Research Management

Europe and Beyond

Jan Andersen, Kristel Toom, Susi Poli, Pamela F. Miller

• Publisher: Academic Press
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9780128052082
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

Research Management: Europe and Beyond addresses the myriad responsibilities related to research management and administration. The book incorporates narratives from those working in the field to provide insight into the profession. The book also offers a unique perspective on the topic by incorporating global perspectives to address the growing interdisciplinary nature of research collaboration.

The book outlines practical advice for those in the research management and administration profession at all levels of experience. It is also a useful tool that research institutions and research groups can use to assist in planning and streamlining their research support.

• Offers a deeper understanding of the research management and administrative landscape through single and collective definitions and experiences
• Provides an overview of the research environment and explores the international research arena
• Discusses some of the most complex issues in research management and administration by covering topics such as ethics, innovation, research impact, organizational structures, and processes for the project life cycle

Chapter 1

Who Are Today’s Research Managers?

Roles, Professional Development, and Evolution of the Profession

Susi Poli

Abstract

This chapter aims to shed light on today's research managers and administrators (RMAs) by looking at their career trajectories and professional identities, but also at how they have developed their professionalism in the field. In addition, this chapter looks at roles in research management and does it from a range of perspectives, so not only in regard to one country in Europe or to generalist roles. This is done since roles in research management vary extensively among European countries and can be more specialized in some places rather than in others, depending on the system of higher education as well as on the organizational structure for research support. Thus, this chapter aims to be an extensive but not an exhaustive overview of who RMAs are and of what they do in higher education institutions throughout Europe. In the intention, however, this is meant to be the entry point into an understanding of the topic aimed at triggering discussion and at calling for further investigation to come.

Keywords

Career trajectories; Knowledge in practice; Roles in research management; Working spaces

Chapter Outline

Introduction

Structure of the Chapter

Setting the Context

Understanding Who We Are

Exploring Research Management in Theory and Practice

Evolution of a Profession: Looking at Career Trajectories in Research Management

Exploring Professional Identities

Mapping Roles in Research Management

Developing Knowledge in Practice

How Research Management Has Increased Legitimacy Inside and Outside the Community

Strengthening the Knowledge

A Field of Investigation, Roles, and Working Spaces in Research Management

Research Management as a Newer Field of Investigation

Looking at Roles and Functions Further

Spaces in Today’s Research: Looking at “Third Spaces of Collaboration” and at “Shifting Arenas”

Spotting Commonalities and Differences in Organizational Structures in Research Management

Widening the Perspective and Inspiring the Community

Research Management and the Legitimacy of the Profession—An Open Query

Looking at Frameworks of Professional Development and at Studies on Skills and Experiences

Further Issues in the Practice of Professional Development

Best Practices of Professional Development—Engaging RMAs With Research Into Professional Practice, Writing Articles, and Presenting at Conferences

Acknowledgments

Introduction

The chapter begins with an overview of the theory on higher education management (HEM), in relation to the broad category of university managers and how these have been described; and then it considers the development of the body of literature in relation to the function of research management (RM) and how this evolution might take to the recognition of a profession in the long term. Moreover, in this chapter consideration is given to some of the working spaces in which research managers and administrators (RMAs) interact in today’s research, for instance the “shifting arena,” described by Shelley (2009), and “third spaces of collaboration” investigated by Whitchurch (2008a, 2008b, 2008c, 2008d, 2009). It seems therefore that reflecting on working spaces is getting topical: these may be linked to new funding schemes or other forms of collaborations. Among these working spaces, there are those inside and outside the institution, virtual spaces, or those only shared with peers, such as professional associations and networks. But there are also working spaces where multiple actors (from professions, academia, and the industry) interact, and so where it is more likely to see the blend of cultures representing today’s research management and consequently a range of organizational behaviors in practice.

