Canadian Research Impact Network

In this blog Professor Dean talks about the university joining the Canadian Research Impact Network.

Last week, I was in Canada with a couple of colleagues visiting a number of universities and attending the annual meeting of the ‘ResearchImpact-RéseauImpactRecherche (RIR) network.  RIR is a pan-Canadian network of universities committed to maximizing the impact of academic research for the social, economic, environmental and health benefits of Canadians.  RIR members achieve this mandate by investing in knowledge mobilisation, supporting collaboration for research and learning and connecting research beyond the bounds of academia.  The network was set up in 2006 and it draws together the unique strength of its 15 members. We are the first institution outside of Canada who has joined this network.  Leadership of the RIR rotates amongst the members and resides with York University till 2020.  The Canadian universities in this network are: University of Montreal, University of Saskatchewan, University of Western Ontario, University of New Brunswick, McMaster University, York University, University of Victoria, University of British Columbia, University of Guelph, University of Quebec at Montreal, Kwantlen Polytechnic University, Memorial University and Carleton University.

Prior to the annual meeting, we were invited to visit the York University at Toronto to discuss potential research collaborations. We have three academic staff with connections there already: Prof. Marco Morengo was, in fact, at York just before our visit on a 2 month sabbatical; Dr Helen Kennedy has been collaborating with one of their researchers for some time; and Dr Wrighton has spent time working at York University in the past.

York University (http://openyourmind.yorku.ca/) is a large university, with around 50,000 students and 2,300 academic staff.  It is home to Canada’s largest liberal arts programme, the only Space Engineering programme in the country, a new Global Health programme and a unique cross-discipline Digital Media programme.  They have 26 Research Centres, 34 Canada Research Chairs and 24 distinguished research Professors and are leading on frontier knowledge and innovation across a multitude of fields.  They were ranked by the THE as one of the top 100 universities in the world for arts, humanities and social sciences.   We (Sue Baxter and I) were hosted by Dr Phipps, who is the Executive Director for Research and Innovation Services.   It was excellent to see how they organise their support services, their criteria for Research Centres, their Research Centres Charter and how they evaluate their Centres.  We also had a very fruitful meeting with Professor Hatche, the Vice President Research, where we discussed the consultation on their new Strategic Plan for research and his thoughts on their priorities.  We agreed that we will map our COREs against their Research Centres to identify areas of synergy and complementarity exists and then connect our researchers together. We are currently doing this and, looking at their list of Centres, (http://research.info.yorku.ca/organized-research-units/), I can immediately spot potential collaborations with their Centre for Feminist Research, Centre for Automotive Research, Centre for Refugee Studies, Centre for Research on Biomolecular Interactions, Centre for Digital Arts and Technology and Centre for Ageing Research and Education.  In fact, whilst we were there, we also met Professor Pat Armstrong who is one of their distinguished Research Professor in Sociology and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. Focusing on the fields of social policy, of women, work and the health and social services, she has published widely and has been author, co-author, or editor of over 25 books.  Her 2013 book, Troubling Care: Critical Perspectives on Research and Practices, has been highly influential in shaping care policies.  She spoke of her current project, funded by the Social Science and Humanities Research Council, which includes a team of international collaborators, including academics from the University of Bristol.  I spoke about some of the work in her area that our researchers are involved in.  She was very happy to collaborate and I have already put one of our researchers in touch with her.

The second half of the visit involved attending the annual meeting of the RIR in Montreal. Canada is a vast country and travelling between provinces usually involves a plane but, for me, there is nothing quite like a train journey!  So, the 6 hour journey from Toronto to Montreal was a real highlight, passing some beautiful lakes with a fantastic wifi connection and very comfortable seats, all for a mere £50!!

The first part of the meeting was a closed session of the RIR Governance Committee, which highlighted the scope of the work behind the network, the working groups, reporting structure and the priorities for the coming year. RIR have been working on an Impact Toolkit which is due to be launched in 2018.  It will be really good for us as we gear up our preparations towards REF2021.  I must admit I did not expect to meet a Mancunian at the meeting!!  It was really good to meet Prof. Helen Burt, originally from Manchester, who is the Ass. Vice President for Research and Innovation  at UBC. Prof. Burt trained as a pharmacist at the University of Bath, before joining UBC  to do her PhD and has been there ever since.  She is an expert in the development of polymer-based drug delivery systems for controlled and localised drug delivery and a fairly frequent visitor to UK.  I am hoping that she will be able to visit us in 2018 and meet some of the researchers at PABS.

