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The purpose of the study was to identify and synthesise the interventions used to build the strategies for organising and managing research at universities that can be feasible in Ukraine. To achieve this purpose we provided a descriptive profile of the interventions and strategies used at universities to organise and manage research, rather than the detailed examination of substantive research results. The method of descriptive content analysis was applied to analyse empirical, experimental, review, conceptual, and commentary sources revealing strategies of organising and managing research at universities. The growth and corporate type strategies are dominant at universities, particularly in the USA and EU. The universities mainly seek cost-effective research opportunities that can help the institutions build a strong international brand. The policy of institutional strategic research management aimed at cooperation in research with other sectors seems to be the most feasible and appropriate for the Ukrainian research management context. Creating project management communities was found to be the second most feasible and appropriate strategy of organising and managing the university research in Ukraine. Financial criterion dominates in assessing the interventions for building a strategy of organising and managing research at universities. The university research can be stimulated at the state level through a demand-oriented reform that is aimed at reshaping the management of personnel, talent selection system, and personnel assessment.

The h-index is an indicator of the scientific impact of an academic publishing career. Its hybrid publishing/citation nature and inherent bias against younger researchers, women, people in low resourced countries, and those not prioritizing publishing arguably give it little value for most formal and informal research evaluations. Nevertheless, it is well-known by academics, used in some promotion decisions, and is prominent in bibliometric databases, such as Google Scholar. In the context of this apparent conflict, it is important to understand researchers’ attitudes towards the h-index. This article used public tweets in English to analyse how scholars discuss the h-index in public: is it mentioned, are tweets about it positive or negative, and has interest decreased since its shortcomings were exposed? The January 2021 Twitter Academic Research initiative was harnessed to download all English tweets mentioning the h-index from the 2006 start of Twitter until the end of 2020. The results showed a constantly increasing number of tweets. Whilst the most popular tweets unapologetically used the h-index as an indicator of research performance, 28.5% of tweets were critical of its simplistic nature and others joked about it (8%). The results suggest that interest in the h-index is still increasing online despite scientists willing to evaluate the h-index in public tending to be critical. Nevertheless, in limited situations it may be effective at succinctly conveying the message that a researcher has had a successful publishing career.

With the launch of a new academic journal it is timely to reflect on the content and scope of the journal. JoRMA is the Journal of Research Management and Administration – but what is Research Management and Administration (RMA) and why might it deserve your attention?

Although the ‘publish-or-perish’ principle has spread globally, many authors believe that it is a negative reinforcer (motivator) and harmful. With this paper, we have tried to help overcome the growing pressure of negative reinforcers on researchers. The paper aimed to propose a model for factors influencing researchers to publish in WoS/Scopus journals, based mainly on positive reinforcement and a combination of concepts including theories of control, management, stakeholders, and psychology. The model was intended for Bulgarian universities. It covered 17 motivational drivers and 29 potential features of internal university stakeholders directly involved in the topic. Factor ranking was not incorporated in the model. The research methodology covered the methods of expert evaluation, analysis/synthesis, induction/deduction, and the toolkit consisted of a comprehensive survey and Kendall’s rank concordance coefficient. The model was implemented at a Bulgarian state university. The empirical study was conducted among 120 researchers. It resulted in factor rankings by university internal stakeholders. The highest-ranked motivational driver was reputation, and the lowest-ranked was the publish-or-perish pressure reducing. The highest-ranked potential features were university prestige and potential and support for promotion. We believe that this model contributes to the theory of behaviour control. The model will also improve university research management by enriching its tools.

