United pitch in acut-throat world

Scottish universities are banding together to try to beat hot competition for research cash. John Laver explains.

A consortium of the 13 Scottish universities, with Queen Margaret College, Edinburgh, are working together to consider key aspects of institutional research policy. The one-year project, which began in December 1995, is funded by the Scottish Higher Education Funding Council's Strategic Regional Initiatives programme. The Scottish Universities Research Policy Consortium is co-ordinated by the University of Edinburgh.

The need for institutions to develop an explicit research policy is grounded partly in major recent changes in the external funding environment. The financial stability of national and international industry has become less reliable, with a consequent reluctance to consider research as a necessary investment.

The Government has steadily reduced investment in higher education. The dissolution in 1992 of the binary line has brought older and newer universities into more active competition for research funds. The restructuring of the research councils following the 1993 White Paper Realising our Potential, and the introduction of the Technology Foresight Programme, has changed the balance in institutions between fundamental and applied research.

Finally, the use of competitive research performance indicators by the funding council, notably the Research Assessment Exercise, now strongly influences institutional funding.

Until recently, the management of research in most institutions has normally been strongly devolved, usually down to departmental level. The fragmentation of institutional control that this reflects has been a marked disadvantage in achieving greater competitiveness at the institutional level, and many institutions are now turning to the development of explicit, institution-wide research policies.

One core motivation in doing this is the need to address the question of the strategic, long-term positioning of the institution, both in terms of choices of broad disciplinary areas, and of balance between fundamental and applied research.

The resource-prioritising decisions of these longer-term aspects of positioning cannot be divorced from the consideration of other interlocking strategic policies, such as staffing, teaching, finance, development, and estates and buildings.

Another motivation in developing a research policy is for the institution to make the quality of its research more expert, more professional and more responsible, and hence more attractive to sponsors.

The function of such a policy obliges the institution to make the best use of its prime asset, the intellectual energy of its staff - by enabling staff to reach their full potential. This can be done by setting working conditions which maximise the quality of their research, and by harmonising best practice across the institution. Adequate training provision, and adequate support documentation such as a code of research practice, are a desirable part of this effort.

Another basic motive is to achieve cost-effectiveness. Institutional research policy and financial policy have the most intimate of connections. Beyond the need to generate more income in absolute terms, there is now very substantial pressure on all institutions to ensure that their operations are efficient. Part of this is adequate recovery of indirect costs of research. It is extremely difficult to identify the true costs of research without taking an institutionwide perspective on such costs. Without such accurate costing, effective pricing and proper accountability is made very difficult.

The Scottish Consortium's objective is to develop a generic framework for the institutional management of research, identifying policy options and providing background documentation.

Each institution will then be able to draw from the framework material relevant to its policy needs, incorporating it, where desired, in its local code of research practice. Through this shared exploration of significant research policy issues, each institution will be better prepared to articulate its own approach to managing these issues in ways consistent with its own culture, mission, resources and structure.

This is intended to help the Scottish universities to become more competitive for national and international research resources, by sharing good practice between them.

The consortium is composed of the 14 vice principals for research in the member institutions, with their senior research administrator colleagues, helped by a SHEFC-funded co-ordinating administrator. The participation of Laura Meagher, a Fulbright fellow from Rutgers University with experience of a similar United States consortium developing types of inter-institutional collaboration, financed by the Kellogg Foundation, has been very valuable.

The consortium's collaborative style of working has been for small working groups, with matrix membership, to write reports on key topics, with special emphasis on identifying policy options, for discussion at plenary meetings.

The reports cover topics such as: institutional research strategy and its implementation; funding issues; accountability; research and teaching; postgraduates and research; scientific and ethical integrity; publications and ethics; academic freedom and research; intellectual property rights; commercialisation; consultancy and contracts; risk management; project management; marketing and publicity; staff policy and research; research management training; and inter-institutional collaboration.

The final report will be submitted to SHEFC, and to the member institutions, in December.

A delicate issue in the work of this policy-oriented consortium in an intensely competitive area of institutional interests has been the need to balance effective co-operation with due protection of the decision-making autonomy of the individual institutions represented.

This has been carefully addressed by confining the work to pre-competitive, generic issues; by avoiding any implication that participation in the consortium entails any necessary "signing-up" by individual institutions to the policy options outlined; and by maintaining due liaison with the Research Advisory Group of the Committee of Scottish Higher Education Principals and with other relevant SHEFC Strategic Regional Initiatives such as the Contract Research Staff initiative led by Juliet Cheetham of the University of Stirling.

Despite such attention to balance between pre-competitive co-operation and institutional independence, or perhaps because of it, the outcome has been a remarkably harmonious and productive interaction, which the consortium hopes holds some promise for future strategic collaborations in a variety of networks, in research and other sectors.

John Laver is vice principal for research at the University of Edinburgh, and chairman of the Humanities Research Board of the British Academy.