ResearchOps: Essential Infrastructure for Better Research

​Join Sydney’s IxDF community at Dovetail, Surry Hills, for an evening exploring one of the most overlooked foundations of good research: Research Operations.

​If research is meant to help teams make better decisions, why does it so often feel hard to run, difficult to repeat, or scattered across endless folders of “final_final_v9” documents?

​The event features a talk with Weiyan Chee, a strategic research operations leader from Bupa with experience across UX research, behavioural science, governance, ethics, compliance and research infrastructure. Her work bridges academia and industry, helping teams build systems that reduce friction, support rigour and make research more scalable.

​In this session, Weiyan will introduce ResearchOps as essential infrastructure: the governance, logistics and knowledge systems that help teams run research more ethically, efficiently and sustainably.

​We’ll explore what happens when research grows without the right infrastructure: duplicated work, unclear consent, biased samples, weak methods, wasted incentives, privacy risks and insights that are difficult to reuse. Weiyan will also reflect on research debt, the challenge of merging different ways of working, and the growing role of AI-powered research tools.

​Together, we’ll look at how ResearchOps can act as a mission hub for research: supporting better decision-making, reducing unnecessary bureaucracy, and helping teams build habits that scale over time.

​Schedule
5.30–6.00 pm Welcome
6.00–6.40 pm Talk
6.40–7.15 pm Mini activity + group discussion
7.15–7.40 pm Q&A
7.40–8.00 pm Wrap-up + networking

​Whether you’re a designer, researcher, strategist, or simply curious about human-centred practice, this is a great chance to reflect, learn something new, and connect with the local community.

​👉 Reserve your spot, space is limited.