The structure of this chapter aims to be an harmonized combination of practice and theory: therefore RM will be explored under a twofold lens, of professional practice arising from everyday issues and theory emerging from the body of literature, wherever existing, arising from books and reports, articles in professional magazines, and also those published on scholarly journals. The style of this chapter, however, is intended to be professional and not academic: even if it is clear that the investigation of a body of literature in relation to research management cannot be done without any methodology and so a light touch of academic skills seem necessary. However, the contribution of the theory in relation to higher education management, first, and to RM, then, is intended as complementary, so as an additional lens to look at RM. Summing up, the contribution from the theory is not meant to be extensive but just consistent with what will be shown in the practice of RM: for this reason, some parts of the handbook will use this theory a bit more depending on topic; and there will be case studies that aim to show how the topic under discussion works in practice.

This sought combination of theory and practice comes as a result of how other handbooks have dealt with professional practice, since this has often been done with no consideration for the theory surrounding these issues. Therefore, if the aim is the understanding of the academic community, we, as research managers and administrators, should go for affirming a strong and consistent voice, as suggested by Lewis (2012). In fact, in his view this can be achieved through a common understanding of each other’s language (e.g., the professional and the academic), but also through the understanding of how the combination of practice and theory can do the relationship between us even better.

In addition to this light touch of theory, especially later in this chapter, the aim is to raise and to spread out cases of professional frameworks and training schemes developed by professional associations, for instance, those launched in Europe, and also those promoted by other bodies, such as the project management institute or VITAE. Through the analysis of these frameworks, we can gain an insight into the set of skills that are more in need in today’s RM, but we could also anticipate skills that are more likely to be in demand in the future of an RM profession.

Structure of the Chapter

The chapter is therefore divided into three parts: the beginner part is targeted at early stage career research managers and administrators, that is, individuals who do not have a long-term experience in managing research; the second part addresses issues that can be placed at an intermediate level of experience and what RMAs are expected to know at that particular time of career; this part is projected toward the understating of issues that lie beyond the practical sphere of everyday practice in research management. Lastly, the third part aims to challenge the most advanced RMAs, by raising theoretical issues or trying to predict what is going on to be research and its management in the future.

The three parts have a common structure and deal with issues from a practical and, wherever needed, from a more theoretical perspective. In addition, the three parts are enriched by case studies that show how others have dealt with the same set of issues from their own landscape of research management. These cases are intended to show steps of realization of something new, and possibly successful, with no presumption to repeat that successful experience in a different social and cultural context straight away. However, the three chapters are aimed to add something new and inspiring to everybody’s knowledge; it is just when we look at experiences far from our familiar setting that we all can be more challenged to open new doors of understanding, reflection, and thinking.

Setting the Context

Nowadays, within the frame of a diversified and highly changeable higher education (HE) sector, research is characterized by high degree of complexity, and this mirrors both the complexity of the whole system and that of the funding landscape in Europe and internationally. Different HE systems are in place in different countries, and despite a few commonalities, the degree of harmonization is limited; among these similarities, there is the effort made by the Bologna process to ensure more comparable, compatible, and coherent systems of higher education in Europe, including the constitution of the European Research Area and procedures of quality assurance. Among differences: HR contracts and systems of incentivization and pay raise, status of managers and administrators (e.g., as civil servants), organizational structures, and definitions of units in universities (faculties or schools meaning differently in different countries), etc.

Within this picture, Andersen (2015) sees this research landscape as a consequence of the rise in complexity of the funding research environment: he points out how this complexity has had an impact on the current role of RMAs but also how this has previously impacted on its evolution (Andersen, 2014, 2011). It is a matter of fact that financial resources have become keys not only throughout Europe but also internationally and that universities and research institutions cannot miss the competition: only by being competition driven and so exploit their full potential in research and in the search of any type of resources (e.g., business or fundraising), they can show to be top level institutions, support their local communities, gain additional resources, and develop themselves and their countries more.

