Nine research councils’ content transitioned onto one UKRI site

The challenge

UKRI’s content needs to meet the information needs of postgraduate researchers. It needs to explain which subject areas each council covers, promote current funding opportunities, and provide guidance on how to apply for funding and manage an existing funding award. 

Before this content transition, researchers had to visit the sites of multiple research councils. Users found differences in:

• the depth of information on council remits and research areas

• the guidance on applying for funding and managing funding awards

• the details included in funding opportunities  

The new UKRI site presents information and describes processes in a standardised way, making it much easier for researchers to gather the information they need.

The solution

Content audit

After clarifying user needs and analysing site usage data, Scroll content designers carried out an audit of the existing content. Designers analysed the content alongside permanent UKRI staff in several sub-teams. 

Scroll content designers helped to establish the criteria for the audit, whilst adhering to UKRI policies like their one on archiving. Their audit expertise helped to:

• highlight the most important and high-performing content

• establish commonalities in research information and guidance

• identify information gaps

Stakeholder liaison

A large part of this project was liaising with subject matter experts (SMEs) – usually via the research councils’ senior research funding managers. Scroll content designers were respectful and patient when suggesting ways of making content clearer because funding managers and SMEs were experienced in working with complex, in-depth, high-concept content. The Scroll designers tactfully explained the benefits of clear, concise and standardised content.

Organisational skills

Some councils had hundreds of pages of content that needed to be transitioned. When the content production flow started, it needed strong organisational and administration skills. Scroll content designers completed their transition edits in subject-specific batches to make the process run smoothly for SMEs with the relevant subject specialisms.  

User research

Scroll content designers observed and contributed to user research with potential users like researchers, research fund managers, and private sector business managers. The research aimed to:

• establish user needs for the content

• find out how the existing content was performing

• identify the essential information for a potential page template 

Content standardisation

Content presented in a standardised way is easier to read and compare. Where possible, Scroll designers created page templates, using the findings from content audits and user research to determine the most important information.