Social work research culture in Australian university settings

Abstract

Summary

There has been increased attention on the performance of social work researchers and strategies for strengthening the connection between research and practice. However, little is known about the research culture of social work discipline groups within universities and what contributes to a sustainable high-performance culture. Twenty experienced social work researchers from Australian universities were recruited and participated in qualitative interviews. Informed by a critical realist perspective, participants shared what they perceive as influencing social work research culture in university settings.

Findings

Participants reflected on the beliefs, values, and behaviors contributing to a positive research culture in universities and social work discipline groups. Four key themes were developed: research culture is enhanced when there is a cadre of research-qualified staff; collaboration enhances research culture; time for research needs to be protected; and the professional narrative about social work research influences research culture in universities. Precarious employment for research staff, limited focus on research training in social work qualifying degrees and workloads that focus primarily on administration and teaching were seen as inhibitors of research culture.

Applications

Attracting and retaining high-performing social work researchers assist in setting benchmarks for research performance, strengthening the quality and purpose of research training, supporting junior colleagues to navigate research systems, and creating opportunities for collaboration. While multidisciplinary collaborations within a particular field can sometimes detract from a focus on research culture in social work, they can also raise performance expectations and strengthen positioning for competitive grants.

Introduction

Research is a source of social work knowledge and a type or dimension of social work practice (Chenoweth & McAuliffe, 2020). Research production, quality, and use are influenced by many factors, including research culture within university settings. Investigating the conditions that enable and inhibit high-quality research benefits society, universities, researchers, and research users.

Research culture has been defined as the “shared values, assumptions, beliefs, rituals, and other forms of behavior whose focus is the acceptance and recognition of research practice and output as valued, worthwhile and preeminent activity” (Evans, 2007, cited in Khoo, 2023, p. 217). According to the UK's Royal Society (2017, p. 3), research culture “influences career paths and determines the way that research is conducted and communicated.” In service delivery contexts such as health care, research culture may convey a particular value stance, such as a preference for evidence-informed practice (e.g., Borkowski et al., 2016). When used in university contexts, the term often reflects assumptions about an ideal way of producing high-quality research outcomes (Tucker & Tilt, 2019).

Tertiary education context

In Australia, there are 37 social work discipline groups; 31 are in universities and 6 in private institutions. They are all accredited by the Australian Association of Social Workers (AASW) to deliver social work education. A decade ago, it was common for social work programs to be standalone organizational units in universities such as departments or schools. Today, this is rare, and most social work programs are part of larger organizational units such as colleges, faculties, or schools where they are often co-located with health or allied health disciplines.

To be categorized as a university, Australian tertiary education providers must actively engage in research related to the fields of education in which they deliver courses. Specifically, the Higher Education Standards Framework (Threshold Standards) (2021) requires that universities of at least 10 years standing undertake research in 50% or three of the fields of education in which they deliver courses or all fields of education if they are specialized universities. This research must be assessed as at world standard or national standing if the field is specific to Australia. Additionally, universities are expected to produce research of high academic quality judged by reference to the discipline and of nonacademic impact in the form of social, cultural, economic, or environmental benefits (Australian Research Council [ARC], 2022a). Even though research accounts for only about 21% of total university revenue (Universities Australia, 2022), high-level research performance brings prestige and attracts new students, with research rankings increasingly important for marketing (Belavy et al., 2020). Research assessment exercises and rankings are key drivers in the competition between universities (Ajjawi et al., 2018).

High-performance expectations on the part of governments and institutions set the tone for developing research culture within a university and its different organizational groups. High-performance research culture has been reported to be important in achieving research success for staff, who may be categorized as research-focused, teaching and research, or teaching-focused. However, it has also been critiqued regarding bullying, harassment, over-work, discrimination, and inequitable access to resources (Pickersgill et al., 2019). Reflecting neoliberal and managerialist drivers (Ajjawi et al., 2018), many university staff, particularly research staff without a permanent appointment, have precarious employment patterns, going from contract to contract, and having to secure new funding to maintain employment. In the United Kingdom, the Wellcome Trust (2020) reported concerns that while high-performance research cultures foster high-quality outputs, they are unsustainable in the long term because of excessive competition and the pressure to perform “with too little value placed on how results are achieved and the human costs” (p. 3). This can lead to mental health issues for individual researchers, a potential loss of quality in research for the institution where superficial outputs are valued over the deepening of knowledge, and the loss of talent and innovation for society (Wellcome Trust, 2020).

