How PRISMs Support and Enhance ARC’s Mission
The profession brings together the day-to-day operations, project work, and strategic growth activities. Dr Chisholm described this akin to a 'squiggly career pathway'.

22 January 2025
What is a PRISM ?
PRISM (Professional Research Investment and Strategy Manager) is a relatively new profession which enables the development, delivery and growth of large research investments. The UK-wide network was established in April 2020 by Dr Anja Roeding (University of Exeter) recognising the contributions these roles play addressing complex research challenges that range from mental wellbeing to the climate crisis, and from artificial intelligence to astronomy.
Since its formation ARC has embraced the profession and supporting this career pathway by developing standardised job descriptions from Assistant to Director, offering open-ended contracts, and providing the possibility of promotion. The professional pathway is overseen by Dr Louise Chisholm and Chris Langridge. PRISM roles are varied and provide a host of opportunities for professional and career development by contributing to the Department, the wider UCL community and/or externally funded research projects.
Within ARC, PRISM staff undertake a wide range of activities, these focus around maximising the impact of digital research and digital research infrastructure. PRISMs contribute towards this goal by:
Developing and delivering digital research projects, infrastructure or services
Increasing engagement, adoption and reuse of new digital research approaches
Maximising the creation of new knowledge for socio-economic impact
PRISMs are contributing to this goal through a wide range of activities.
Dr Louise Chisholm, as UKSRC Joint Director, and Lucy Caselton are contributing to the development and delivery the UK Square Kilometre Array Regional Centre (UKSRC). The UKSRC, as part of an international network, is prototyping and developing infrastructure that will enable data transport, data storage and curation and analysis of data captured by the SKA telescopes. The overarching mission is to support and enable UK-based scientists to maximise the research and insights generated from SKA data, which will transform our understanding of the universe.
Recently, Dr Claire Ellul and Lucy Caselton, organised UCL’s Festival of Digital Scholarship which brought together like-minded researchers and professional service teams from across UCL and showcased a vast range of digital tools and projects and platforms. It also provided opportunities for researchers to explore, for example, whether new and novel computational architectures are suitable for their research. This has led to the development of ARC Roadshows and regular drop-in sessions organised by Dr Rahil Alipour that raise awareness of digital services, providing expert support and advice.
Adopting new digital tools, data resources and facilities changes the approach needed to undertake research and how new knowledge is generated. Dr Louise Chisholm is leading the FAIR Data Accelerator Project, working with colleagues in the UCL Knowledge Lab, to identify sociotechnical challenges associated with adopting the FAIR Data Principles and to develop approaches that will contribute to creating positive cultures of data sharing.
Education co-lead, Sam Ahern, recently supported UCL students taking their first steps in high performance computing in the national Cluster Challenge at Computing Insights UK. Whilst Laura Beer is managing the EPSRC funded CDT in Collaborative Computational Modelling at the Interface. Together, these activities support the development of the next generation of digital research experts.
The common theme across my career is working closely with research communities to help them achieve their research ambitions –– Dr Louise Chisholm.
What does being a PRISM involve?
The profession brings together the day-to-day operations, project work, and strategic growth activities. Dr Chisholm described this akin to a “squiggly career pathway” which has included being researcher, managing an international EU-funded consortia, business development, facilitating new research proposals and industry collaborations, and more recently developing and leading UCL’s cross-faculty eResearch Domain community (2015-2022). This tapestry of experiences and her exploration across different aspects of academic sector has enabled Dr Chisholm to develop wide range of insights and skills that she draws on in her current role. The common theme across her career is working closely with research communities to help them achieve their research ambitions.
What is the future of the Profession?
PRISMs are crucial members of teams, especially as research becomes increasingly interdisciplinary and involves multiple partners. These roles have recently been recognised by UKRI’s funding calls, where the need for strategic management and coordination of people and resources is essential.
As a member of the PRISM Network steering committee, Chris Langridge is working with others from a wide range of UK Higher Education Institutions to support the strategic development and communication of the PRISM profession to assist in bringing other PRISM staff together, as well as, driving a cultural shift to support funding for career recognition and pathways.
Dr Chisholm is looking forward to the profession adopting a more evidenced-based approach to support the development and delivery of digital research infrastructure. Such as how PRISMS support researchers to articulate their requirements to inform the design of future research computing facilities, or to how to engage research communities that do not regularly use digital tools or facilities.
For ARC, the future of the profession is to continue to develop the staff and career pathway, and to develop new collaborations to enable and support new digital research that contribute to addressing some of the world’s most pressing research challenges!