Heads of
University Management & Administration Network in Europe
SEMINAR
University of Lund
Friday 21 to Saturday 22 September 2001
Summary
|
The next Framework Programme of the European Community for Research and
its major implementation instruments
HUMANE was extremely fortunate to have the company
of Mr Karapiperis at this seminar on research management. He opened his remarks by noting that the
concept of the European Research Area, introduced by Research Commissioner
Philippe Busquin in January 2000[1]
and endorsed at the highest political level by EU heads of government and state
at the Lisbon European Council in March 2000, would have far-reaching
implications, if fully implemented.
Already at this stage, it was clear that a new
dynamic had been injected into the European research landscape with a double
“de-segregation” of research, first at the political level, and secondly in
terms of its actual content. Politically, research and development policy had
moved to the very top of national and European agendas, having being recognised
as a key factor in the realisation of the ambitious objective to make Europe
the most competitive and dynamic
knowledge-based economy in the world.
In terms of research content, the first steps hade been taken towards
breaking away from the segregation of research within pretty much independent
and non-communicating national and/or European programmes.
Mr Karapiperis explained that the new Framework
Programme for Research and Technological Development proposed by the European
Commission[2]
was clearly designed to be at the service of the realisation of the ERA
objective. His presentation focused on the new Framework Programme, and, in
particular, the new instruments which were proposed for its
implementation. This extremely rich and
varied topic was illustrated by several dozen slides, which thanks to the
presenter are available as a Powerpoint file.
The presentation and the discussion which followed looked at the implications in all this for Universities, which represent a vital but often undervalued research actor in Europe. In particular, it was stressed that they would have to make a sustained effort to improve their R&D and related financial and IPR management capabilities, recognise the need for better communication with both research end-users of research and society at large, and pursue strategic networking with other research players.
The Formulation of Institutional Research
Strategies – or the difficulties in doing so.
Martin Conway, University of Manchester Institute of
Science and Technology, UK.
UMIST is a research-led institution specialising in
study within and across the disciplines of Science, Engineering, Management and
Languages. UMIST receives a quarter of its total revenue from research and
collaborates with a wide range of industrial partners. UMIST is also about to
embark upon a major expansion of its infrastructure to support research within
the Life Sciences.
This presentation considered the culture of Higher Education Institutions, and the difficulties in reconciling the mechanisms of institutional management (for example, the implementation of a research strategy) with the concepts of departmental autonomy and academic freedom. Why would an institution need to produce a research strategy? How might this differ from a mission statement for research? What issues would the strategy address? What factors can derail[3] a strategy? How can the success of a strategy be measured?
Martin Conway noted the traditional culture of academic institutions, in which academics hold autonomy, and the managers have expectations that consensus and collegiate democracy should prevail. However, drives towards transparency in the funding of the sector and greater efficiencies, including moves to more commercial working methods, suggest that the culture of the university is changing. In the past strategic change could be passively resisted; now, however, as HE moves towards a more results-driven future, it could be argued that managers, through the formulaic control of resource allocation and other political factors, have greater control over the activity of researchers.
In this presentation Martin drew upon his own experience at UMIST, using examples from the University’s recent implementation of a research strategy within the Life Sciences and the development of a macro research strategy for the University, and considered the institutional support required to deliver such initiatives. The presentation also examined changes from individual to collaborative approaches to research (within and at the boundaries of the traditional academic disciplines), and the consequences this has for top-down or bottom-up planning through an institutional research strategy and for traditional approaches to the management of a university's research activity.
Heikki’s description of developing support for
research was set in the context of the University’s size and shape. The University of Helsinki is the oldest and
largest university in Finland. It was founded in 1640 and until 1919 it was the
only university in Finland. It now has over 44,000 members when students,
teachers and other staff numbers are combined. About 40 per cent of all
doctoral degrees in Finland are completed here. A total of about 37,000
students in the nine faculties make up a quarter of all university students in
Finland.