Attention has been given to creating a positive, supportive, and sustainable research culture within universities. Research capacity building, training, mentoring, and peer support are well-documented strategies to increase performance and provide support. In an analysis of interventions promoting productive research culture, Ajjawi et al. (2018) concluded that universities need to ensure there is protected time available to conduct research, support and recognition of a researcher's identity in the institution, and collaborative relationships characterized by mutual trust and respect.

Junior academic staff and postgraduate research students are often the focus of initiatives to foster research culture and are arguably the main beneficiaries of such change. PhD students are particularly impacted by research culture, with important PhD outcomes (e.g., number of publications and future employment prospects) influenced by factors such as supervisors’ research experience and location in a specialist research center (Belavy et al., 2020). Both junior academic staff and postgraduate research students are impacted by research cultures based on traditional hierarchies, “pecking orders” and “boys clubs” that inhibit mentoring and other support strategies (Ewing et al., 2008). Early career researchers (ECRs) themselves have recommended universities support career path progression, involve them more in decision making, ensure protected time to apply for funding and conduct research, recognize their expertise, champion support for marginalized researchers, and support initiatives to improve research culture (Kent et al., 2022).

Research culture in social work

It is often argued that social workers need to be evidence-based or research-informed in their practice (Appleton et al., 2016; Zuchowski & Gair, 2020). Social workers are also commonly employed in settings, such as health and allied health, that value research and where other professions are active in conducting research (Matus et al., 2018). However, concerns have been expressed about the lack of engagement of social workers in research activities, their research confidence, and their level of research capability and literacy (Ståhl & Lundälv, 2023; Zuchowski & Gair, 2020).

In university settings, social work's research performance has been compared to other professions, such as psychology (Holosko & Barner, 2016), criminology, and social policy (Tilbury et al., 2017). In the United States, Holosko and Barner (2016) compared the performance of psychology and social work academics across traditional publication citation metrics and found that psychology outperformed social work on all indicators and across all academic levels. They attributed these differences to psychology having a more scientific basis, taking research leadership and early career mentoring more seriously, and striving to promote a clearer research culture in academic schools. They also argued that psychologists drew upon more advanced research skills and methodological expertise than social work academics. In an Australian analysis of the national research assessment exercise (Excellence in Research for Australia [ERA]), Tilbury et al. (2017) found that social work performed less well than criminology and social policy on publication outputs per full-time equivalent academic staff member but better than criminology, but not social policy, on research income. They concluded that social work is a mid-level performer compared to these other disciplines.

A concern is the level of research training provided in qualifying social work education, particularly in Australia (Hodgson et al., 2021) and the United Kingdom (Orme & Powell, 2007). It is widely reported that social work students do not like studying research, perhaps feeling a disconnect between their commitment to help and facilitate social change with the perceived “‘technical-theoretical’ world of research” (Hall, 2015, p. 829). It has been noted that the AASW standards for accrediting social work degrees in Australia (the Australian Social Work Education and Accreditation Standards) do not specify any required level of research training for qualifying students (Hodgson et al., 2021). This has flow-on implications for the research capability of social work postgraduate research students and academic staff.

The role of doctoral students has been identified as necessary in creating a research culture within social work academia, particularly where these students are supported to publish with research active staff (Briggs et al., 2016). However, in Australia, little attention has been given to social work doctoral education, either PhDs or professional doctorates (Hodgson et al., 2021). This is despite an expectation in the Higher Education Standards Framework (Threshold Standards) (2021) that university teaching staff will be qualified at least one level higher than the course of study they teach, thus requiring many staff to hold doctoral-level qualifications. In the United States, Briggs et al. (2016) argue that to strengthen research culture, doctoral students should have opportunities to collaborate with senior staff in grant seeking and be trained in advanced research methods. Such opportunities are limited in Australia with the PhD model involving supervised independent study leading to a thesis or publications with fewer requirements to complete concurrent or preparatory research subjects than found in other countries, such as the United States and the United Kingdom.

