Research strategy: an update from Professor Steve Mithen
Wednesday, 01 July 2015
The 2020 Research Plan seeks to drive forward the quantity and quality of research at Reading. It provides a vision for research identifying ways in which research will be led, managed and supported in order to best compete for funding, recognition and influence.
Considerable progress has been made in the implementation of the 2020 Research Plan, and I wanted to share some of the highlights with you. As you will already know, from 1 August our research will be organised around five themes:
Prosperity & Resilience (Professor Dominik Zaum)
Environment (Dr Phil Newton)
Food (Professor Richard Bennett)
Health (Professor Adrian Williams)
Heritage & Creativity (Professor Roberta Gilchrist)
Each of these themes is led by the Research Deans above, and they have the task of fostering and supporting world-leading research within their theme via our Research Divisions and interdisciplinary Research Institutes and Centres.
Over the past few months, I have been working in earnest with the Research Deans designate, the Dean for Postgraduate Research Studies (Professor Dianne Berry), and their relevant research communities, to further develop the Research Plan and to articulate how each research theme wraps around the University’s and future Research Divisions’ research agenda.
This year’s research planning process has focussed on post-REF reflections and discussion with Schools on their proposals for Research Divisions. We will finalise Research Divisions and their core membership at the end of this process, so that they can be formally established in readiness for the start of next session.
Enhanced research support
The creation of 20 new posts across Research & Enterprise, Planning & Strategy Office and the Library will ensure we can more adequately support our research. They include additional Research Development Managers and Officers, additional support for impact, as well as the creation of an EU Unit and a Research Intelligence Unit. Recruitment for many of these posts is already underway with the expectation that the majority of new staff will be in post by October 2015.
Research intelligence and planning will be improved by a new suite of systems and tools which will become operational in the Autumn term of 2015/16. This will include access to the Scopus database, Sci Val Intelligence tool, as well as other systems and tools being developed in-house. We will be providing training on how to best use these tools, and they will be made widely available for individual use. This will be of great use for individual researchers as well as supporting Research Divisions, Research Deans and the University Research Committee in the planning, management and monitoring of our research.
Governance
A new research committee structure consolidating all aspects of research governance will be in place for next session. This will include the establishment of the University Research Committee, Committee for Innovation & Knowledge Exchange and Committee for Research Infrastructure, which, together with the Committee on Postgraduate Studies, will report to the University Board for Research & Innovation (UBRI). At Theme level, the Research Deans (designate) are working to establish committees on External Engagement, Community of Practice and Academic Forum. During 2015/16 the Faculty Directors of Research will work with Research Deans to ensure smooth transition from the Faculty-committee to this Theme-committee structure.
2020 Research Fellowships and Professorships
The 2020 Research Fellowships and Professorships scheme has been launched. This is a competitive scheme which will have a limited number of awards per year. It aims to support staff requiring research leave to produce 4* outputs or an equivalent level of achievement in relation to research income.
This is just a snapshot of some of the developments currently underway to implement the 2020 Research Plan. They represent a huge commitment by the University to support our vision for Research at Reading.
Professor Steve Mithen
University of Reading joins elite group of research libraries in UK and Ireland