CATALYSTS

Helen joined RoRI in 2019, and in 2023 moved as part of RoRI’s core team to the Department of Science, Technology, Engineering and Public Policy (STEaPP) at University College London (UCL). She is now a Senior Research Fellow in Metascience, and leads or co-leads a number of RoRI’s flagship projects.

Helen is a social scientist with a doctorate in higher education studies. Her thesis: Knowledge production and disciplinary practices in a British University: A qualitative cross-disciplinary case study explored researchers’ views about knowledge production, evaluation, and dissemination in British higher education. 

Before joining RoRI, Helen worked for ten years at Sheffield’s School of Health and Related Research (ScHARR) as an information scientist. At ScHARR she led information retrieval and data management activities for systematic reviews and evidence syntheses projects, commissioned by organisations such as the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE), Department of Health and Social Care, and the Joseph Rowntree Foundation. 

Research Fellow, RoRI

Seunghyun is a Research Fellow in Metascience who joined RoRI in 2025. Her work with RoRI focuses on the AGORRA (A Global Observatory of Responsible Research Assessment) project, contributing to efforts to reform research assessment and strengthen the role of research in society.

Seunghyun is a policy researcher and analyst with expertise in science, technology, and innovation (STI) policy, research assessment, and institutional strategy. Her doctoral research at the University of Manchester explored the positioning of public research institutes within national innovation systems, suggesting a new framework for evaluating research actors through bibliometric and network analysis. This work contributes to emerging debates in metascience around interdisciplinarity, collaboration, and innovation.

Before joining RoRI, Seunghyun worked with leading national and international organisations, including the OECD and Korea Institute of Science and Technology Evaluation and Planning (KISTEP), on STI strategy, capability indicators, and evaluation of public research institutes.

Head of Programmes, RoRI 

Pete is part of the core leadership team at RoRI. Current roles include leading the oversight of RoRI’s project portfolio and supporting leadership of the AFIRE and AGORRA projects. Pete is also involved in scoping and designing RoRi’s future portfolio of projects and programmes. 

Formerly a principal consultant at Technopolis, Pete has 12 years’ experience in the field of science and research policy, having managed or directed over 30 projects and worked as a researcher on many more. Highlights from this body of work include a major study on 38 modifications to peer review for grant funding, evaluating UKRI’s research funding response to Covid-19 (process and impact), a peer-learning initiative on partnered research programmes for the GRC, and two major impact assessments for the European Social Survey (ESS). Beyond the above, Pete has worked for clients including the Swiss National Science Foundation, the Research Council of Norway, Wellcome, the Academy of Finland, the Royal Society, the Human Frontier Science Program, and the Austrian Science Fund. 

Pete is a researcher, project manager, communicator and coach, with ample experience of sharing their expertise at several academic and professional conferences and at organisations including the OECD, the GRC, the German Data Forum (RatSWD) and the UK’s House of Lords. They hold a PhD in sociology from the University of Sussex and subsequently published a book on new directions for centre-left politics in the age of globalisation. Pete is a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, an associate fellow of the Higher Education Academy/ Advance HE and a fluent speaker of English and German. 

Executive Director, RoRI and Professor of Research Policy at University College London (UCL)

James is one of the founders of RoRI and has been its director since 2019. He is also Professor of Research Policy at University College London (UCL), based in its Department of Science, Technology, Engineering & Public Policy (STEaPP). Since the late-1990s, as a researcher, writer, adviser and campaigner, James has worked at the heart of science and research policy in the UK and internationally. In addition to academic posts at the universities of Sheffield, Sussex and Lancaster, he has worked in think tanks, NGOs and as director of science policy for the Royal Society, the UK’s national academy of sciences. 

In his work, James has advanced concepts such as upstream public engagement, science diplomacy, responsible metrics and responsible research assessment; and he has co-founded or chaired initiatives such as People & Planet; the Campaign for Social Science; International Network for Government Science Advice (INGSA); UK Forum for Responsible Research Metrics; and the Research on Research Institute (RoRI).