Despite the challenges for social work in the academic context, there have been initiatives to strengthen partnerships between social work in universities and practice (Joubert & Hocking, 2015). The concepts of practice-based research (Epstein & Blumenfeld, 2002), practice research (Joubert et al., 2023), practitioner researcher (Moon et al., 2023), and pracademic (Macduff & Netting, 2010) span academia and practice and have the potential to strengthen research culture, mentoring, research skills, funding knowledge and research systems navigation (Fox et al., 2023). Examples include research pods in field education (Appleton et al., 2016) and action research on practitioners’ topics of concern (Fox et al., 2023). There are several major research grant programs that support university/industry partnerships (e.g., ARC Linkage grants). Such partnerships commonly involve academic staff working collaboratively with community and government organizations on joint projects supporting social work's research profile and capability in the field.

While attention has been given to how social work academics can work with practitioners to build research culture in the field and enhance social work research performance in universities, less attention has been given to social work research culture within universities. In particular, relatively little is known about how social work academics experience the research culture of their immediate organizational unit and, more widely, within the university. Investigation into these issues can help to identify ways research culture can be shifted to not only produce better outcomes but also more sustainable research practice.

Method

This article examines social work research culture in Australian universities. It reports research that was part of a broader study on strategies to improve the production, use, and impact of social work research for human services. It was informed by a critical realist perspective and a recognition that research culture is not only socially constructed within groups, but also a product of institutional structures and dynamics—involving both human agency and preexisting social structures (Craig & Bigby, 2015). For the purposes of the present article, we posed the question: what do experienced social work academics perceive as influencing social work research culture in universities?

In this article, we refer to research culture as pertaining to the internal organizational culture in a particular institution (in this case, university), or university organizational unit (e.g., faculty, school, department, institute, or center). Given the relatively small number of standalone social work schools or departments remaining in Australia, our focus is social work discipline groups. We refer to research environment as the wider context (e.g., social, political, economic context) that sets the conditions for the institution and influences behavior, such as through legislation, funding mechanisms, policies, and incentive programs.

The study was qualitative and involved semi-structured interviews. Experienced social work researchers were identified from an analysis of Australian social work researchers’ publication and citation rates reported in Tilbury et al. (2022). This process identified 28 appropriate participants, all at mid-level or advanced stages of their academic careers. Email correspondence invited them to participate in the study, with 20 agreeing voluntarily.

All participants were affiliated with a university, 16 were directly employed and four held adjunct positions (primarily employed elsewhere but with a university role). The universities were located in metropolitan and regional areas, with representation from the more established and newer ones. Authors CT, MH, and CB undertook virtual face-to-face interviews with the participants, except one who responded by email. Interviews were conducted and audio recorded between April and June 2021 and were on average 46 min in duration. The participants shared their experiences and perceptions of what influences the culture of social work research in universities. Topics included research performance, identification as a “social work” researcher, career trajectories, leadership succession, support for junior colleagues, networking and collaboration, research infrastructure, and priorities for creating a stronger research culture. Interviews were transcribed and, along with the one email response, entered into NVivo 12 to facilitate data management and coding.

Thematic analysis was used to examine and interpret the data given its suitability for critical realist research (Braun & Clarke, 2006). We defined a theme as a pattern of shared meaning linked to a key concept (Braun & Clarke, 2019). While recognizing the research question and interview topics framed the data, our analytic approach involved both induction and deduction. This was more akin to Braun and Clarke's reflexive approach to thematic analysis than the coding reliability or codebook approaches, and involved an awareness of the philosophical orientation of the research and how each of the researchers contributed subjectively to the analytic process (Braun & Clarke, 2019). Author CH led the analysis, following Braun and Clarke's (2006) six phases: data familiarization through reading and re-reading the transcripts, generating initial codes, searching for and mapping themes, reviewing themes and reorganizing them where appropriate, defining and naming themes, and then identification of extracts (quotations) representing themes. These extracts were selected based on their salience with the theme or on some occasions to represent alternative perspectives. Consultation, including sharing coded segments, between all authors occurred throughout the data analysis process to facilitate reflexivity and a shared understanding of the themes that emerged.

Findings

Four interconnected themes were developed, reflecting the beliefs, values, and behaviors that participants perceived to facilitate a positive research culture.

