Managing the University Community
The Challenges of Research Management
Developing a research strategy and funding it
EUA Workshop
In collaboration with OECD/IMHE
Barcelona, 18-19 June, 2004
Institutional Responses to changes in the environment
for research management
Dr Helen Connell
Principal, Connell Skillbeck Ltd.
International Education and Consultancy, AUS
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Institutional Responses to changes in the environment for
research management
Several changes in the broad environment of higher education institutions have
important implications for how research is managed within institutions:
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The growing significance of research for the knowledge society and
economy, which has led to an increased prominence of research policy for
governments;
Changes in the way research funds are available from government and
other sponsors –competitive allocation; targeting via priorities;
performance based funding; there is both a growing competition and a
growing pattern of cooperation between higher education institutions
with respect to seeking research funding;
Changes in the way research is undertaken – scale is large (expensive
equipment; geographic spread); type of research problems addressed
(increasingly interdisciplinary and problem focused; the basic/ applied
research dichotomy of reduced significance);
Changes in core features of the university: move toward mass institutions
with the increasing proportion of student cohorts enrolling; questioning of
the balance between teaching and research - overall, within the institution
as a whole - and within the responsibilities of individual academic staff;
move toward greater commercialisation of research, thus diversification of
research activity within the institutional orbit;
Demand for greater accountability by the broader society: tighter controls
over the use of public funds; increased demands for compliance with
ethical and legal regulations.
Multinational project
In 2000, the OECD/Institutional Management in Higher Education programme
established a project to analyse institutional responses to these challenges, and
draw together findings and ideas from current experience. Three international
seminars have been held, and a set of eight case studies developed to illustrate
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ways in which higher education institutions in quite different settings are
confronting research management challenges.
The first of the three seminars launched the project in Paris in June 20001. With
representation from all major OECD countries, participants mapped three central
themes:
• research management and support within institutions;
• sources of funding and associated issues; and
• research training and research as a career.
These themes were taken further in the second seminar, hosted by the United
Nations University in Tokyo (February 2001)2. Participants from both OECD and
a range of non-OECD countries in Africa, Asia and South America participated
in the Tokyo seminar. In October 2003 the third seminar, with a strong
European focus was hosted by the Center for Science and Research Management,
in Bonn3.
In addition to the three seminars, eight invited case studies were prepared and will
be published in association with an overview report of the project, due out in
September 2004. The case studies focus on aspects of research management
which emerged as of particular importance in the unique setting of each
institution. Nevertheless, common themes relevant to the broad field of higher
education emerged. Case study institutions were selected to be representative of
a variety of national and cultural contexts both within the OECD and beyond.
They include both research intensive and research non-intensive institutions.
The Case Studies
The case studies fall into four groups:
Well established research universities in a changing national policy context
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'Research management at the institutional level', at OECD, Paris, June 2000
'University research management: learning from diverse experience' at United Nations University, Tokyo,
February 2001
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'Institutional responses to the changing research environment' at Center for Science and Research
Management, Speyer/ Bonn, October 2003
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1. The study of the University of Adelaide, one of Australia's longest
established universities and one of its most research intensive, focuses on
how the institution has responded to changes over the past decade in the
national policy environment which favours research concentration and
selectivity;
2. The Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul is a graduate level federal
university in Brazil established in 1934. This study illustrates changes in the
type of research undertaken within the university consequent on the
government's attempt to boost the volume of research funding, by
introducing sectoral funds. These comprise levies on the income of privatized
sector, royalties and taxes on imported technology funds.
Research in the context of institutional restructuring
3. Following the national introduction in Portugal of a new research funding
model in the mid 1990s, the Universidade de Aveiro undertook a major
institutional restructure developing multidisciplinary research units
alongside departmentally based teaching.
4. While the Humboldt Universitat zu Berlin dates its origins to 1810, its
present structure was established during the 1990s following the reunification
of Germany. In the broad move within Germany toward increased
institutional autonomy, the university has benefited from the ability to test
new models of leadership, organisation and financing.
Managing research careers in the context of an expanding institutional research
profile
5. The study of the Universite Libre de Bruxelles, serving the French speaking
community of Belgium, focuses on the complexity of managing staff research
careers in a situation where close to 50 per cent of the institution's research is
undertaken by externally funded research-only staff.
Building research from a new or slender base
6. The study of Bogazici Universitesi maps the successes and setbacks over
several years of a sustained internal initiative to turn Turkey's highest
prestige public university into a research university.
7. In 2001, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia was designated as one of four
national research universities within the context of Malaysia's fifth national
development plan. This study illustrates the early stages of the university's
well resourced approach to strengthening its research profile.
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8. Not a designated university within Ireland's binary system of tertiary
education, the Dublin Institute of Technology has, nonetheless, set its sights
on building a research capacity. This study illustrates the challenges met by
non-university institutions, such as access to lower levels of resourcing, and
staffing patterns built around teaching-only commitments.
