Materials for KT managers to use to persuade and guide senior managers and researchers

Hugh Look

FOR SENIOR MANAGEMENT

Research expertise information

• We are only talking about an individual's professional information: we are assuming that personal information is not included in profiles.

• HEIs may want to set a consistent standard for the content and format of professional information that people present about themselves.– The standard needs to be clearly expressed – The standard should be reviewed to ensure that the information is comprehensive enough to meet

the needs of all groups of end-users– Some people are nevertheless very resistant to revealing enough information to be useful

• Expertise information is about “human capital” rather than outputs• Usually relates closely to main research interests

– But can be peripheral or about a skill or capacity rather than subject knowledge• Often expressed as a professional CV

– CV structure does not always reflect what will most interest users– Make sure experts understand difference and can choose appropriately between:

• Expressing expertise in a way that most attracts academic research collaborators ; and• Reflecting academic excellence and expressing it in the way is most accessible to non-

Researchers• Essential to include a summary of main expertise (or keywords)

– Used in search results list and other summary displays

High-level view of benefits

• Research expertise is one of the core assets of the institution– Vital for raising its profile and showcasing its achievements

• An important part of our business and community engagement strategy• Accurate, comprehensive information about research expertise has benefits for internal and

external stakeholders– Assists developing relationships with other academic research teams– Helps individual researchers to locate colleagues in other disciplines for possible projects and

funding applications– Supports knowledge transfer (KT) staff within the HEI and outside (e.g. KTNs, brokers) in locating the

right Researchers for collaborative projects and business and community engagement (BCE) activities such as:• Contract research• Collaboration with large enterprises• Small projects with SMEs, community groups, charities etc

• Providing good information about our research expertise can– Improve the effectiveness and efficiency of the KT team in building BCE relationships– Broaden base of enterprises we work with– Reflect our ability to provide expertise for policymaking

• Information about research expertise more important than information about research outputs to businesses interested in collaborating

The benefits of investment[workshop participants asked for numbers that said “for every X hours spent the university gets £Y benefit”: the CBR at

Cambridge was cited as a sourced for this, as was the CBI. I’ve been through a number of their reports and not found anything very pithy so far: more research needed to get this kind of data]

• Many researchers (nearly half) have no contact with their knowledge exchange office (KEO)/technology transfer office for several years– This means information about their expertise is not available to KEO staff– KEO staff tend to concentrate on known individuals

• Opportunities being lost because of this– Better internal information for KEO staff is major benefit to improved online presence for expertise information– Increases the probability of “latent” expertise being discovered

• Knowledge exchange generated £1.94 billion in 2007• Engagement with SMEs

– 28% of engagements– 6% of total knowledge exchange income

• Source: http://www.cbr.cam.ac.uk/pdf/HEFCE_Evaluation.pdf– Highlights real need for efficiencies that can be brought through improved use of online channels

• SME’s perception is that researchers themselves are the best people to contact– Wary of KEOs and other intermediaries

• Processes can be made more efficient– Especially in consolidating multiple requests to researchers for the same information

• Coherent, unified presentation has more impact on all funders– May also be useful for REF panel review

Why invest in enhancing our expertise information?

• Research expertise information can be a poor relation to research management information at present– Tend to know more about the progress of projects– Project information helps management, does not necessarily help strategic planning or BCE

• Information about outputs has been the main driver (repositories, citations, bibliographic databases)– Usually too specific to identify relevant research expertise

• Finding information about expertise is difficult for users– Especially SMEs, charities and community groups

• Current presentation is not supporting our efforts in other channels– Supporting information is hard to find– KT staff cannot give users links that they are confident will lead to good quality information– KT staff cannot tell users how to navigate to supporting information– Out of date content and poor presentation detract from impression created by KT staff and

promotion in other channels• KT staff need a better overview of expertise within the institution

– Web content is not adequate for their own needs– Incoming enquiries hard to resolve

Strategic decisions that will need to be made

• Which potential users of research expertise are we most interested in?– Large enterprises?– SMEs– Large charities?– Small charities?– Government departments?– Community groups?– Intermediaries (KTNs, RDAs etc)?– How do we prioritise between these?

• Which disciplines’ research expertise are we most interested in promoting?• How will we manage the responsibilities within the organisation so that this is handled

effectively?• What budget should we allocate?• What level of change to our website can be justified?• Should we establish and enforce a standard for presenting research information?

How we should manage research expertise information

• Who should have overall responsibility for providing research expertise information– Ideally, one person with overall responsibility– May not be a job on its own– Requires support from senior levels in implementing (and enforcing) policies

• Who should have responsibility for significant day-to-day decisions, including– How much information will be available– Managing impact on our website content and navigation– Priority for presentation on website

• Impact on position on home page– Meeting the needs of user communities of interest

• Ensuring integration with other policies and strategies– Institution, school or department– Some ‘negotiated enforcement’ may be required

• Identifying potential investment areas

Developing our website to improve promotion of our expertise: what we need to do now

• [This section can only be written locally once the analysis using the Self-Evaluation Toolkit has been carried out. It should identify major issues or changes required to respond to the priority issues revealed by the analysis.]

FOR ACADEMIC RESEARCHERS (VIA HEADS OF DEPARTMENT)

Research expertise information

• We are only talking about an individual's professional information: we are assuming that personal information is not included in profiles.

• Expertise information is about “human capital” rather than outputs• Usually relates closely to main research interests

– But can be peripheral or about a skill or capacity rather than subject knowledge• This HEI may set a consistent standard for the content and format of professional information

that people present about themselves.• Often expressed as a professional CV

– CV structure does not always reflect what will most interest users– You may need to choose between:

• Expressing expertise in a way that most attracts academic research collaborators ; and• Reflecting academic excellence and expressing it in the way is most accessible to non-

Researchers• Essential to include a summary of your main expertise (or keywords)

– Used in search results list and other summary displays

Why making your research expertise information available matters

• Your research creates valuable outputs such as articles• A wide range of knowledge and skills developed during research cannot be captured in

articles or conference papers– The focus is too specific

• External organisations are very interested in such research expertise but find it hard to locate– Large enterprises– SMEs– Large charities– Small charities– Government departments– Community groups

• Most relationships between researchers and external organisation formed through initial person-to-person contact– Can be directly with an academic, or through the Knowledge Transfer (KT) team

• Supporting information is often needed– Especially about research expertise

• The KT team needs to identify experts when asked: they may rely on the same information

Business and community engagement in context

• We have a great deal to offer the community in general, businesses, charities and government– Vital research we undertake– The skills and knowledge we acquire during our research

• External income is worth £[??] million to our institution• We are evaluated in part on our impact• Research Councils and HEFCE see Business and Community Engagement as an important part

of our role– It will have an impact on future funding

• Our BCE policies are– [Relevant institutional policies (to be provided by KT/BCE team)]

How to ensure that your expertise gets noticed

• Whatever the format of the information, the two main things to get right are– Clarity– Relevance

• We are aiming our research expertise information mainly at [local strategic priority groups]• Including case studies or examples of your own work with external organisations will provide

a strong narrative context– Help organisations understand benefits– Make process clearer

• Keeping brief notes on contacts from external organisations will be valuable as the institution introduces CRM systems