Research culture is enhanced when there is a cadre of research-qualified staff

All participants discussed the level of research capability in social work discipline groups within universities and its influence on research culture. In particular, they reflected on what contributes to or detracts from a high-performance research culture. This included the quality of research training in both social work qualifying degrees and postgraduate research degrees. It also related to the availability of high-performing research academic staff and understanding of what it means to be a high-performing researcher.

Qualifying degrees

Most participants discussed the significance of developing research capability and literacy in qualifying degrees for social work research culture in universities. They emphasized that teaching research is primarily focused on the process of conducting research rather than its purpose. Additionally, the quality of research training was seen as limited, hampered by a limited range of methodologies being taught and research teaching being delivered by nonsocial work staff (e.g., in generic social science research subjects). For some, the scope of research teaching was limited by value positions adopted by academic staff. For example, “there's a lot of undergraduate courses in social work that only do qual methods and they do it as an ideology rather than research” (Participant 18). For others, a traditional focus on statistics can lead to students disliking research: “Our students just hate research. They just don’t like it. And it was like that when I was an undergrad. … I can remember [a student] hyperventilating before we had our stats exam” (Participant 10).

Participants also reflected on the profession's applied nature and that students often experience a disconnect between practice and research, questioning its relevance. This is reinforced by academic staff behaviors that do not prioritize, design, or deliver content making this connection (e.g., linking to evidence-based practice and brokering research placements):

Students in qualifying degree courses generally see research-related subjects as a barely tolerable impost and of questionable relevance to preparation for social work practice. … Research is an “alien” add-on rather than being part and parcel of both preparations for practice and, after qualifying, day-to-day practice either as a consumer of research or occasional producer. (Participant 20)

In contrast, some participants commented that they were developing more focused research training in their degrees, such as enabling students to complete scoping reviews, generating interest in practice-based research, and developing an evidence-based practice subject as a first-year offering.

Honors and postgraduate research degrees

Research culture in universities was also seen as a product of the research training delivered in honors and postgraduate research degrees. Honors projects are often completed concurrently with other subjects and placements, with some indicating that empirical research can be abandoned because of the time needed to gain ethics approval. Others argued for more people to complete advanced research Masters courses to prepare them for higher study. Most participants described the PhD program as essential training for a research career and contributing to university research culture, including opportunities to collaborate and learn from others. However, the Australian PhD model was seen by some to not sufficiently train people for a research career compared to other models that involved more course work, such as in the United States. The value of publishing as part of the degree was highlighted by many: “We’ve got quite a lot of students now doing two or three publications during candidature and that's a very good way of mentoring” (Participant 7). Creating opportunities for post-doctoral study was also seen by some as necessary in both individual career development and enhancing the research productivity of social work teams.

Availability of high-performing research staff

Some saw social work research culture in university settings as influenced by the relatively small number of qualified and high-performing researchers. The pool of job applicants with a research track record was reported as limited because of the deficiencies in social work research training. The proliferation of social work programs in some parts of the country meant that “we’re getting all these people coming into academia with no time to do research and seemingly no background in it” (Participant 6). Recruiting senior staff with a strong track record in research was similarly problematic. In some universities, there was a belief that senior staff (e.g., heads of department) had little research experience and thus do not understand what is needed to increase research performance. For example, “We’ve had a long, long period of time where we had heads of our department who weren’t really interested in research” (Participant 17). This participant also reflected on the suspicion and resentment shown by staff who were not very research-active, such as when the research involved off-site activity with collaborators at other institutions. This raises a dilemma for high-performing academics: to be successful, they needed to connect with people outside their social work discipline group, but in doing so, their contribution to growing that culture within the group may have been diminished. It may also reflect a view among some that teaching is important work and research is elitist.

Collaboration with other researchers is a behavior that enhances research culture

Most participants discussed collaboration with other researchers and its influence on research culture in social work discipline groups. This included the provision of mentoring to ECRs and support within the group. Participants advocated for conversations about research and collaboration within teams.

Access to mentoring and support

Participants perceived the mentoring and support of ECRs to be multifaceted, including help developing practical skills such as writing grant applications and emotional skills, for example, managing reviewers’ negative feedback. Mentoring and support can also assist navigating the political dimensions of research, such as when results challenge current practice or dealing with “research partners that are going wary or don’t want you to publish” (Participant 10).

