Research Resources

Please note that the Research and Scholarship Strategy 2003-2008 has now been superseded by the Research and Knowledge Exchange Strategy 2009-2014.

Research and Scholarship Strategy 2003-2008

The Research and Scholarship Strategy for 2003-2008 reflects the values and vision of our university. We aim to be an inclusive, regional university, proud of our diversity, and renowned and recognised for our contribution to social, cultural and economic development, especially through our research and scholarship.

Context

Thanks to the hard work of our academic community we have made great strides in the furtherance of our research and scholarly activity over the last decade. We have a good track record of translating very modest government research funding into successes which attract national and international praise and investment. We are proud of our progress in the RAE between 1992 and 2001, particularly in terms of the number of staff submitted and the improvement in ratings achieved, thus demonstrating work of national and international standing. This brought us deserved recognition as one of the top new universities in the UK for research.

We intend to accelerate the rate at which we move research and scholarship forward as an integral part of our academic agenda. The challenge for us is to put in place an institutional approach which will enable us to do this despite the implications of proposed government policy which inevitably will lead to a dilution of funding and barriers to us engaging in more world class research. Hence it is essential that we diversify research income and the nature and focus of our research activity.

The nature of the research undertaken at UEL is determined to a great extent by the historically limited funding available for the purpose which means that activity has to be especially focused. We recognise that with current levels of HEFCE funding it is not a realistic ambition for us to become research-led (that is where every subject area in which we have an academic programme has associated with it research of international excellence).

Aims and Objectives

Our research and scholarship strategy will have three broad aims. First to foster and extend the culture; second to develop centres of research excellence in selected areas; and the third to ensure that all our academic activities take place in an atmosphere informed by scholarship.

We are committed to the growth and development of research and scholarly activity in order to:

• enhance the reputation of our university;
• contribute to original thinking and the creation, growth and dissemination of knowledge;
• contribute to scholarship and the body of knowledge which underpins learning and teaching;
• contribute to development of useful and commercially exploitable inventions, products and processes;
• enhance our academic culture; and
• increase external funding.

Connecting research and teaching

Research and scholarship are key enabling tools in supporting teaching. A university is different from any other academic environment in that it is necessarily a place of new ideas, new knowledge and new learning. We have a fundamental requirement, therefore, to ensure our students encounter and respond to a wide variety of new ideas. We need to foster an institution wide inclusive research culture which both supports and challenges all staff and students to engage with innovative ideas and practices.

A significant number of colleagues in our academic community are focused primarily on teaching. Research and scholarly activity is crucial to them in order to ensure our students receive an adequate academic challenge, particularly in their final year of study; a frequent criticism in teaching quality assessment and subject review of many modern UK universities, including ourselves, and one which will need to be addressed. Without scholarly activity, we rapidly become out of date, lose the ability to stretch our students intellectually, and the curriculum can easily become moribund. Moreover, everybody in our academic community should be working on the development of learning, teaching and assessment in their subject and is capable of publishing details and outcomes of their innovative practice.

There are some members of staff whose primary goal is research in the traditional sense. There are others for whom research is important but with significant teaching duties which restrict their research output. All those engaged in research and scholarly activity need to be resource investigators so that funds can be found to employ researchers and to develop the necessary research infrastructure.

Defining Research and Scholarly Activity

We have a shared understanding of research and scholarly activity which is the definition that is more widely used and understood within UK higher education and the context of the RAE.

We define research as:

Original investigation undertaken in order to gain knowledge and understanding. It includes curiosity-led activity and work of direct relevance to the needs of commerce and industry, as well as to the public and voluntary sectors; the invention and generation of ideas, images, performances and artefacts including design, where these lead to new or substantially improved insights; the use of existing knowledge in experimental development to produce new or substantially improved materials, understanding, devices, products and processes, including design and construction; and scholarship.

We define scholarship or scholarly activity as:

output which contributes to the creation, development and maintenance of the intellectual infrastructure of subjects, and disciplines through: publications in the media or in forms such as textbooks, dictionaries, scholarly editions, book reviews, databases and, catalogues; published contributions to seminars and conferences; and through published work undertaken with or for professional bodies, the international academic community and industry and commerce.