Introduction. University higher education in recent decades has seen the need to participate in projects that lead to its evolution, transformation and adaptation to the demands of current times. The leading role of the teaching professional is becoming more visible in these changes, which is why it is considered that the recognition of it as a leader is of vital importance to transform reality. The study presented has as a general objective to study teacher leadership in the higher education system of Ecuador considering its leading role in the transformative participation of educational processes. Materials and Methods. The research carried out was part of the development of the mixed or qualitative methodology. This was a two-phase sequential study. The first quantitative phase involved a questionnaire with descriptive analysis, applied the reliability with the Cronbach’s alpha coefficient. The qualitative phase consisted of an interpretative documentary analysis. Results. The results showed that most of the teachers surveyed do not recognize themselves as leaders, or at least are not known as leaders in some areas of the educational processes in which they participate. Teachers have three types of leadership: instructional, distributed and university. Discussion and Conclusion. At the present time the participation, commitment and responsibility in the area of competence of the university teacher, the educational leadership represented in the professional of university teaching, it is vitally important to move from discourse to action and active participation in the transformation of the realities.

This study examines the relationships between a collaborative climate for research management professionals and external funding at universities. University research management is becoming increasingly important in efforts to develop innovation. By combining data from an original questionnaire survey and a public dataset, this study employed multilevel structural equation modelling. The sample comprised 292 research management professionals at 76 Japanese universities and research institutions. The results indicate that the whole hypothetical model of the two-level structure fitted the data well. At the organisational level, the knowledge-sharing environment had a significant positive relation with external research funding. Supportive supervision was also positively and significantly related to the knowledge-sharing environment at the individual and organisational levels. The findings show that a more collaborative climate for research management professionals can lead to more external funding of the entire university; they provide a new contribution to the theory and practice of university research management.

How scientists are perfecting the art of boiling down their work into a short, sharp hit. How scientists are perfecting the art of boiling down their work into a short, sharp hit.

In early 2020, a spontaneous global collaboration came together to design a new, urgent antiviral treatment. There are lessons in what happened next. In early 2020, a spontaneous global collaboration came together to design a new, urgent antiviral treatment. There are lessons in what happened next.

Background Cochlear implant qualifying criteria for adult patients with public insurance policies are stricter than the labeled manufacturer criteria. It remains unclear whether insurance payer status affects expedient access to implants for adult patients who could derive benefit from the devices. Purpose This study examined whether insurance payer status affected access to cochlear implant services and longitudinal speech-perception outcomes in adult cochlear implant recipients. Research Design Retrospective cross-sectional study. Study Sample Sixty-eight data points were queried from the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act–Secure, Encrypted, Research Management and Evaluation Solution database which consists of 12,388 de-identified data points from adult and pediatric cochlear implant recipients. Data Analysis Linear mixed-effects models were used to determine whether insurance payer status affected expedient access to cochlear implants and whether payer status predicted longitudinal postoperative speech-perception scores in quiet and noise. Results Results from linear mixed-effects regression models indicated that insurance payer status was a significant predictor of behavioral speech-perception scores in quiet and in background noise, with patients with public insurance experiencing poorer outcomes. In addition, extended wait time to receive a cochlear implant was predicted to significantly decrease speech-perception outcomes for patients with public insurance. Conclusion This study documented patients covered by public health insurance wait longer to receive cochlear implants and experience poorer postoperative speech-perception outcomes. These results have important clinical implications regarding the cochlear implant candidacy criteria and intervention protocols.

Esta investigación constituye un análisis de los portales de internet de SCImago Journal & Country Rank y SCImago Institutions Rankings, bases de datos en el que se incluyen indicadores de la actividad científica utilizados para evaluar la productividad de las universidades o instituciones dedicadas a la investigación, así como todas aquellas organizaciones encargadas de editar revistas científicas. Se fundamentó en los planteamientos de Rodríguez, Socorro y Espinoza (2019); Túñez-López, Valarezo-González y Marín-Gutiérrez (2014), entre otros. La metodología es de tipo documental-bibliográfica, se consultaron los portales de SCImago, así como artículos científicos e investigaciones referentes al tema de estudio. Estos portales ofrecen al usuario una serie de datos, herramientas y servicios de útil importancia para evaluar el desempeño de las instituciones gestoras de investigación, también, permiten medir el impacto de la actividad científica de los países a nivel mundial; se caracterizan por su fácil acceso y disponibilidad en la web, por lo que es importante que las universidades conozcan los indicadores científicos que se manejan en estos portales, con el fin de escalar posiciones dentro de los rankings investigativos, y les permita alcanzar prestigio científico ante comunidad nacional o internacional.