Some participants spoke about the high number of ECRs in teams, with limited availability or capacity of senior academics to mentor. One told of attempting to buy in mentoring, which the university did not support due to costs. It was also recognized that there is a long-term reciprocity involved in mentoring: “having people who kind of look out for you and then being able to pay that back and recognizing that. There's skills that you get that get passed down” (Participant 1). For one person it was about “fostering and mentoring and working alongside people. And you’ve got to have a culture of that” (Participant 10).

Building and maintaining collaborations

Several participants raised the challenges of establishing and maintaining collaborations over time. For some, there was a lack of capability and support for collaboration: “If I look around our current staff group, I see people that have really good ideas, but they do not know how to connect. They don’t know how to look outside of this silo” (Participant 11). One of the challenges is the diversity of research interests and the range of teaching demands leading to a lack of research concentration in particular fields.

For some, their focus is on building a unidisciplinary social work research culture, while for others their focus lies outside the track record and expertise of other staff in the social work discipline group. One participant commented on the strength of their interdisciplinary research relationships and the downside for the discipline group: “it's got me reflecting on the degree to which I’m doing enough to enable … social work researchers around me to join these groups” (Participant 9). Several spoke about the impact of work pressures and the pandemic on opportunities for collaboration, which affected the discipline group's research culture.

Some participants reported success in facilitating research collaboration within the social work discipline group. In particular, they noted the benefit to research culture when joint interests were shared, such as concerning pedagogy (Participant 2) or violence and trauma (Participant 19). Specific behaviors can enable this: “I divided the department up into research themes. … And there had to be one shared grant out of each of those teams. … And that was a really successful strategy” (Participant 14). According to one, “it's about your narrative and understanding who your teams are and working across those teams” (Participant 19).

Time for research must be protected

Participants identified a range of pressures and competing demands impacting the research culture and performance within social work discipline groups and universities more broadly.

Challenges balancing workloads

Most discussed the challenges academic staff face in managing teaching, research, and administrative workloads. In particular, teaching demands were seen as limiting time for research, the opportunity to build research collaborations with external organizations and even the scope for conversations about research: “It's just such a slog with getting through the teaching, you know, we rarely sit around and talk about our research” (Participant 11). Participants related this to high teaching workloads, large student numbers, and an absence of administrative support. Additionally, some reported that space for research was affected by the time spent responding to the complexity of student needs and supporting them as developing practitioners. Some participants highlighted the belief that research is a must to progress an academic career, frequently undertaken in your own unpaid time. For example,

When people think about their time, they feel like 80% of their time is on … teaching and 20% of their time is on admin, and then everything else you just do on the weekends or at night. … And people … at a certain point become bitter and burnt out by that. Or all research is seen as just a stick to shake at them. (Participant 8)

Academic staff often need to balance multiple projects at different stages and with different outcomes, often in case some activities do not pan out.

These demands were seen as impacting recruitment and succession planning with some PhD graduates being unwilling to pursue a career in academia, along with the absence of continuing positions.

I know our early careers are very disheartened by what they see. … We have a lot of curious debates about work hours and it's a generational shift that this is not the vocation or life that it was always touted as. … I guess many of us who have survived—that has been because we’ve worked six, seven days a week. … So I think there are disincentives in the academic trajectory that people are comparing to the outside world. (Participant 5)

Nonetheless, some participants reflected more positively on their research experience in the context of their wider workload. For one participant, their social work group has found a good balance: “I actually think there's a good culture in social work, having the balance between research and your personal wellbeing and your students is really important” (Participant 3). For another, the value they placed on research motivated them to continue: “I think you’ve got to see research as your practice and your change agent. … You’ve got to have a commitment to it and an enjoyment of it” (Participant 5).

