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title: Town Hall 04/06/2024

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Kalle Westerling (they/he)  |  The Alan Turing Institute      13:11
Would there be any interest in introducing an open peer review process for the Turing Technical Reports?

Anonymous attendee      13:11
Was there a reason to not use existing repos such as Zenodo or ArXiv?
This question has been answered live

Griffith Rees (he/him/his)      13:11
Are you thinking of including the papers from the Data Study Group in those?

Kirstie Whitaker (she/her)      13:14
What's the definition of "technical" in a technical report?

Anonymous attendee      13:19
This data presentation is very unclear - why was it not presented in the scale order?
This question has been answered live

Xander Burbidge (they/them)      13:21
Has it considered that the EDI focus groups put the emotional labour back on the community to come up with ideas on how to improve EDI, rather than senior management leading on this issue and consulting the community on their ideas?
This question has been answered live

Anonymous attendee      13:22
How will the volunteers for internal projects be compensated and what makes them different from the change advocates which have been largely excluded from participating in the transformation programme?
This question has been answered live

Anonymous attendee      13:22
What is the timeframe for communicating the action plan following the EDI report?
This question has been answered live

Anonymous attendee      13:22
Is this a strategy of oppression against academic freedoms? 

Kirstie Whitaker (she/her)      13:23
Will the report from the focus groups be made available to the Turing commuinty? or just to ELT?
This question has been answered live

Kirstie Whitaker (she/her)      13:24
How do the S&I Directors integrate their secretive development of the reserach strategy with the feedback that staff skills are not being used to the best possible impact?
This question has been answered live

Anonymous attendee      13:25
Can you give an example of how the pulse survey has informed the actions of the ELT?
This question has been answered live

Anonymous attendee      13:26
But ELT was in the focus groups
This question has been answered live

Anonymous attendee      13:26
But someone from ELT was at the focus group yesterday, which may have limited honest engagement
This question has been answered live

Anonymous attendee      13:28
Turing does not currently have an employee working full-time on Wellbeing  - given the rapid growth of organisation and downward trend in feelings around wellbeing support from the pulse survey, is this something the Turing would consider revisiting?
This question has been answered live

Christopher Burr (he/him) | Alan Turing Institute      13:28
"Transparency means being clear about your decisions and opening yourself up to scrutiny. As a research institute, without transparency it's difficult to evaluate or analyse whether something has been done for the right reasons. We communicate openly and we use the feedback we receive to improve what we do and how we do it. In practice, you should always be able to explain your decisions when appropriate to anyone at the Turing and allow yourself to be challenged. People don't have to like the chocie that has been made but they do have to understand the rationale behind it."

(https://mathison.turing.ac.uk/page/2254?SearchId=459700)

Do the ELT believe they have upheld and embodied this value of transparency in regards to the recent decision and communication about pausing funding applications?
This question has been answered live

Xander Burbidge (they/them)      13:31
Also last time we were promised unanswered questions were going to be answered on Mathison. When is this going to be published and will any of today's unanswered questions be included?
This question has been answered live

Anonymous attendee      13:33
Since the Turing was founded there *have* been great leaps in data science and AI, but we haven’t had any part in them. Do we really believe that this will change in future?

Anonymous attendee      13:36
There has been a marked decline in the Pulse Survey when it comes to employees’ perceptions of the Institute’s Senior Leadership. Only 10% of respondents now agree that leadership at the Turing embody our values, compared to 33% in the winter. 56% of respondents disagree or strongly disagree on this particular question. Do the written comments in the pulse survey provide any indication as to why the decline?

Anonymous attendee      13:36
You say you want impact within 2-4 years but grants which would deliver this have been cancelled, and new ones blocked. So what's the actual plan for impact in this short time scale from essentially a standing start?
This question has been answered live

Anonymous attendee      13:36
Is Turing planning to still allow academic freedom or do we work in a very srtrongly top down decisions made for us?
This question has been answered live

Anonymous attendee      13:37
It may not be true, but it looks like the “difficult” questions were not answered but other adjacent ones were. Not a good optic.

Anonymous attendee      13:39
If we are indeed being listened to, why all these decisions feel surprising? It feels shockingly removed from the impact these decisions are having on us.

Anonymous attendee      13:39
With all due respect, no one knows what the "new way" is. It's so unclear. I'd be happy to align with it if I knew what I was aligning with.

Anonymous attendee      13:39
Acknowledging the change in perceptiion of the Turing, the S&I leads and the ELT is one thing, but there seems no indication of HOW things will change.

Anonymous attendee      13:40
I think many of us agree that a challenge-led approach is great, which can distinguish us from universities, but many Turing researchers are frustrated not to be part of the development of these challenges. There seems to be no bottom-up approach towards this. We have many excellent researchers, why are we not drawing on their expertise, ideas and enthusiasm for the development of these challenges?
This question has been answered live

Anonymous attendee      13:41
What is the more change to come?

