Evolving in a shifting landscape: finding our balance...

1. Evolving in a shifting landscape: finding our balance... Prof. Steven N. Liss, Vice-Principal Research Meeting #3 Presentation, Review of the Strategic Research Plan June 16, 2011

2. Highlights from the Town Hall Sessions • Discussion: • Metrics • Research areas and focus • Building connections and collaborations • Relationship between research and teaching • Identifying and measuring strengths

3. Highlights from the Town Hall Sessions • SRP and international initiatives • Increasing research engagement internally and with the community • Increasing student engagement • Library’s role in advancing research • SRP and its contribution to the overall strategy of the university

4. Highlights from the Town Hall Sessions • Research activities and growth of physical facilities • Growth of graduate students • Increasing the interaction between undergraduates and faculty researchers • “open access” • Importance of balancing what we want to do while maintaining excellence

5. Community Comments: Research Metrics • All comments posted publically on SRP Web Forum to date respond to... What key metrics do you think Queen’s should be assessing the SRP against? • Discussion: • Top-tier journal publications and books and citations • “citations are a crude indicator of how much any given piece of research is being read and applied...” • Sophisticated metrics, such as h-index, contemporary h-index, Eigenfactor, Article Influence scores • Citation analysis tools: Web of Science and Publish or Perish

6. Research Metrics • Web Forum Discussion cont’d: • No. of internationally co-authored articles, books and other works • No. of invention disclosures and patent applications • Global impact, citations, publications (conferences and literature) and educational impact • “would caution against equating value of research with size of grant funding and specific granting agencies... This would serve to limit academic freedom and discovery” • “...there are academic areas where what one needs is time, not equipment, teams of research assistants, etc.”

7. Community Comments: Private • The following private comments have been received • “…if I am somewhat representative of other researchers at Queen’s, there is a great of deal of international collaboration (globalization) going on here, but very little of it is via any formal channels, and is therefore not supported in any way institutionally….if this activity is seen to be something that could be a priority for the University, what about supporting this in other ways?”

8. Community Comments: Private • Strategic Balance: “…We cannot miss an opportunity to provide some statement on the University's innovation efforts in this part of the Plan • “…The end goal …is to guarantee Queen's has maximum flexibility to act opportunistically while ensuring that the research enterprise is consistently productive and returns good value on the university's (and the broader society's) investments…”

9. Community Comments: Private • The following are excerpted comments posted privately • Interaction and collaboration: “…The University should act in concert with faculty researchers and other partners to facilitate early-stage collaboration such that the constraints are …based on the merit of the collaboration rather than the timing/availability of funding…” • “…Shared-use facilities certainly help…there should be some incentive for PIs to make their low-load-factor facilities available to others…”

10. Community Comments: Private • Successes: “…I would focus attention on short-term, small-to-medium scale successes (i.e., of a three to five year length with definitive initiation/planning/execution/control/wind-down activities)…” • KPIs: “…the Strategic Plan should try and identify the core principles for the tactical …use of performance indicators for short-term "snap-shot" analysis and assessment of Queen's position vs. longer term goals …”