Focus on research outputs and metrics

Most participants acknowledged factors within the broader tertiary education environment, such as research rankings and success in Australian competitive grants (known as Category 1 grants), as influencing university priorities. This was seen to add to the pressures experienced by social work academic staff and to impact on the research culture within social work disciplinary groups. Many commented on the value universities place on producing research outputs, grant success, and staff leading grants, ensuring their university received the grant income. This motivates academics to obtain grants and publications, improve research metrics and subsequent promotion opportunities. For some, this incentivized less rigorous outputs and “quick wins” (Participant 8), such as rapid evidence reviews and book chapters. Many spoke about the impacts of these pressures on academics, for example:

I don’t think most people can stay long-term at the university with good self-esteem as an academic unless they play the game, which means you’ve got to get your occasional research grant and publications and be on a promotion trajectory. (Participant 7)

Opportunities to be successful in competitive grant applications were seen as limited by several factors. One was the need for an application to include Chief Investigators with a strong track record of success but the challenge is how to get that success. There were also structural challenges in terms of the eligibility of many staff to apply for grants, given the large proportion of academic staff employed on casual and fixed-term contracts. The following participant referred to the ARC, which is the major Australian government funding body for non-medical fundamental and applied research:

The ARC system has not caught up with the sector. … I feel they’re back on feudal times when you’ve got the god professor with the continuing position, and everyone else fighting around trying to manage their fixed-term contracts and wondering whether they’re going to have anything in the future. (Participant 7)

Despite the challenges, some argued that it is crucial for social work research culture that the discipline is achieving Category 1 grant success:

I understand we can critique these things, … but the ARC is such a rigorous process. It ensures quality. It ensures national relevance. … So, I’m a big believer that if social work wants to be taken seriously on the national stage … we can’t ignore the Category 1 space. … But that requires a lot. It requires strategy. It requires investment in quality. And it does require leaders to push for quality and not drop it. (Participant 19)

The universities’ focus on outputs and metrics also led to specific behaviors to best position social work research in the context of rankings, such as making sure all research was coded as social work to maximize performance in Australia's national research assessment exercise—ERA (Participant 3). This reflects a concern that social work's engagement in multidisciplinary research does not always benefit the profession in terms of metrics. Visibility in ERA was seen as essential by some: “We don’t understand what a real and present danger it is because we delude ourselves that we are recognized as researchers when it was 50% of our schools don’t even go up for the ERA” (Participant 6).

Lack of research capability in some universities

Some participants saw research culture and performance among some social work discipline groups were undermined by their institution lacking research capability and commitment. One participant commented that while the Group of Eight universities (comprising Australia's leading research-intensive universities) promote research

…Some of these other ones … they don’t. … Often they don’t really even want research and now they’re expanding into private providers … offering social work degrees, with no real interest in research at all. (Participant 17)

Participants discussed the need for universities to focus on research, with the challenge being meeting expectations in the context of increasing teaching workloads and demands.

Importance of the professional narrative about social work research

Most participants spoke about the broader professional narrative around social work research, recognizing this impacts on social work research culture in universities, as it does in practice. This includes values and beliefs about social work research and recognizing research practices and outputs.

Recognition of the role of research in advancing social work goals

Some participants discussed the broader perception and identity of social work research. They spoke about social work growing as a profession and having a legitimate and unique place in research by providing a social justice, critical, and contextual lens. They highlighted research has a social impact and supports the human services workforce, for example:

What social work brings is an understanding of the contextual—the complexity of that space. It brings the structural, systemic … and intersectional lens. And so, if we aren’t there … pointing out … the nuance or the reality of the work or the complexities and intersectionalities of people's lives, I think some of that complexity gets really lost in terms of investment in the human services. (Participant 19)

Yet some participants questioned whether social workers valued research sufficiently, arguing that the professional narrative around social work research needs to shift. One concern related to a lack of statistical capability and epistemological positioning on research methods: “How do we … get away from this stupid debate around privileging one form of research over the next? It depends on the question. I’ll privilege qualitative every time if the question is right” (Participant 15). Others advocated broadening the range of methods as being considered “legitimate research,” for example, case studies, to be more inclusive of academics focused on scholarship (Participant 11).