Anonymous attendee      13:41
The partnership with the MET Office has been paused. What will allow us to continue this work?

Anonymous attendee      13:44
"One Team Turing" what on earth does that mean

Anonymous attendee      13:46
ONE team sounds good, but the actions seem to be exactly the opposite.  Everything seems to go on, and decisions made, in an exclusive manner without open discussion. This leaves us unable to explore other opportunities after our current project ends.

Anonymous attendee      13:46
What we disagree and dislike is that all of this is being presented in a haphazard, patronising way with no proper consultation, no proper consideration of the implications, and then we're told we need to pull together on this

Anonymous attendee      13:48
So far, all communications regarding Turing 2.0 have been high level with little detail on tangible actions to achieve the objectives of 2.0. It also seems that in 1.0 Turing we were already making substantial impacts in these areas. Could you explain how Turing 2.0 is not change for the sake of change?

carsten Maple      13:48
Can someone confirm that the Met Office partnership has paused? I saw Turing and MO presenting together at the Royal Society last week.

Anonymous attendee      13:48
Does one team miss the point of “diversity”? is that intentional for narroawing our focus further away from that?

Anonymous attendee      13:49
Senior management group isn't connected to anything? So they have no decision making power?

Anonymous attendee      13:50
It feels like the transformation programme projects mentioned earlier are a way to use up human resource (which is great) but to me this feels like a way for Turing to not just make the hard decisions and pay redundancy packages for those whose roles in effect will be slashed. Can you please explain why we’re not making these hard decisions sooner than later so that people are not misled anymore?

Anonymous attendee      13:51
We still don't even have a written delegation of authority policy which was also supposed to be a priority after you fired our COO

Anonymous attendee      13:53
Publishing papers and being involved (as PI or Co-I) in externally funded research projects (fellowships or grants) are essential elements of researchers' career development - any thoughts on how the proposed top down approach can accommodate this going forward?

Anonymous attendee      13:55
So many wonderful researchers have left the Turing since the summer due to the uncertainty around strategy. Do we know how many? Also, how can we hang on to the talent that we still have?
This question has been answered live

Anonymous attendee      13:55
I really welcome a lot of this, thank you. I would like to see some clarity for people who are or may be impacted - some of us are wondering whether our roles might be made redundant. Is this an option?
This question has been answered live

Anonymous attendee      13:56
Skills seems to be a bit neglected despite being in our charitable objectives. Can we get an update on this in the future, and what is Jean/Mark's view as to where this sits as a priority?

Anonymous attendee      14:00
Straight question, is there a round of redundancy to be expected or is the strategy to just let people get fed up and leave or, accept deadweight to float about?

Anonymous attendee      14:01
They've only just joined but they're already shutting down projects while having no p[ublished strategy for their grand challenges

Cass Gould van Praag (she/her)      14:01
An excuse is not an appology.

Anonymous attendee      14:03
I understand there will be time before the directors can see a policy through, but can we incorporate more community engagement? Numerous policies have stopped a lot of our work and given us uncertainty on the future but it feels like the ELT aren’t taking time to understand these struggles.
Events Team is going to answer this question live.

Anonymous attendee      14:03
Challenge led approach is interesting and promising in various ways. Is there evidence from other  instiutions/orgs that it is the fastest/best way to finding solutions? (As opposed to other more traditional ways)

Anonymous attendee      14:06
So, that's a no on academic freedom

Anonymous attendee      14:07
Is the Turing intending to match facebook and google on pay since we are mirroring their operating practices
This question has been answered live

Anonymous attendee      14:08
But projects HAVE been cancelled, contracts rescinded, award grants prevented from starting... that's not a pause

Anonymous attendee      14:09
Grants that were due to be submitted in the next few weeks no longer can be. That is cancelled.

Anonymous attendee      14:09
I feel like there is a disconnect between the CEO/Chief scientist and the researchers. The S&I directors are shutting down projects and partnerships routinely behind researchers backs — and from today’s answers from Jean and Mark (for which I’m thankful!) I get the feeling they are not aware of how our work is impacted and on how poorly all of this is communciated to us. Would they consider talking to researchers, without the directors?

Anonymous attendee      14:11
It is such poor management to simply and unexpectedly pause grants that have been in the works for months and in the recent weeks and days. How many hours of work going to waste because deadlines are approaching? How could a decision like that have not been discussed for a long time before being made and if it was, why wasn't it flagged in advance?

Anonymous attendee      14:12
The whole redundancy question handing in the air is really out of order. There needs to be timelines to when this info will be shared

Anonymous attendee      14:12
The strategy launched 18 months ago, leadership changes last year. Why is the Board not questioning the pace of change?