Research Programme which represents a cross-cutting set of initiatives which seek to build open source infrastructure with a decentralised network of people who connect data with domain experts. Dr Sharan, who originally started as the community manager of TTW in 2019, is now a Senior Researcher leading a team of Community Managers in TPS contributing toward building connections between research communities and supporting knowledge exchange. Under their leadership, TTW is a flagship project at The Alan Turing Institute.
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+Managed by TTW community manager, Anne Lee Steele and the programme manager Alexandra Araujo Alvarez, all TPS members engage with TTW, serving as the bidirectional conduit of knowledge between different projects such as in Environment and Sustainability, AI for Science and Government, Engineering, research engineering, EDI working group and health research in the UK. Community volunteers lead crucial tasks relating to localisation, mentoring, infrastructure maintenance and peer review processes. Several team members represent organisational collaboration such as with eScience Centre Netherlands, TU Delft, VU Amsterdam, MetaDocencia, 2i2c, Open Life Science and Open Science Saudi Arabia.
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+To foster a welcoming and supportive community, _TTW _embraced online working from the start. Since the book’s launch in 2019, the team has hosted regular events, including training workshops, remote co-working sessions, speaking engagements, mentored contribution sprints and project-specific consulting. An example of best practice in inclusive remote working is the[ Book Dash](https://the-turing-way.netlify.app/community-handbook/bookdash.html) event, where participants collaborate on _TTW_ books synchronously. Book Dashes moved online in 2020 to ensure that international participants had an equal chance to participate, with sessions planned to enable flexible participation from different time zones. Accessibility requirements for the participants, including access to high-speed internet, childcare grants, live transcription services, and subsistence costs are covered by The Turing. The event design and support have enabled participants from African, Asian, European, Latin and North American countries to contribute. In 2021 and 2022, community members delivered a total of 100 talks and workshops to peers in their domains of expertise. In 2022, _TTW_ hosted public and virtual “fireside chats'' convening experts and facilitating cross-community discussions on socio-technical themes, which were attended by 600+ participants. 
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+New in 2023, is the inaugural programme of the Practitioners Hub that will foster TTW’s partnerships with UK organisations. With an overarching goal to accelerate the adoption of best practices in the partnering organisations, the Practitioners Hub will support the co-creation of case studies highlighting the impacts of data science; embed community practices in different teams; and foster a network of experts leading on capacity building efforts.
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+**4. Please provide information on any other relevant achievements or awards held by the Nominee**
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+Here are three relevant achievements and awards held by the Nominee:
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+(1) In 2021, The Turing Way was nominated for the HiddenRef award for pushing for greater recognition for all roles in data science, especially by creating meaningful incentives for the traditionally hidden and undervalued roles in research infrastructure (such as community managers, research software engineers, data stewards, data wranglers, librarians, ethics advisor, project managers, and more). HiddenRef award was given to The Turing Way and was highly commended for its work in impacting best practices for research and data science. The Turing Way team members, Emma Karoune and Malvika Sharan have been granted the Skills Policy Award by the Turing’s Skills Team to carry out a systematic effort to gather traditional and modern data science roles, with a goal to professionalise them nationally by integrating recommendations in the existing institutional policies.
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+(2) In 2022, the OpenUK award for Belonging was given to The Turing Way team for developing and supporting its thriving and diverse community through collective community efforts. The global impact of The Turing Way is evident by how different stakeholders have used it to inform their ongoing research as well as make a case for the future direction of data science and research worldwide. For instance, among other evidence provided in the list of key achievements, I would like to highlight NASA-TOPS which uses The Turing Way as its key resource. The team behind the NASA-TOPS have also worked with the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and have impacted the launch of country-wide ‘2023 Year of Open Science’, involving several influential national research organisations.
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+(3) The Turing Way was nominated for the Royal Society Athena Prize in 2022, which although unsuccessful, received positive feedback from the award panellists “The panel felt that this was a particularly strong nomination, a fantastic combination of ethical science and inclusivity. They specifically liked that there was great evidence of it being used and adapted. The panel felt that this project is a good example of best practice, and is highly transferable with it already being picked up in the biology and ecology fields. The panel also noted that the project is extremely innovative and has great longevity.” The panel strongly recommended submitting a nomination when the award opens again in November 2023 with more detail in the nomination about who specifically is impacted by this project and how it can impact people who don’t use code. This feedback further strengthened The Turing Way team’s plans to establish a dedicated forum for decision-makers in the UK's data science landscape. This will be enabled by the Ecosystem Leadership Award funding (EPSCRC) granted to The Turing Way team by the Alan Turing Institute to create a Practitioners Hub. Partly funded by the BridgeAI project, which is funded via the InnovateUK to the Turing and Digital Catapult, The Turing Way team will also work to support the adoption of data science in sectors where its potential is not fully realised.
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+**5. Statement of support**
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+Historically, research has been conducted in siloed groups by selected ‘privileged’ members of academics, but that model is not fit for purpose anymore in a world where data-informed technologies touch every part of our society. _TTW_ provides a blueprint for collaborative and inclusive data science, by both (1) providing a handbook and (2) exemplifying how open, community-led projects are conducted through the process of developing its resources.
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+By nominating them for the Culture Award, I would like to support the broader recognition of the TTW team and its community of international researchers and contributors for impacting a positive research culture in both the Global South and North. TTW collaboratively seeks sustainable solutions to improve how we apply data science to benefit all stakeholders of our society while removing harm to marginalised groups. They enable this by curating and co-creating approaches for improving research quality as well as research culture, including by supporting EDIA initiatives and research ethics reform. All this work is conducted in the open, challenging the disconnected and isolated nature of the traditional academic research process. 
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+The benefit and impact of the project are delivered by engaging and empowering individuals and groups with diverse skills, backgrounds, lived experiences and domain knowledge, and are driven by the needs and wishes of the contributors at all times. Most of the contributors have been personally mentored by the project leads and core team members, and are given training, leadership and career development opportunities within the project. To ensure that community members can take part irrespective of their previous experience, resources, guidance, templates and training are provided to help them stay involved in the community. _The Turing Way_ team employs a decentralised governance process that avoids individual authorship in favour of establishing shared ownership and agency in the project. They ensure that all contributions are fairly acknowledged, especially when their roles involve hidden labour in research that is often undertaken by members from marginalised communities in research and tech spaces. _The Turing Way_ book is attributed to _the_ community with each contributor listed as the author. 
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+The shared agency in the project by the Turing researchers, as well as the international volunteer community, has allowed _TTW_ to ensure the adoption and sustainability of its resources in the long term as well as allowing anyone to reuse its resources to build similar projects from scratch for domain-specific audiences. The project has already inspired researchers worldwide to re-examine their research practices and embeds reproducibility and ethical considerations at the centre of what they do.
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+Recent government reports have highlighted how much must change in research culture in the UK and open science worldwide for the ambitions we all share in terms of diversity to be realised. I believe that the Culture Award will help recognise that TTW has been that force for culture change in data science and will continue to enable thousands of contributors to share their vision of what a truly global research culture would look like for the next generation.