Emphasis placed on research by professional bodies

Some participants discussed their perception that the AASW (as the professional accrediting body that sets benchmarks for practice and education in Australia) has a limited focus on research, which could be enhanced. For example:

One of the things … we need from the AASW is some sort of overarching commitment to research and to supporting research and to putting it into our curriculum. I know we teach research but, for example, when you do accreditation, why are we not also being assessed for our research activity. (Participant 14)

Professional networks and collaboration with the field

Several participants noted the relevance of professional conferences as a place to network, build relationships with practitioners and academics, and learn about research. Space within these conferences to focus on reporting empirical research findings was seen as necessary. In addition, some participants described cross-institutional collaborations as opportunities to develop individual research profiles but also to make a collective impact, as one person explained:

But I was lucky to be in a network with a whole lot of women around Australia involved in that sort of advocacy. And I think being prepared to do that is really important actually, if you want to affect social change, if you want to get things out on the agenda. You’ve got … to move out of [university suburb] … and be connected with service providers, and people who are working in that space and complement each other. (Participant 10)

Strengthening and promoting research identity and collaboration was viewed as necessary, but this was often dependent on practitioner research capability and literacy: “It's actually quite difficult to foster partnerships with the field because we’re dealing with people in the field who aren’t research minded. … And we’ve got agencies where there's a general suspicion about doing research” (Participant 14). Nonetheless, for another, developing a positive research culture in social work requires engagement with practitioners and achieving impact: “We have got to be thinking about the culture that will let research foster. Both within the service sector and with academia. … It's about dissemination” (Participant 10).

Discussion

The quality of social work research in Australian universities is challenged by a range of factors that influence research culture. These include graduates’ research capability, pathways into research, opportunities to collaborate and gain experience, participation in research teams, and the profession's valuing of and engagement in research. While these factors are present for other disciplines within universities, understanding their particular impacts for social work is important for strengthening the discipline's research culture and performance. In reporting what contributes to high-performing research culture, participants reinforced the emerging definition of research culture as a combination of shared values, beliefs, and actions or behaviors that lead to valuing research (Khoo, 2023). From the perspective of critical realism, these values, beliefs, and behaviors can be seen as products of both the structural position of universities in the neoliberal economy and the agency exercised by individuals within organizational units. To improve research culture, social work must find opportunities to recognize, celebrate, and attach value to research practices and outputs, mindful of the structural constraints and limits on agency.

Similar to prior research (Belavy et al., 2020; Hodgson et al., 2021), participants stressed the need to improve research training for qualifying social work students and strengthen pathways to postgraduate research degrees. This can be achieved by developing standards, curricula, and courses that intentionally build research literacy and practice connections. PhD programs can be enhanced by methodological skills training and supervision by research-active academic staff (Briggs et al., 2016). In social work discipline groups, high-performing research staff can influence norms for research standards and understanding of wider environmental factors. Social work could do more to promote its achievements in practice research and nonacademic research impact.

Universities and social work academic leaders can influence hiring practices to recruit research-active staff who can contribute to a positive research culture in social work discipline groups. Similar to UK findings (Orme & Powell, 2007), participants reported that recruiting academics with higher research qualifications and research interest has a positive impact on the development of research value, literacy, and culture. Environmental constraints were acknowledged, including difficulties attracting and retaining staff due to workload demands and casualization of the workforce, and limited availability of suitably qualified staff to meet the diversity of curriculum requirements. Nonetheless, academic staff who see themselves as researchers, actively pursue research careers and support others to do the same, reinforce a positive research culture and enable capacity building with ECRs. Additionally, this strategy facilitates succession planning and growing the profession.

Collaboration was seen by the participants as important in facilitating the connections and networks for research success. However, there were different perspectives on whether the focus here should be unidisciplinary—within social work—or multidisciplinary. We have previously demonstrated that in some fields, such as aging (Hughes et al., 2018) and disability (Bigby et al., 2018), most social work research is conducted with other disciplines and published in nonsocial work journals. Some of the participants in the present study commented that their connection to their research field or topic (and their nonsocial work colleagues) was much stronger than their research links within their social work disciplinary group. This trend may have been supported in recent years by the move away from standalone social work schools toward the embedding of social work within larger, often health, schools and faculties. In these contexts, research clusters and research leaders (e.g., directors or deans of research) influencing the social work group may be from a diversity of disciplines. Strategies for strengthening research culture in social work will need to recognize this complexity and potentially use our multidisciplinary links to the advantage of the discipline. This includes the significant benefit that can come from these links in terms of positioning for competitive and industry grants.