Strategic Priorities

Given the likely outcome of the national review of research assessment and research funding we will need to further diversify our research income sources. We need to ensure that we can attract and retain the best people, develop first class projects and establish a first class infrastructure and facilities.

To this end our priorities will be to:

• support all academic staff participating in research and scholarly activities through the development of an inclusive culture and supportive environment;
• achieve an agreed threshold of research activity in all subject areas to support teaching and enhance our reputation and competitiveness;
• support the achievement of research excellence and appropriate engagement in the RAE through focused growth, collaboration and development of multi-disciplinary thematic research initiatives;
• engage in ‘third stream’ initiatives through knowledge transfer – developing research underpinning and attracting high added value consultancy/income through working with the community, businesses and industry; and
• increase our support infrastructure for research and scholarship by developing the proactive role of the Graduate School.

Focused investment to achieve excellence

We will continue to encourage research and scholarly activity across the board. But as all currently active research groups are aware, over time, quality stems from specialisation and focus. We will maintain our commitment to the principle of feeding RAE funding back into the research groups which have attracted that funding.

We will need to invest in new research areas over time and will target those investments to back up new programme developments, identify niche markets and on activity related to current research and consultancy expertise. It is likely therefore that our major new internal
investments in research will be restricted, and examples could be:

• Digital Media, Art and Cultural Production This reflects both the strength of London’s creative industries and UEL’s academic strengths in the areas of digital media, computer games and virtual reality;
• Sustainability. This aims to bring together several of our research centres with knowledge relevant to business, public policy and the physical environmental regeneration of the Thames Gateway;
• Entrepreneurship including a focus on the local new firm formation as well student learning regeneration;
• Human Potential reflecting alliances and partnership between the NHS and the health, biological and psychological sciences
• East London bringing together our expertise in social enterprise, human rights, urban culture and community developments.
• Life Histories which will embrace research in narrative studies, auto/biography, memory, cultural history and refugee and diasporic identities.

Priority areas will already need to have a critical mass or significant and likely potential to achieve high quality research work; to combine academic excellence with public utility; and to generate inter- disciplinary partnerships both across our academic schools and with external bodies.

Over time this list may change (shrink, grow or develop) according to needs and progress made.

Performance Indicators:

It is essential that we set objectives to ensure that our aims are achieved. Since our definitions of both research and scholarly activity rely on exposing our new thinking to peer audiences this implies monitoring a wide range of different outputs and activities.

Based on a survey of our current position, our targets over the period of this strategy will be:

• gain recognition for status as a Research II institution in the US by meeting criterion of 10 or more doctorates a year awarded across at least three different disciplines;
• develop 4 centres of research excellence;
• increase the number of academic staff active in research and scholarly activity to 80% (active being defined as those having something appear in the public arena each year);
• that all academic staff produce a research and scholarly activity plan with clear objectives and milestones, that this is calibrated against the workload allocation and progress reviewed through the annual staff development and review process;
• increase the number of academic staff contributing at a UK academic conference to 100 a year;
• increase the number of staff applying for travel and research grants from a wide range of sources including the British Council, EU funds, the Carnegie Trust and the research councils to 200;
• increase the number and quality of public exhibitions and performances mounted by academic staff to 50;
• increase the number of refereed journal articles to 300 per year;
• increase the number of textbooks to 20 per year;
• increase the number of research monographs to 15 per year;
• increase the number of articles in newspapers and non-academic press written by UEL authors to 50 per year;
• increase the number of research conferences organised to 10 per year; and
• increase the number of conferences focused on other aspects of research and scholarly activity to 4 per year.