The annual meeting kicked off on 20th September and David Wolff, Director of CUPP, joined me for the meeting.  The presentations at the meeting were varied and interesting and we presented the University, its ambitions and achievements and, most importantly, what we expect to get out of the network and what we can contribute.  As it is with all meetings of this nature, an important aspect is meeting other people in the same position as yourself but working in different university settings, looking around different universities and making connections.

Having lived on an Isle of Wight, I was particularly interested to find out about the Memorial University of Newfoundland. I enjoyed the discussion I had with Jen Adams, the University’s lead for strategic development and hearing about the advantages and challenges of a University on an Island and how they engage with their community on the Island.  They are well known and quite exemplary when it comes to public engagement (http://www.mun.ca/publicengagement/memorial/). I learned a lot in a very short space of time.  Jen also introduced me to Clamato juice (a drink which needs to be avoided by all those allergic to shellfish!).

This was my first trip to Canada. Our VC had told me that Canada is a nation that really values education and research.  Having spent just a few days, there I could not agree more!

 

Graduation Magic

Towards the end of an undergraduate degree things start to fall in place: they did for me anyway. I learned how to study and how to learn, and I even dedicated a reasonable chunk of time to my studies, and loved it so much that I decided to continue my studies and registered for a PhD. My undergraduate graduation was in July 1985. I was an international student from a war torn country and so there was absolutely no way any family member could travel the thousands of miles to attend my graduation. They were too busy avoiding air raids and had become war refugees in their own country. And, if I am honest, I only attended it because my parents were keen for me to do so.

Once I joined academia, I witnessed many graduation ceremonies and have always been curious about local practices at different universities. Earlier last week, I had a meal with a friend from another institution and we were comparing notes on our universities graduation traditions. She told me that their VC’s speech lasts for one hour – can you imagine!! I thought Debra’s speech was one of the best VC speeches I have heard and it was just shy of 10 minutes, which was ideal.

Reflecting on all the graduations I have attended, it was not until my PhD students started to graduate that I realised the significance of this occasion and, by the time my son graduated in 2015, I was a fully-fledged graduation fan.

As you know, last week was our university’s graduation and my first graduation attendance here. I attended all but two of the ceremonies and I felt very proud about how we do our graduations. There is always a good atmosphere at graduations but I felt we had the perfect balance between creating a good celebratory atmosphere and not forgetting that we were there to celebrate the academic achievements of our graduates. A personal favourite of Maya Angelou quotes is: “I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel”, and, last week, our university made all our graduates feel good about themselves, their experience with us and their achievements.

Brighton Centre was an excellent venue and the team worked tirelessly behind the scenes to make it all go smoothly. Over 3500 graduates, ranging in age between 19 and 79 and from 90 countries, became alumni of the University of Brighton. I had the privilege of doing an oration for one of our honorary graduates, Miranda Brawn, and meeting her was a real highlight for me.

My favourite part of the celebrations was meeting the students and their families afterwards. I tried to share some of these moments with others through Twitter and there were times when I felt that perhaps I could have had a career in marketing after all!!

On Friday evening I was tired but joyous. Of course, I will share a few suggestions on how we can improve the ceremonies further but they were all very special.

It was an excellent week and I wish the very best for the Class of 2017. I would like to leave them with this lovely phrase:

“Behind you, all your memories. Before you, all your dreams. Around you, all those who love you. Within you, all you need”.

Guest blog from Research Fellow Dr Mary Gearey

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It gives me a great pleasure to bring you this guest blog from Dr Gearey who shares with us her experience of returning to STEMM research and her contribution to the International Women in Engineering Day. 

Tara Dean, Pro Vice Chancellor Research & Enterprise

‘I can think of no better way to have celebrated ‘International Women in Engineering day’ on June 23rd than in the company of some of the UK’s most prestigMary Gearey at the eventious female scientists, researchers and practitioners, who are the leading lights of their discipline. Coming together to discuss career development within Engineering, and throughout the Sciences, from post-degree to senior management, I was an invited speaker at this one-day seminar held at the Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining’s (IOM3) head office in London. As a Research Fellow within the University of Brighton’s School of Environment and Technology, I shared my experiences of returning to STEMM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics and Medicine) research in 2015 following a career break of several years. The all-women panel lead a series of discussions around how best to support gender equality within the workplace, particularly for those trying to balance working life and parenting commitments, and how to progress to a senior level in your chosen field.