Mentoring by senior researchers and being embedded in research teams can acclimatize postgraduate research students and ECRs to a high-performance research culture and create opportunities for career advancement (Kent et al., 2022). The findings highlighted mentoring should assist students and ECRs in managing the practical, emotional, and political dimensions of academia and should be undertaken by senior staff with capability and capacity. Research teams enable students and ECRs to collaborate and learn from each other (e.g., on grant applications), develop and grow research competency, and facilitate a research career trajectory. Participants expressed concern about siloing in academia or the absence of research focus due to other pressures (such as high teaching and administration workloads), which can erode research culture (Ajjawi et al., 2018; Pickersgill et al., 2019). For university leaders concerned with the sustainability of research culture and the academic workforce, protecting ECRs’ research time will assist in developing a research track record, enhancing their competency, and improving workload balance and retention (Ajjawi et al., 2018). The aim should be “nurturing a whole academic identity, one that aligns teaching and researcher selves with integrity, productivity, and creativity” (Khoo, 2023, p. 217).

Governments and universities set high-performance research expectations, using metrics to benchmark and measure achievements (ARC, 2022b). Participants noted the pressure this places on social work discipline groups and individuals to perform. Nonetheless, some participants acknowledged research metrics are here to stay and are legitimate markers of research quality. Senior researchers have a role in facilitating understanding and meaning of metrics, fostering an awareness of the research outcomes they are intended to measure, and strengthening performance to achieve positive outcomes.

There is increasing pressure on governments, funding bodies, and universities to ensure that academic research culture is equitable and sustainable (Pickersgill et al., 2019). In our study, participants reflected on the challenges facing postgraduate research students and ECRs to gain stable employment, and the challenges facing other staff in balancing high workloads. While our participants did not refer to bullying and harassment, the potential mental health impacts of working in such a stressful environment were evident. The broader literature signifies such pressures are experienced unevenly across different population groups, with women particularly disadvantaged due to disproportionate rates of parenting and caring responsibilities and disrupted employment (Pickersgill et al., 2019). For social work academic staff and leaders, engaging with cross-sector initiatives in universities—such as the Athena SWAN initiative that promotes gender and intersectional equity in research (Harpur et al., 2023)—can provide opportunities to create a positive work culture that treats staff with respect and is sustainable.

Social work is a practice-based profession, with research culture in university social work discipline groups influenced by the broader practice environment (Joubert & Hocking, 2015). Participants perceived social work to be a growing profession, bringing to research a social justice lens, understanding of social impact, and relevance to the workforce. The findings highlighted potential strategies to positively influence the overall professional narrative around research to achieve collective impact. Building research capability and relevance in practitioners may support more practitioner-led research and partnerships with universities and research centers. Additionally, research translation activities, such as conferences and seminars, may enhance the research/practice connection, inform practice, and create opportunities for meaningful collaborations. Professional bodies, such as the AASW, can take a more active role here in promoting social work research and its benefits. This might include strengthening the social work education accreditation standards to ensure a high standard of research training in qualifying degrees and research capability among academic staff. It may also involve advocating for the profession to be more fully engaged in practice-based research and research that furthers understanding of the needs of the communities that it serves.

Limitations of the study

There were some limitations to this study. While our focus was on experienced researchers’ perspectives, research involving qualifying students, postgraduate research students, and ECRs would also assist in understanding social work research culture in universities. Further, research end users’ perspectives on research culture within universities would be valuable, particularly practitioners collaborating with academic staff. Interviews were conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic, and thus, the particular pressures impacting universities at that time (e.g., budget cuts, transferring course material online, and organizational restructuring) may have influenced participants’ views. However, it was notable that there were relatively few references to the pandemic in participants’ responses.

Conclusion

This qualitative study answered the research question: what do experienced social work academics perceive as influencing social work research culture in universities? A range of enablers and inhibitors were identified, with proposed strategies involving professional accrediting bodies, universities, social work academics, students, and practitioners. The aim is to create a high-performing social work research culture within Australian universities that produces impactful, quality research. However, there are real constraints on this, including the impacts of neoliberalism and managerialism in universities such as precarious employment among research staff and workload pressures for continuing staff. Nonetheless, these factors are also present for other discipline groups and the connections social workers have with practice and their focus on applied research position the discipline well for the increased emphasis on nonacademic research impact. And while multidisciplinary collaborations may at times detract from a focus on social work, they can be used to strengthen the discipline's research performance.