In an increasingly complex world, the ability to ask a good question is becoming as valuable as knowing the answer. And in the classroom, enquiry-led teaching can nurture this skill.
This shift requires a change in mindset: treat research less as a product and more as a habit. When a lecturer unpacks a method, tests an assumption with students or shares a failure from their own work, we see research in action. Students then understand that knowledge is built, not delivered and questioned rather than recited. Future-ready students need enquiry habits, critical thinking and a reflective mindset – qualities that develop through everyday classroom practice, not only through specialised research projects.
This aligns with what UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) now describes as “research culture”. And to nurture it, we must transform the classroom into a rehearsal space for collaborative and reflective research grounded in real-world problems.
Research culture doesn’t begin in committees or strategies; it starts with curiosity. Bringing it into the classroom isn’t about turning students into academics; it’s about giving them the confidence to ask better questions and test better ideas. The task seems ambitious, even naive. Teachers already battle with time limits, assessment cycles and content demands. Research, by contrast, is slow, uncertain, and often messy. So, how can the two coexist?
Much of the tension comes from a misunderstanding: we imagine research as discovery on a grand scale – something exceptional, reserved for people with grants, labs or journal articles. But if research is understood as asking, testing, and sharing evidence, then research becomes accessible rather than intimidating, and every lesson becomes a potential research moment. The question shifts from “Can we do this?” to “Why have we waited so long?”
The other barrier is cultural. Universities treat teaching and research as parallel tracks that only occasionally intersect. For research-rich teaching to happen, those tracks need to merge. Teachers must feel empowered to bring their questions as well as their conclusions into class. That shift doesn’t demand more time; it demands a change in what we treat as valuable learning.
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What research-rich teaching looks like in practice
Start small. A “live research moment” can be as simple as showing a figure from your latest project, discussing a methodological choice or reflecting on what didn’t work. These glimpses make knowledge visible as a process, not a product. Students see uncertainty as part of learning rather than failure.
Another route is through assessment. Replace one low-value task with an enquiry-based one, a replication exercise, an open-data analysis or a short methods note. These activities let students experience how evidence shapes arguments.
And research culture thrives on openness. Teaching with open-access articles, datasets or pre-registration templates turns transparency into a shared expectation. The Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business’ new Global Research Impact Framework also recognises that meaningful research impact begins with how enquiry is taught, shared and practised. This often starts in the classroom, not only with published outputs. When students practise openness, departments don’t just teach ethics, they live it. UKRI’s emphasis on open research points in the same direction: transparency, reflection and shared methods are cultural choices, not technical ones.
None of this requires a monumental overhaul of curricula. It requires the recognition of teaching itself as the site where research culture becomes visible, sustainable and ordinary. Culture is not built through statements or strategies, but through the behaviours that staff and students practise together, week after week.
This discussion isn’t abstract. Small shifts in practice are already emerging across universities. That means using live regional projects and staff enquiry to animate learning. Architecture students can collaborate with civic partners on retrofit challenges, education students can analyse anonymised school data to test policy claims. Creative arts students can co-design exhibitions that translate research into public dialogue. In accounting, postgraduate students can use strategic business reporting cases to evaluate real corporate disclosures, applying evidence-based reasoning to make defensible professional judgements. These aren’t new features of established curricula; they’re how students learn to connect evidence, context and consequence.
The same approach extends to postgraduate researchers who can run short “methods clinics” for undergraduate students. This simple exchange builds community and models what openness looks like in practice.
As the sector prepares for REF 2029, where expectations surrounding a healthy research culture will only intensify, we must recognise that these cultural habits begin in the classroom. These small exchanges build something larger than any individual lesson: they create the shared habits and expectations that any healthy research environment depends upon. Research culture grows from shared moments of curiosity. Repeated week after week, they build the confidence and habits that sustain a genuine research community.
Kashan Pirzada is a lecturer in accounting at Birmingham City University.
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