My return to academia was enabled through the support of SET colleagues Professor Neil Ravenscroft and Dr Paul Gilchrist and initially championed by Dr Kemi Adeyeye, who heads the Water Efficiency Network (watefnetwork.co.uk), who mentored me and was the person who encouraged me to apply for a Daphne Jackson Trust Fellowship. The Daphne Jackson Trust provides STEMM scientists and researchers with career retraining Fellowships after a break of 2 years or more taken for family, health or caring reasons. I was fortunate enough to be awarded a Fellowship in January 2015 to undertake a two year, part-time research project exploring community resilience to changing water environments along the River Adur in West Sussex, and I’m now working on the NERC funded WetlandLIFE project.

My talk outlined the process of successfully securing a Daphne JaPresenation at the International women in engineering dayckson Fellowship, to encourage those wishing to return to STEMM research, or practitioners wanting to return to academia from industry, to apply. I outlined the benefits of the Fellowship’s personalised retraining package both to the Fellow and their home institution, and highlighted the ways in which organisations looking to welcome experienced STEMM researchers, particularly female returners, and those thinking about developing their own research hubs, would benefit from sponsoring a Research Fellow.

Experienced researchers taking a career break find it almost impossible to return to academia after two or more years away. For those of us involved in STEMM research, developments in technology and best practice change so rapidly that many are concerned that if they decide to raise a family, or to take a career break for other reasons, they will never recover professionally. Through the support of my colleagues in SET and the University of Brighton, together with the Daphne Jackson Trust, I’ve shown it is possible to develop a work-life balance and restart a STEMM career.

Joining me as fellow presenters were Professor Serena Best from the University of Cambridge and Dr Artemis Stamboulis from the University of Birmingham, who shared their experiences of navigating STEMM academic careers with parenting. Professor Best highlighted the importance of working within academic institutions which recognize and support the need for flexible working in order to retain highly skilled and committed staff, whilst Dr Stamboulis outlined the benefits of international collaboration in helping organisations benchmark approaches which support equality in the workplace.  It was a great honour to be part of this prestigious panel and a welcome opportunity to celebrate the great work of both the Daphne Jackson Trust and the University of Brighton in championing returning STEMM researchers.’

Dr Mary Gearey

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Research and Enterprise update

A lot has happened on the R&E front, both within the university and externally, and I thought this would be a good opportunity to update you all.

The REF2021 consultation is now closed following a couple of months of fairly intense activity, gathering views from colleagues internally via School consultations, meeting and discussing the practicality of what has been proposed and what impact it will have to University Alliance institutions. And, of course, there were the HEFCE town meetings which highlighted many areas of sector consensus, irrespective of the research intensity of institutions. As predicted in my earlier blog, the key issues remain the approach to submission of staff, non-portability of outputs and institutional impact case studies.  HEFCE has received over 370 responses and we look forward to hearing the outcome of the consultation in the autumn.  Read our response (PDF).

Our REF Steering Group met few weeks ago and we will start to assess our REF outputs once we know the outcome of consultation. We already have some insight on the quality of our outputs through the previous ‘Strategic Review Process’ but we will start our REF preparations in a more comprehensive and systematic way later in the year.

The Industrial Strategy is under consultation and Shona Campbell wrote a really informative guest blog which summarises the opportunities that this strategy offers. The deadline for submission of responses is mid-April and we will be sharing our response over the next few weeks.

Our Strategic R&E Plan was approved in January and, earlier this month, the University Management Board approved the associated Implementation Plan (IP).  I wish to express my particular thanks to the Deputy Heads of School for R&E: although a small group of us within the R&E management team worked extremely hard in preparing the first draft of the IP, the input of the Deputy Heads during our first away day was key. The IP will remain a live document and we will need to review it regularly, but I am very proud of it and very pleased that each objective will be delivered via discrete action plans. Deputy Heads will be sharing the IP via their School meetings and you will have an opportunity to see it for yourself.  It will be our road map over the next four years as we start to grapple with all the objectives we have set ourselves. Naturally, as it is with any plan, not every aspect will be dealt with in the first year. Having said this, there are number of immediate actions and high on the priority list are the Brighton Futures and Centres of Excellence in Research and Enterprise (COREs). On Friday, you would have seen a call from me for expressions of interest to lead the Brighton Futures. These are vital, mainly externally facing, roles to build and promote partnerships internally and externally and to horizon-scan opportunities for the Brighton Futures.  If you are keen to find out more, please get in touch with me.  The deadline for EOIs is 13 April.

