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 20^th 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!

It is my pleasure to introduce you to the new ‘Researcher Development Programme’ for the academic year 16-17: https://staff.brighton.ac.uk/ease/ro/Pages/Workshops.aspx. This year, the Research Office are launching the programme for the whole year, making it easy for you to plan and book your attendance in advance. It is a varied, informative and helpful programme of workshops, ranging from ‘Introduction to the Global Challenge Fund’ to ‘Making the most of research mentoring’. There are a total of 31 workshops, with many of our researchers contributing to them (thank you for your leadership and citizenship). The programme is structured within the Vitae Researcher Development Framework, which has been developed by and for researchers, in consultation with academics and the public and private sectors.

I really don’t wish to sound like my parents by saying, “We never had anything like that in my day”, but “We……..”. I often think how my research career would have progressed if I had been supported along the way and learned about different aspects of becoming a successful researcher.   I think I may have progressed much more quickly. If I am honest, for the first decade of my research career, I learned mainly from my mistakes and by closely observing how successful researchers worked.   One of the workshops on offer is on ‘Building collaborative networks’ and this is exactly what early career researchers need to do. Professor O’Reilly, who will be delivering this workshop, has extensive experience of collaborative working and there is nothing better than to hear from someone who has done it and is willing to share their knowledge and experience.   It took me a long time to build successful collaborative networks for my research area and a number of my early attempts failed because I tried to build networks of different researchers who had similar capabilities and expertise as myself. It was only through attending a conference where I listened to a presentation by a researcher who was talking about his network that I realised how I had gone wrong. Collaboration is successful when the partners are dissimilar but share a common interest in the research problem, and when the resources or intellectual methods of one partner are significantly different from the other. Collaboration requires two-way effort and benefit, so each partner must identify a resource that the other can provide that contributes to a shared goal. Years later, I am pleased that I have been part of number of successful networks and have gained many friends and colleagues through collaborative research.

My advice to you is don’t just learn from mistakes, take maximum advantage and attend these workshops!

In 2006, Professor Nicholas Stern led a review on the Economics of Climate Change. The review was a 700-page report and discussed the effect of global warming on the world economy. A decade later, we now have the report from another Stern review, a review of the Research Excellence Framework. When it was published in July, I was mightily pleased that it was only 56 pages. This meant I could read it almost in one sitting and certainly within 24 hours of its release.

I know there are many articles, blogs and twitter activity under #sternreview and, naturally, I have read all the published views and have been contemplating what this might mean for future assessments and for us at the University of Brighton. Stern proposes that the findings and recommendations are turned into concrete proposals upon which the sector can be consulted by the end of this year, i.e. within 4 months!!

There are, in total, 12 recommendations but the ones that have been the subject of most debate and are likely to strongly influence the shape of future submissions are those listed under Outputs; in particular, proposals on ‘Submission of all research active staff’ and ‘Outputs should not be portable’. So, allow me to talk about these two recommendations in this blog.

I am sharing my views on these points on two levels, as a researcher who has been returned to every exercise since 1996 and as a research leader responsible for our next submission.

Submission of all ‘Research Active’ staff – There are clearly those who strongly favour this approach and those who do not. The call for evidence during the review indicated moderate support from HEIs, individuals and other organisations. In terms of retaining a selective approach, there was equally moderate support among HEIs, but no or limited support from individuals and other organisations consulted. So, if the call for evidence response prevails, this may be a policy which will go forward next time round. Of course, the main issue here is whether this will lead to distinctive demarcation between research and teaching academic careers and, if so, does that matter? Should we not celebrate all that we do and ensure we have clear promotion paths for all? When it comes to staff contracts, I must say I am in agreement with a tweet made on this by David Sweeney from HEFCE which advocated that staff contracts need to be an honest statement of what the employer expects of its staff.

But, how do we define ‘research active’? In my previous institution as Director of Research, I attempted to do this, initially thinking we could have an institution-wide definition. I soon realised that this would not be the case and we ended up with three definitions across five faculties, one of which was: “

“A quasi inductive method is adopted to assess research active or engaged, which is defined as anyone who is undertaking research or transferring knowledge on a consistent basis (currently “consistent” not strictly defined) which is or is seeking to reach the public domain in some commonly understood to be appropriate form or other”.

Which makes me smile every time I read it.

Outputs should not be portable – This recommendation alarmed me most and my discomfort stems from two angles. Firstly, people move jobs. Take me, for example. Since the last exercise, I have published 4 papers in 2014, 8 in 2015 and 9 in 2016. Amongst these, there are at least 10 papers that I would wish to put forward to some sort of assessment prior to next REF submission. Would the University of Portsmouth return my publications now that I have left? What message would a REF sub-panel receive if many of the outputs submitted are by people who have left?
Secondly, there is the impact on the careers of many Early Career Researchers. In my previous post, I chaired all the appointment committees in my Faculty and the great majority of the appointments made were to very bright scientists who had a string of fixed term research contracts and were seeking to establish themselves on an open ended academic contract. The strength of their publications and their potential in future research assessment exercises was always considered. This was not ‘gaming’, in my opinion, and was more about creating opportunities for ECRs. We can now imagine a scenario where a mobile ECR might delay submitting a paper until they have moved institution! Will ‘under review’ be the new game plan?

To conclude, whether we like it or not, REF is here to stay and I, for one, welcome the review recommendation to support excellence wherever it is found.