This should be true even for those higher education institutions (HEIs) that are placed in HE systems still counting on funds from the state–central level, which come to be allocated by formula; even because competition in the sector is nowadays a widespread and growing trend, which is not primarily/essentially about financial resources but about all what is needed to attract any further resources. It involves, among others, competing for the most talented students but also for the best faculty members and overall scientists to hire; enhancing the reputation, by working on branding and marketing and so by improving own targets in rankings; maximizing the intake of funding schemes, possibly internationally, and differentiating as much as possible so to make more sustainable any plans of investment; but also it is about fundraising and society-driven initiatives, to show the interlinkages between resources and the mission of HE and research institutions and so confirm that HEIs are still worthwhile assets to invest money in; and then about establishing international agreements and research collaborations, possibly with outstanding institutions, that perhaps summarizes most of the previous points and gives evidence of how the one’s brand has been developing in today’s research.

Other authors have described the degree of complexity within today’s HE and research landscape: the whole higher education worldwide has been described as changeable and extremely turbulent, since driven by multiple environmental pressures (Becher and Trowler, 2001a, 2001b; Whitchurch and Gordon, 2010), leading to a time of “maximum uncertainty” (Jameson, 2012). Among these changes: an increase in the competition for the most talented students, international offshore university campuses, the launch of private and for-profit universities for instance in the United Kingdom, mergers and a never-ending number of attempts of restructuring universities, and then cuts in funding for research but also for staff.

Looking at a research-focused environment, Adams (2013) has described this time as the “fourth age of research” and pointed out how this age is characterized by:

• international collaborations versus domestic ones;

• elite universities and research centers that more frequently establish partnerships and mutual agreements among themselves;

• mobility of research staff as one of the key drivers for states to continue to be at the highest level scientifically and economically.

More specifically in regard to article by Adams describing “the fourth age of research” published on Nature in May 2013, the author describes growth of this emerging age and tells how research has progressed to the current “fourth age” through two prior stages: a first stage was about valorizing an individual contribution to research, whilst the second was more about putting the institutional sphere ahead. By contrast, the current phase, this fourth age research, valorizes the national setting more than the individual or the institutional. This fourth age is therefore characterized by international collaborations as the mainstream of today’s research. Moreover, the paper points out how mobility is getting key not only for researchers but for nations and universities too, so researchers are asked to go/be out and about; and nations to bring them back to remain at the highest level scientifically and as a result to enrich their research landscapes.

After analyzing data on research articles from the past three decades, Adams has found that papers with authors from the home country, so domestic output, have declined and also that there has been a rise in papers published by researchers placed not only in one but in different countries; this shows how international collaborations have fostered multicultural output and papers too. Only in emerging economies (e.g., Brazil, China, India, and also Poland), this tendency has been reversed and domestic output is on the rise. For established economies placed in Western Europe, domestic output has increased by only 50% with the only exception of the Netherlands where it has been doubled.

This description of the evolution of ages in research sheds light on how today’s investments in science has changed, for instance returning own researchers after years of studies/career spent abroad or focusing on international output rather than on domestic; but a...

Table of contents

• Cover image
• Title page
• Table of Contents
• Copyright
• Foreword
• Acknowledgments
• Chapter 1. Who Are Today’s Research Managers?: Roles, Professional Development, and Evolution of the Profession
• Chapter 2. The European Research Environment
• Chapter 3. The Global Research Environment
• Chapter 4. Organizational Structures
• Chapter 5. Research Strategy
• Chapter 6. Preaward—Project Preparation
• Chapter 7. Postaward
• Chapter 8. Knowledge Exchange
• Chapter 9. Research Infrastructure
• Chapter 10. Indicators
• Chapter 11. Dealing With Researchers and the Academic Community
• Chapter 12. Shaping Next Generation Researchers
• Chapter 13. Ethics and Integrity
• Chapter 14. Understanding Diversity, Gender Equality, and Cultures in Research Management and Administration
• Chapter 15. Transferable Skills
• Postscript
• References
• Index