The University is bilingual, the languages of
instruction being Finnish and Swedish. Teaching in English has also been
increased rapidly and today all the faculties offer courses delivered in
English. The University of Helsinki is Finland’s most multidisciplinary higher
education institution.
The University has seven biological field stations
throughout Finland, several seismological stations in different parts of the
country, and the University Observatory located near Helsinki. The University’s
Centre for Continuing Education is the largest organisation providing adult
education in Finland, with a network of independently administered specialised
institutes across the country.
Heikki also noted the crucial fact that the
University is a multi-campus institution, operating at four distinct campus
concentrations, including the City Centre Campus (5 faculties), but with three
others in different areas. This feature puts the services provided by the
central administration in the position where the needs of the scientists should
even more carefully be taken into consideration.
Basic funding for research comes from the national
budget; however, the volume of outside funding currently accounts for about 50
percent of the total research budget. The University´s total expenses amounted
to 430 million euros.
Since summer 1994 the Research Services unit of the
Department of Strategic Planning and Development of the University
Administrative Office has been available to promote supporting activities. Very
recently the organisation was changed by combining the former Research Services
and International Affairs units. Supporting services offered by the Research
and International Services (RIS) have become an established, permanent part of
the researcher community of the university.
The quality and content of the services provided by
the RIS are frequently updated by a survey among scientists and other
researchers. The RIS assists scientists in the acquisition of financing and in
the management of projects. Services provided by the RIS also include
information and advising services in implementing EU research and educational
programmes, student exchange, researcher and teacher exchange, contract
negotiations, accounting and drawing up cost statements.
The costs of the RIS activities (25 persons) are
covered partly from the overhead part of the research funding, and partly also
from the university’s own resources and basic budget or international exchange
programmes.
Heikki concluded by pointing out that the supporting
services provided are of considerable importance in promoting entrepreneurship
and in increasing competitiveness. Taking up a good strategic position in the
Helsinki area, in Finland and in the European Union is helpful in finding means
of funding and in establishing long-term contact networks.
Session 4
The Benchmarking of Research Management: a case study
Magnus Edblad and Urban Swahn, Lund University (SE)
The University context was that Lund is the largest
unit for research and higher education in Sweden, with over 5,000 staff
including some 2,000 lecturers and about 1,250 salaried PhD students. The University has seven Faculties of
differing size and research interests, and (like other Swedish universities) is
highly decentralised.
Most research groups at the University are dependent
on external funds, many of them relying on multiple sources of funding. This could be seen sometimes to limit the
freedom of choice in new research topics, but generally research planning is
based on a “bottom-up” approach. The
University is involved in a great number of collaborative projects with other
institutions in different countries.
The benchmarking programme described in this
presentation was developed by ESMU (European Centre for the Strategic
Management of Universities) on the basis of the ACU/CHEMS programme for
Commonwealth Universities. Lund had
been part of the ESMU scheme from the origin.
The programme offers the chance to compare key management processes with
other institutions in order to see and develop best practice. Crucially, the programme goes beyond (mere)
marks or scores to examine the processes which underlie activity.
The final criterion is the effectiveness of the
operation. Each theme or process is
marked on a scale from 1 to 5 under three headings:
·
Approach
(policy or technique adopted)
·
Applications
(the extent to which the approaches are applied)
·
Outcomes
(success in achieving and monitoring the fundamental purposes).
General
points which were made by the presenters, and which were developed in
discussion, were that the definitions of “best practice” were sometimes not
equally relevant to all universities because of local or national conditions
(for example, the organisation and power of research councils). This meant that apparent criticisms were
more properly directed at the external system rather than the institution. Meanwhile, since the technique was aimed at
understanding how the institution worked it was better at describing quality
than at establishing quantitative measures of performance. However, the analyses had certainly helped
greatly in the latest round of research planning, which had set out a number of
priority areas including ten multi-disciplinary projects.
Antonio Alonso
Sanchez, University of Salamanca (ES)
Over
the previous ten years the University had deployed two main strategies with a
view to maximising excellence in all fields.