Increasing research and scholarly activity

We aim for increases in both volume of output and quality. Recognising that it takes time to grow research and scholarly activity, the axiom that people are the most valuable resource in achieving the growth we seek will underpin policy developments in this area. We shall therefore look closely at each of the following in relation to the promotion of research and scholarly activity:

• institutional staffing policy;
• staff development policy;
• research training and development;
• career planning for researchers; and
• specific support for researchers and research students

We need to maximise the number of staff undertaking research and scholarly activity and to ensure that scholarly activity is output orientated. Experience elsewhere suggests that once colleagues get on to the publications ladder, it is relatively easy to move on and up. Hence we are adopting a framework to guide our progress in this respect. We shall also need to develop activity planning which supports the production of outputs, puts in place related staff development, and introduces a mentoring system to provide informal help, advice and encouragement from peers. It is also necessary to ensure that those already conducting research of national or international importance are encouraged to seek greater quality and thereby forge their way up a ladder.

The ladder is a metaphor which describes a process of upward mobility for individual members of staff. There will also be different notions of ‘research’ and ‘scholarly activity’ which necessarily overlap. There is, however, an assumption that all staff will be active in scholarly terms and will be encouraged to aspire to the highest standards of research activity. All staff will be encouraged to plot a developmental ladder appropriate to their area of work, their aspirations and aptitudes. It is recognised that in different schools the method of description will vary; two possible development cycles are illustrated below (there are no doubt many others!):

Example 1:

• Step 1 Newly appointed staff will normally either have a PhD or be completing one except where they have equivalent professional experience and engagement; in all cases they will have research, intellectual or professional capital on which to draw in their first years of work at the university.
• Step 2 Staff will each have a personal research plan which will be reviewed annually through the staff development and review process enabling mentoring and development opportunities, and engagement with those of colleagues within and/or outside the institution with similar agendas which finds expression in professional meetings locally, nationally and internationally at which work in progress and findings can be presented and discussed.
• Step 3 In the first years of their appointment is expected that they will promote their intellectual output into the public domain: initially gaining self confidence through study groups, professional associations or journalistic outlets but increasingly by doing conference presentations and subsequently in edited collections and journals. The subject of this work will often be the dissemination of research undertaken as part of their doctoral work and/or reflection on issues that arise from teaching related interests and activities.
• Step 4 They develop their research plan by supervising post graduate students working towards higher degrees.
• Step 5 They make application for joint funding to support this work with colleagues internal and/or external to the institution. Initially this may be relatively small amounts from charitable institutions and foundations designed to encourage younger or newer scholars but this should lead on to Principal Investigator status for major awards by the Research Councils and other comparable organizations.
• Step 6 At this stage they will be achieving a broad range of publications in leading peer reviewed journals and other appropriate outputs such as single authored monographs. They will be regularly presenting findings at national and international conferences, acting as panel discussants and receiving invitations to be a keynote speaker at such conferences.
• Step 7 Their reputation is now such to be regularly invited to review grant and fellowship applications from funding bodies, to peer review articles submitted to leading journals, to act as external examiner for doctoral dissertations, to join the editorial board of appropriate journals and to play an active role in their professional associations.
• Step 8 They will be leading research teams and/or participating in trans-national research networks and receiving funding from EU and North American funding bodies. At this stage, they will be acting as a specialist adviser to outside bodies and be making media appearances in their field.

Example 2:

• Step 1 Journalistic articles on learning, teaching and assessment in subject related Newspapers and magazines. UK academic networking based on teaching interests.
• Step 2 Articles in journals on learning, teaching and assessment. Some overseas Networking, both subject and teaching bases, possibly financed by British Council academic link exchange Finance. Form partnerships with experienced researchers, both internal and external.
• Step 3 Thanks to overseas networking, invited to become a member of a European Research consortium bidding for EU funds. EU network develops further and Leads to wider overseas links.
• Step 4 Having been a member of a successful EU consortium, now have a track record to warrant bid as the lead partner for EU research funds and wider outside UK Funding opportunities.
• Step 5 With now a successful EC track record, can use this as a lever to bid for UK Research trusts and councils funds.

Developing the research infrastructure

There is a need to develop and enhance a more appropriate infrastructure to support the proposed developments.