Also this week, I will be circulating the call for COREs. The call will be cascaded via the Deputy Heads and will also be issued directly to Directors of existing centres. A number of you have already asked for draft criteria and are already working on your applications.  Professor Ashworth led on preparation of the policy and operational document for COREs and I know he scrutinised many models from across the sector so I am confident that the document we now have is sector-leading. The deadline for submission of applications is the end of May and we hope to launch the COREs in the new academic year.

Also high on the priority list for this year is to ensure our Quality Related (QR) income is used to support the research infrastructure and help the delivery of the Strategic R&E plan. The majority of QR is invested via Schools and, for 17/18, we need to make sure that tis investment is aligned to the implementation of the Strategic R&E plan, so Schools are being asked to articulate this as part of the annual planning process.

We are now finalising the programme for our R&E Conference and registration will open this week. At about the same time we will issue our first R&E newsletter. We hope to have three editions annually, and I hope this will be a platform for you to contribute and keep updated.  So, watch out for the first issue!

A great deal happening over the next few months …..

Tara Dean, Pro-Vice Chancellor Research Enterprise

Guest blog – Shona Campbell outlines the opportunities within the Industrial Strategy Green Paper

I am pleased to bring you the first of my guest blogs. This blog is written by our newly appointed Knowledge Exchange manager Shona Campbell. It summarises the opportunities within the Industrial Strategy Green Paper and what we are doing centrally to ensure we are in a good position to respond to them.

Tara’s blog in February explored the Industrial Strategy green paper (open for consultation until April 17th) noting that ‘Investing in science, research and innovation’ is one of the ten pillars upon which the strategy is built. Undoubtedly the most significant aspect for the research base is the Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund (ISCF) to which a total of £4.7 billion has been committed, starting with an investment of £270 million in 2017-18, rising to an extra £2 billion per year by 2020-21. The fund will back technologies where the UK has the potential to take an industrial lead, supporting all stages from early research to commercialisation. With the first Challenges announced (read on!) it is timely to share what we know, what we don’t, and what we’re doing about it across the university.

In late January/early February, industry and the research base were invited to inform the definition and prioritisation of Challenges to be issued by Innovate UK & RCUK (UKRI) through a series of workshops and a consultation. I represented the University at one of the workshops (which were incredibly popular with 4 times more applicants than there were places). Areas which were consulted on don’t come as a great surprise and are very much in line with Innovate UK sector priorities:

  • Bioscience and biotechnology
  • Leading edge healthcare and medicine
  • Manufacturing processes and materials of the future
  • Smart, flexible and clean energy technologies
  • Quantum technologies
  • Robotics and artificial intelligence
  • Satellites and space technologies
  • Transformative digital technologies
  • Integrated and sustainable cities
  • Technologies for the creative industries

Workshop participants were presented with several straw man Challenges within each area and charged with rewriting them, discarding them, combining them, splitting them up, identifying whole new Challenges, then pitching those considered to be highest priority to participants who then, in low-tech fashion, each voted for their preferences using colourful stickers. Debate was intense, parochial in places but largely constructive, and it will be interesting to see what emerges from the consultation and what weight was given to the aforementioned stickers! Progress has clearly been made as the first Challenges were announced in this week’s budget:

  • Development, design and manufacture of batteries to power the next generation of electric vehicles;
  • Artificial intelligence and robotics systems to operate in extreme and hazardous environments;
  • New medicine manufacturing technologies to accelerate patient access to new drugs and treatments.

What else can we predict at this point in time? We expect at least the early Challenges to have quick turnarounds as Innovate UK is under pressure to spend (not just allocate) ISCF budget in 2017/18. We can already see that projects that can spend money early will be prioritised: ahead of any Challenges being issues the partnership for a high scoring but unsuccessful proposal involving Roger Evans from Computing, Engineering & Maths that fits within Technologies for the creative industries has been asked to confirm willingness to re-submit, without amendment or a full re-assessment) so there is potential for the early bird to catch the worm!

With the university’s research expertise aligning with many of the ISCF areas, and a great track record of business-industry collaboration, the Knowledge Exchange team are delving into the detail of the potential Challenges and will be in touch with academics over the coming weeks to encourage and provide support to respond to announced Challenges, gear up for anticipated competitions, positioning ourselves to bring together strong consortia to develop valuable impactful collaborative projects. May the challenge commence!

Competition launch details aren’t available at the time of writing so we don’t yet know the format; a variety of funding mechanisms were consulted on but we can be confident that Collaborative R&D grants will play a significant part.