Institutional responses
Institutional responses to this changing environment vary according to different
features of institutions notably, but not exclusively, the degree of research
intensity, their culture, institutional history etc. Research management is indeed
management of change and diversity.
Three areas of response and challenge, stood out: professionalisation of research
management within institutions; developing a strategic orientation to research on
an institution-wide basis; nurturing the research career. I will discuss each in
turn.
Professionalisation of research management within institutions which involves
both the appointment of people to specific research management positions; and
upgrading the capabilities of staff throughout the institution to better manage
research activities.
The challenge within institutions is not just to be alert to a changing policy
environment and to foster a strong research climate. It is to show a capability to
design and operate new structures and processes for stimulating, guiding and
managing research. The growth of research management as a specialised and
professional field of activity over the past decade has been striking. Not only do
institutions increasingly have a full time senior executive responsible for research
(e.g. Vice President Research), this person is increasingly supported by a
centrally located research office with institution-wide responsibilities. But
equally at faculty and departmental levels, research management responsibilities
are increasingly recognised as requiring specialist knowledge and expertise –
specific staff development is valued.
An important challenge for university leadership is how to tighten the links and
create a firmer form to the institution but without losing the energy and initiative
at the level of researchers/ grassroots.
It appears that the balance is moving away (though not entirely) from the
university as a self-governing community of scholars, and towards the
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expectation that institutions will perform according to external requirements,
and that individual departments and groups will have the freedom to forge
alliances and enter partnerships whether or not these have the backing or even
the understanding of the collegiate community as a whole. The research
different weight of faculties commonly found within the institutions gives some
strengthened relations with respect to central authorities.
There is a challenge to institutions to find new ways of collective decision taking
at the institutional level which are both responsive to their own staff views and
well attuned to the scale and pace of change in the wider environment where
research priorities are increasingly set and funding allocated.
Confident leadership which commands the respect of the research community
and is grounded in the intellectual values of that community is a more fitting
model for contemporary university research management than either command
models or a tortuous maze of committees. Yet these must be legitimate
structures.
Developing a strategic orientation to research institution-wide involves not only
the positioning of the institution in relation to fields of research and specific
activities, but also positioning research within the institution itself with respect to
the other missions of the university. Key questions are:
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How to articulate strategic decision-making at the institutional level with
public research priorities and industry sources when so much of the
bidding for grants and contracts and efforts to develop alliances and links
is at the level of the individual or team of researchers.
The increasingly competitive environment of the modern university places a
premium on shaping a distinctive and well integrated institutional profile.
Since the university’s mission does embrace wider perspectives on knowledge,
institutional research management cannot be responsive only to prevailing
public policy interests and dominant funding sources. The needs of the whole
research community and all the institution’s researchers must be addressed.
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How to formulate research priorities and plans which build on
institutional strength and engage productively with the local region,
whether metropolitan, provincial or rural.
How to ensure that the institutional processes through which priorities
and plans are formulated are widely inclusive and representative,
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including a productive balance between university governance and
university management.
Given the increasingly onerous impact of reporting demands in the model of
central steering, it is a nice question as to whether institutional autonomy has
decreased rather than increased. Certainly it has changed in character.
Of central importance for research management is the impact of the more
competitive funding environment on universities and ways of minimising the
harmful effects of market competition. Priority setting means gains for some, but
losses for others.
It is clear that new developments in university- industry linkages have brought
universities into a complex and varied set of new relationships with their
external environment. Gibbons posed the question of where the university ends
and the external environment begins4. The more entrepreneurial the university
staff, the more permeable the boundaries are becoming.
Nurturing the research career
The research career in its various forms needs to be an attractive option both for
young people and for staff in mid-career. The perceived lack of interest by
young people in some countries in pursuing careers in certain fields of science
and engineering remains of policy concern. The university’s ability is further
challenged to provide adequate rewards and incentives to retain those
researchers whose entrepreneurial talents take them outside traditional academic
boundaries.
There is a growing acceptance that human capital assets ought not to be taken for
granted – they need to be valued and nurtured. Successful research at an
institution depends on depth of expertise practiced by a wide range of people,
not only academic.
Different university systems have traditional patterns of academic advancement
through the teacher/ researcher ladder leading from doctorate to professor
within an academic discipline. This system is under severe strain, with a wider
variety of staff employed in research capacities, including on university
commercial activities; as increasing numbers of researchers are employed on
fixed term contract on soft monies; as fewer tenured posts are on offer by
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Report of Paris seminar
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institutions; as mobility internationally and between universities and industry
are encouraged; as interdisciplinary research is increasingly fostered.
Initial research training – rethinking the doctorate in particular -, and early career
researchers emerge as areas of particular concern by and for institutions. A
significant and important challenge is for institutions to begin to rethink the
research career, and develop inclusive strategies with recognized pathways for
interdisciplinary researchers, for contract research-only staff.
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