University level actions

At a university wide level there will be:

• an annual university wide research day to spread best practice (for example in connection with making research grant applications), to bring in new ideas from outside about developing research, and to promote and celebrate achievements at all levels of research and scholarly activity;
• a series of open lectures by people from outside UEL who have grown research in their unit/department/faculty/university;
• a series of bench-marking visits to other institutions by cross-UEL groups;
• a greater focus on research planning in the annual school and service plans that we develop; and
• a strengthening of the research infrastructure.

Academic Board Research Committee

The following is a list of the roles the research committee undertakes, modified in the light of this strategy and which need to be kept under review:

• be responsible on behalf of academic board for research degrees (M.Phil. and Ph.D.) and the policies and practices in relation to research supervision;
• take responsibility for academic aspects of the research concordat;
• develop and promote action to implement our research strategy to ensure schools are sufficiently aware of developments in research policy in the UK and EC and of funding opportunities and constraints and wherever possible to comment on and contribute to relevant policy development;
• ensure that validation processes take proper account of research and scholarly activity issues and that responses to these issues end up appropriately embodied in programmes.

Head of Research

In order to both raise the profile of research and to facilitate and drive the growth as well as monitoring progress against targets, we will appoint a head of research at professorial level. This individual, reporting to and working with the PVC (Research, Outreach and Infrastructure) will:

• contribute to the development of our research and scholarly activity culture;
• draw together institution wide large scale research bids, both single and multi-disciplinary;
• develop the research infrastructure through attracting external funds via both bidding and seeking out strategic partnerships;
• achieve a performance focus across the institution on research and scholarship targets through a monitoring framework;
• organise university wide activities (conferences, workshops seminars) to spread best practice and celebrate achievement in research;
• represent the university in external research initiatives and enhance our strategic presence with companies and organisations relevant to our research and scholarly activity; and
• lead and develop their own research in one of the focused areas.

Graduate School

The role and staffing of the Graduate School needs to be expanded to support this strategy, focused on outputs, and meeting the need of the whole spectrum of academic staff and postgraduate research students. Its role will include:

• promotion, assurance and enhancement of a high quality provision and infrastructure for our postgraduate research education;
• providing a ‘one stop shop’ advice/guidance service and hence promote good practice across the institution;
• supporting the implementation and development of our research and scholarship strategy, particularly the strands relating to development of an inclusive culture and staff engagement;
• establishing and maintaining our Masters in Research (MRes) research skills training programme for students and staff;
• assisting in identifying sources of funding for research and travel through monitoring funding opportunities and communicating these in a regular newsletter;
• organising a regular series of events to develop awareness;
• helping colleagues prepare bids and verify the financial expediency of such bids on behalf of the institution;
• organising regular strategic discussions and exchanges with key players in research funding, including from HEFCE, the research councils and the DGs in Europe (and our MPs) to prepare the foundation for our bids wherever possible;
• the stimulation of successful research and travel bids across the widest possible range of staff;
• charting our progress in Research and Scholarly activity.

Research professors

Experience elsewhere (and here, for example, in SCIS) suggests that the growth of research and scholarly activity is accelerated by the appointment of research champions. Hence we shall seek to make strategic appointments to professorships as funding becomes available, and indeed seek resources for jointly funded chairs such as we now have in a number of disciplines.

School level actions

Schools will:

• take responsibility for driving the development of scholarly activity working with Learning Development Services and the Quality Committee as appropriate;
• set their own targets in relation to the aims of this strategy in a manner which means they can organise and control school activity against these targets;
• develop school research plans to achieve these targets;
• run at least two annual research days to promote and celebrate research within the school and to ensure the school is fully informed about the research agenda, progress and prospects, and about internal and external research funding opportunities;
• identify other institutions which are addressing similar concerns to see what lessons can be learned;
• develop approaches to SD&R and activity planning to maximise engagement in moving the school research and scholarly activity agenda forward;
• create research groups and champions of research; and
• ensure that research and scholarly activity feature as criteria for appointment and promotion.

A Sibbald

5 February 2004

UEL HOMESEARCH