MOVING BEYOND SERENDIPITOUS IMPACT - MARCH 2019 SCOTT MCWHIRTER EXECUTIVE MANAGER, RESEARCH INTELLIGENCE AND QUALITY - ARMS
←
→
Page content transcription
If your browser does not render page correctly, please read the page content below
Moving Beyond Serendipitous Impact March 2019 Scott McWhirter Executive Manager, Research Intelligence and Quality ORCID: 0000-0001-9693-4286
University of Technology Sydney
////////////////////////
45,000+ 3,896
STUDENTS FTE STAFF
I
$1bn investment in
state-of-the-art campus
#1 1988
YOUNG UNI ESTABLISHED UTS is a dynamic and
IN AUS*
innovative university in the
heart of Sydney's creative
* 2019 QS Top 50 Under 50 Ranking and 2018 Times Higher and startup hub.
Education Young University Rankings
Footer 3
3
Motivations for you to facilitate EI
Sweeney – Political capital and trust
Cooke – stakeholder engagement and a body of literature.
Duryea – government intervention to show discipline best practice
Scott – enterprise strategy based on high levels of agency and sponsorship.
Rankings and ratings more generally.
Philosophical good in speeding up and evaluating the translation cycle to ensure faster and
holistically better outcomes.
4 Two Opposing Lines of Argument re Impact No man ever wetted clay and then left it, as if there would be bricks by chance and fortune. Plutarch. 80AD. Physics is like sex: sure, it may give some practical results, but that's not why we do it. Richard P. Feynman 1970s
5
Career Stage Dimension
Australia has had a 30 year Research Leaders –
Strongly motivated by
focus on productivity and a impact
10 year focus on quality.
MCRs – Strongly
Incentive structures have motivated by quality
accommodated these.
ECRs – Strongly
motivated by impact6 What was EIA2018 Engagement: 3 years data and a narrative Impact: A narrative – benefit in last 6 years and pathway (up to 15 years). Written from a broad discipline perspective rather than an organisational unit perspective. Not a data task as such – we muddled through.
7 EIA Process Review 1. Few explicit research engagement strategies. 2. Little fluency or commonality in language wrt engagement and impact. 3. Seldom were there agreed engagement measures at a local level. 4. Seldom were there agreed tools/systems for engagement data 5. No continuing processes for supporting impact case study development. WHY? 1. Researchers incentivised for next project and quality. 2. Lists of possible engagement metrics are decidedly unhelpful. 3. Researchers do not want to use extra tools.
8 Response Engage hearts and minds, meet people wherever they are. Build a discipline and personal change agenda Systems and processes to follow But we needed our own engagement method with our academic community…
Hearts and Minds
10
Workshops
Engagement Strategy Workshop
Project Planning
Research Leaders
Research Recording Engagement
Researchers
Managers
Research Writing Impact Cases
Researchers
Managers
Research Researchers
Managers
Research
ManagersA Fine Engagement (logic model)
12 Business Canvas Models Designed to build stakeholder value into business models and by using a consistent framing tool, common language, consensus – acts as a pedagogical frame. Two MBA graduates back in 2011 introduced them to our office as a neat tool to perhaps help with researcher development and research administrator turnover. They customised the business model canvas - we played with them, agreed they were neat and put them up on the shelf. We have since revisited to develop two canvases – one for strategy and one for project planning. Osterwalder and Pigneur. (2010). Business Model Generation, Switzerland, Stategyzer.
13 The Strategy Canvas Workshop Designed for research leaders to make research engagement explicit 30 minutes. Each program to work through canvas. Encouraged to be as granular and explicit as possible, Disclosing process identifies common areas for resourcing and acknowledge discipline differences in approach. Shares best practice. Importantly identifies key activities, measures, tools for collection and reporting and responsibilities. Distilled to a maximum one page strategy. By end of April, we will have moved the percentage of researchers covered with a research engagement strategy from 3% to 40%.
14 The Project Impact Canvas Workshop Designed for all researchers to re-envisage a research project as a translation project. Useful self-assessment of translation understanding. 90 minutes to a half day. What changes in terms of stakeholders, funders, timeframes and responsibilities when you do? Best done when the area has done the strategy workshop. For this project, are the area metrics sufficient – are there others? Can also be used as an impact diagnostic for retrospective analysis of a case. We have run 4 workshops (80 researchers), with another 4 planned in Q2 (around 150 researchers).
15 Recording Engagement Workshop Armed with the strategy and a project, we offer the local solutions for recording engagement. 30 minutes (mostly Symplectic’s Records of Impact) 1st two workshops will be in Q2.
16 Running Impact Rounds & Writing Case Studies Aimed at narrow audiences (faculty research managers and researchers involved in case study development). Planning on running an internal grant round for impact and to use that as vehicle.
17 Systems Work Adding canvas to our project notification forms. Capturing very limited engagement and impact fields within project establishment processes that triggers our engagement capture system. Building capture and reminder system at project closure.
18
Transitioning Work
New Team next Monday for Engagement. Hurrah!
New Team taking on Researcher Capability. Hurrah!
Responsibility will be generation of the strategies and reporting cycle.
We can concentrate on systems, process and submissions.Thank you Especially Paul Regis, Yvonne Cheng, Hongshu Chen, Michelle Fletcher, Catherine McElhone, Rachael Quigley
20
Questions
Mark Hochman – Its great to undertake the education program but are you workshops?
worried you will miss people?
A: We find it works best when we don’t dwell on the method (which will always
A: Design principle is to meet people where they are in understanding and be a contested space) but we do provide guidance for the strategy canvas
interest of EI. Have written up the workshops and discussed with all ADRs that people should be as specific as possible, as general strategy elements
and ADEs and all research Centre Directors. Have left scheduling and will not be particularly useful. It is definitely useful to tell people about the
invitations to them. Intention is to build enough awareness and practice method post workshop as it encourages them to use the same practices.
change that it becomes endemic. Also looking at embedding in the induction
programs. Michelle Duryea – which systems do you use?
Michelle Duryea – The new teams – how big are they, where are they located A: Symplectic Records of Impact and Researchmaster. The program we are
and how will you arrange yourselves for future submissions. running is to try and stimulate a need to use them that is discipline and
individual researcher defined rather than an institutional compliance
A: The new teams are in the research office and consists of the faculty requirement.
research engagement managers (~8) and a small researcher capability team
(~6). Yet to work out a submission process. Much depends on the shape of
any future assessment framework.
Richard Cooke – How much do you explain about the canvas method beforeYou can also read