Firstly, in academic terms there were permanent committees
composed of researchers together with advisors to the senior academic
responsible for research affairs. (This
initiative had allowed the creation and development of a number of new research
themes.) Secondly, and in terms of professional
management, there had been two policies: the creation of an office for
promoting research projects and commercialisation, and also a deliberate
expansion of the number of well-qualified administrative staff who could deal
with research applications and thus relieve pressure on academics.
The
University had focused attention on the following areas:
1.
The
creation of a Research Management Agency – an umbrella organisation covering
the new offices and allowing greater speed and flexibility in dealing with
research projects, as well as innovations such as a credit card for use by
research staff and an on-line guide for dealing with queries by researchers and
potential customers.
2.
The
creation of a position of Administrator to help with research bureaucracy and
paperwork.
3.
The
establishment of links between Research Management and the overall management
of the University – for example, improving relations between the Agricultural
Research Institute and the School of Agricultural Sciences, so as to reduce
costs and use resources more efficiently.
4.
A
Quality Plan for laboratories and
research units, using accredited systems such as ISO 45000.
Antonio
also drew attention to the major challenges faced by the University, apart from
the standard complaints that universities now receive a reduced percentage of
the GDP, or that business provides little R&D input. The three main problems were as follows:
1.
A
need to change to mentality of research staff – at present too individual in
approach and producing too many small units – so as to accept more shared space
and equipment.
2.
A
need for more decentralisation so that the administration comes closer to the
researchers themselves, via the figure of the Administrator mentioned
earlier.
3.
Government
systems need to change, to evaluate research production better. The current focus on the personal research
of staff at the expense of teaching has distorted activity.
While
there was what Antonio called some “timid” progress in terms of strategic
planning, notably helped by developments in Management Control and Audit Units,
he felt that evaluation of research needed to be on a wider basis than the
institution.
Noel Lloyd opened by describing the national context in which universities conduct research in the UK. Research is included as a specific element in the contracts of employment of all lecturers, but one of the main stimuli for institutional interest in individual performance has been the periodic review of university research in the UK, conducted by the Funding Councils in the form of a national Research Assessment Exercise (RAE).
Future income for research is determined by the outcome of this assessment, and the public’s perception of institutions is governed by the results. One aspect of the exercise is the selection of those individuals who are to be entered. The amount of research funding in a subject (discipline) is determined by a formula based directly on the quality ‘score’ and the number of academics entered; the score, in turn, is determined by the average quality of the research entered, not the best. As a result of the way in which the exercise is conducted, it is necessary to ensure that all members of academic staff produce enough research of international standing. Over the last few years the University of Wales Aberystwyth (UWA) – in common with most other UK universities - has sought to develop robust mechanisms for monitoring the research performance of academic staff.
The mechanism which has been developed at UWA separates the encouragement and stimulation of research from the monitoring of performance. The latter involves six-monthly assessment of all academics. Heads of Department meet with senior management to discuss the strengths and weaknesses of their department’s profile, in terms of quantity, quality, external income and external perception. Quality is especially difficult to assess under these circumstances. A separate objective is to seek to improve the commercialisation of research and the volume of contracts obtained from industry.
It became clear in the talk that there were many
tensions for senior managers to resolve, not only in terms of distinctions
between research submissible to the RAE and contract research but also between
the rival claims of research and teaching. A further serious issue was the
response of management in cases where an individual’s research profile is seen
as inadequate, and the associated requirements of staff development.
During discussion it became clear that the RAE
system adopted in the UK was a source of some surprise to members in other
countries. There was particular concern
at the scope for “game-playing” and at the extent to which the system naturally
led to a concentration of funds in perceived areas of excellence.
[1] COM (2000) 6
[2] COM (2001) 94 final.
Both can be
found in http://europa.eu.int/comm/research/nfp.html
[3] To derail is to stop the progess of something (as in a train coming off a railway track). Similarly, people who start acting in a disreputable way (perhaps students who discover extra-curricular activities which interfere with their studies) are said to have “gone off the rails”.