FAQs

RIC-KI can currently only accept research ideas related to physical activity, weight management and dietary behaviours, health and wellbeing, and sport. It may be that RIC-KI is expanded to include other topics in due course. For eligible researchers, please contact RIC-KI@mailbox.lboro.ac.uk for further guidance.

As the aim of RIC-KI is to develop new networks we welcome applications from researchers from all institutions and disciplines.

Each RIC-KI idea is allowed to receive two expressions of interest through the RIC-KI platform. Once two expressions of interest have been received, we will close applications for an idea until the Idea Inventor has had chance to assess the suitability of the potential collaborators who have expressed an interest. You will be notified if your application has been successful within 21 days of submitting your expression of interest. Please note that times may be extended over public holidays.

Once the research project team is in place the RIC-KI team have no further involvement in the development or management of the research Ideas, and we expect research projects to run in the usual way. We do ask for a short report at the end of the project and annual updates for our records, which we may also use for promotional purposes. As part of our terms and conditions the following acknowledgement statement must be included in all outputs: “This research resulted from a collaboration generated via the Research Ideas Catalogue - Knowledge Impact (RIC-KI) platform, hosted by Loughborough University.”

We expect collaborations formed through RIC-KI to be managed in the same way as any other collaborative research project. However, should it become impossible to continue the research please let us know. We reserve the right to re-list the project on the RIC-KI platform if we feel the Idea still has potential, whether in its original form or amended if necessary.

Details about intellectual property are listed within our Terms and Conditions.

We ask for all Idea Inventors and Research Collaborators to supply a link to their profile on their institution’s website as part of the process of listing an idea or expressing an interest. We will check Idea Inventors’ webpages before uploading their Ideas and encourage Idea Inventors to check potential Research Collaborator’s pages as part of the process of selecting their Collaborators.

We appreciate that in some cases individuals may not yet have their own webpage or it may be out of date for reasons beyond their control. You may add a link to a Google Scholar profile (or similar) if available, or for PhD students a link to your supervisor’s webpage. If none of these options are available, please add a note on the form or contact us at RIC-KI@mailbox.lboro.ac.uk.

As one of the aims of RIC-KI is to increase the speed at which research is completed we strongly encourage you to carefully consider the time you have available before submitting an expression of interest in an Idea. We expect Research Collaborators to only express interest in the research they feel they can commit to. We will therefore only accept one expression of interest at a time from a Research Collaborator. If your expression of interest is not successful you are welcome to express an interest in another Idea.

If you need to recruit another Research Collaborator please contact RIC-KI@mailbox.lboro.ac.uk to have your Idea relisted. All parties should be fully committed to the Idea from the point of listing or expressing an interest in it, to ensure that the research can begin without delay. We appreciate that unforeseen circumstances can arise, however, if users of the RIC-KI platform are found to be frequently listing ideas or expressing interest in Ideas they are not then able to work on we reserve the right to remove their membership.

All users must sign usage policies before they are able to join RIC-KI and view any ideas, which state expectations around research integrity. However, we would take any instances of unfair usage very seriously and would ask for any such issues to be reported to us as soon as possible. Of course, we cannot guarantee that other academics have not begun a similar research project, but this risk would be present whether using the RIC-KI platform or not. We offer Idea Inventors the option to request enhanced privacy settings, whereby potential collaborators must contact the RIC-KI team to access full details of the Idea. This allows us to track who has had access to the details of the idea.

We have created the following template: RIC-KI agreement template You can amend this to meet the specific needs of your project but we recommend checking any changes with your institution’s Research Support team.

The Idea Inventor should be given opportunity for authorship on any research publications arising from the work and the opportunity to be included as a co-applicant on any research funding applications arising from the Idea for a period of ten years. The Idea Inventor must be acknowledged as such in any outputs and publications arising from the RIC-KI research idea. Further details can be found in our terms and conditions.

We appreciate that circumstances can change and there is an element of the unknown in how long it will take for an Idea to receive an appropriate Expression of Interest. To maintain RIC-KI’s aim of enabling research to go further, faster, we expect that Ideas listed on the site to begin within a month of agreeing the collaboration. If you find that you no longer have the time or other necessary resources available, please let us know and we can temporarily archive your Idea until your are ready to relist it. If you no longer want to list your idea, whether temporarily or permanently, please email the RIC-KI team on ric-ki@mailbox.lboro.ac.uk.