In 2014, James was asked to chair an independent UK government review of research metrics, published as The Metric Tide. He subsequently chaired a European Commission expert group on Next Generation Metrics, and in 2022, revisited these debates with colleagues in Harnessing the Metric Tide.

In 2015, he was elected a Fellow of the UK’s Academy of Social Sciences, and in 2022, of the International Science Council.

Research Fellow, RoRI and Research Associate, University of Sheffield 

Anna is a Research Associate at the University of Sheffield. She joined RoRI in 2024 to work with Tom Stafford and Stephen Pinfield on the Distributed Peer Review project.

Her research interests include research improvement, data communication, researcher wellbeing and research evaluation. With a background in psychology, she is interested in applying psychological theory and approaches to understand and improve research practices and systems. 

Anna completed her PhD in Psychology (2025), having previously completed an MA in Social Research (2021) and BSc in Psychology with Foundation Year (2020).

Research Fellow, RoRI and Researcher, Centre for Science and Technology Studies (CWTS), Leiden University

André Brasil is a researcher at the Centre for Science and Technology Studies (CWTS | Leiden University), focusing on national evaluation systems, scientometrics, scholarly publishing, open science, responsible research and innovation (RRI) and diversity in science, especially concerning multilingualism and geographic inclusion. 

As part of his activities, he is a member of the UNESCO Chair for Diversity and Inclusion in Global Science, a research fellow at the Research on Research Institute (RoRI), and a member of the European Network for Research Evaluation in the Social Sciences and the Humanities (ENRESSH). André is also affiliated with the Brazilian Agency for Support and Evaluation of Graduate Education (CAPES), working at the Division of Studies and Research in Evaluation.

Senior Research Fellow, RoRI and Senior Researcher, CWTS, Leiden University

Rodrigo Costas is a senior researcher at the Centre for Science and Technology Studies (CWTS) at Leiden University. Rodrigo is also an Extraordinary Associate Professor at the Centre for Research on Evaluation, Science and Technology (CREST) of Stellenbosch University (South Africa).

He holds a PhD in Library and Information Science from the CSIC in Spain. His areas of expertise include the fields of information science, scientometrics, and social media metrics. His work focuses on developing new theoretical and analytical approaches to understand the interactions between science and society.

Some of his research topics include the development of novel scientometric approaches to study the global academic workforce, particularly the mobility flows of scientific researchers, and the study of funding acknowledgments.

In addition to his research activities, Rodrigo is also involved in several European and international research projects, and he is a member of the CWTS UNESCO Chair on Diversity and Inclusion in Global Science. He is also an Associate Editor of the journal Quantitative Science Studies.

At RoRI, Rodrigo brings his quantitative expertise to develop novel approaches to monitor and study different dimensions of the science system, including indicators of academic mobility, funding flows, and science-society interactions.

Martin develops methods to help funders and research organisations decide what to fund, how to design ambitious R&D programmes, and how to measure progress. He combines network science, systems engineering, and technology roadmapping to identify bottlenecks, map research dependencies, and assess where AI and complementary investments can accelerate discovery. He also develops metrics to capture how programmes connect fields, address knowledge bottlenecks, and advance translation beyond publication counts.

Looking ahead, Martin aims to explore how science and funding systems should evolve in response to AI-in-Science, science philanthropies, and existential risks. He is based at the Centre for Science, Technology & Innovation Policy, University of Cambridge, and holds a PhD in Engineering.

Henry C. W. Price is an interdisciplinary theoretical physicist and researcher at Imperial College London, working at the intersection of complexity science, network science, and the study of research and innovation systems. His work uses quantitative methods to examine how scientific and technological activity is organised, connected, and evolves over time, with particular interests in innovation networks, technology emergence, R&D missions, and the structure of research systems. He is especially interested in developing network-based approaches that can inform research and innovation policy and improve our understanding of how knowledge, institutions, and technologies interact.