Hoy en día las reformas curriculares de la educación superior en contextos nacionales e internacionales demandan constantesperfeccionamiento en el diseño curricular. Con este antecedente, las carreras de Ingenierías en Sistemas o afines deben asumir los retos permanentes de actualizaciones de sus currículos. En este articulo, se analiza el diseño curricular y la gestión de los procesos sustantivos en las etapas formativas del Ingeniero en Sistemas de la Facultad de Ciencias Informáticas de la Uleam. El aporte que se realiza en este articulo es un modelo pedagógico de perfeccionamiento del diseño curricular con enfoque integrador.Además, se realizo una revisión epistemológica relacionadas con el diseño curricular y de modelos curriculares internacionales en el campo de las Tecnologías de Información. Con este propósito, se aplico la modelación y el enfoque del me todo sistémico en la determinación de los componentes del modelo y sus relaciones de coordinación y subordinación. Finalmente, se obtuvo como resultado un modelo con tres subsistemas orientados a las gestiones académicas, de investigación y vinculación con la sociedad.

The institutional collaboration and competition in academia have benefited the development of science, with inter-institutional scientific work promoting the exchange of ideas and competing fields developing rapidly. However, understanding of how the institutions collaborate and compete in science is sorely lacking, especially in emerging fields. Artificial intelligence is such a booming field currently, changing the way we live and work daily. To illustrate the problem, we try to reveal the evolution of institutional collaboration and competition in artificial intelligence by applying AI 2000 from the perspective of Science of Science. In this paper, we make multiple multidimensional statistical analyses by scrutinizing the collaboration network, research interests, talent flow, etc. We demonstrate the collaboration evolution in this field and find the advantage of inter-institutional collaboration is growing over time for papers that have been published more than 5 years. We discover the common cooperation modes of top institutions and visualize their closer cooperation. We highlight the critical resources competition among institutions in three dimensions and learn the recent trends in the field. In particular, we are concerned about the competition among institutions for cross-industry cooperation and notice the consistency of competitiveness and cross-industry collaboration. The research of this paper may support further research studies on institutional collaboration and competition as well as policy proposals for promoting scientific innovation, research management, and funding.

A significant challenge facing rare disease communities is finding a sufficient quantity and variety of data to develop and test disease-specific hypotheses. Here we describe an approach to data sharing in which stakeholders from the neurofibromatosis (NF) research community collaborated to develop a disease-focused data portal with the goal of supporting scientists within and outside the community as well as clinicians and patient advocates.

The COVID-19 pandemic may exacerbate factors influencing abusive workplace behaviors in general such as psychological health, economic and social inequities. This is true in academic and research environments where we can expect to see an increase in the incidence of academic bullying. Research and experience shows that academic bullying will have significant and enduring negative effects on scientific integrity and academic health. In this perspective piece we will explore the potential facilitative influence of COVID-19 and specifically responses to it, on bullying behaviors in academic and research environments.

A scheme for undergraduates to mentor secondary-school students who are interested in science has allowed both sides to develop new skills, despite COVID-19 restrictions. A scheme for undergraduates to mentor secondary-school students who are interested in science has allowed both sides to develop new skills, despite COVID-19 restrictions.

This article enhances some ideas and opinions related with the challenges that women across the world face nowadays to pursue a professional career. The route they take has frequent obstacles of a distinct nature, which are not always comparable with those faced by men. The starting point of this work is the conclusions of the workshop “Women empowerment and gender equality, responsible research and innovation”—Research Project “SOILdarity”. This workshop revealed a diversified view about the subject, evidencing its connection with the social sustainability, with a special focus on academia and research management. This document introduces the topic in the context of the workshop, revises key aspects of women’s empowerment in a society still dominated by men’s opinions and organization (gender balance, obstacles and strategies), highlights the situation of women in academia and in research management, and gives the authors’ opinions about some questions related to gender and equality. We conclude that all societal actors must acknowledge women as key actors in contributing to social sustainability, working together towards creating an environment where they can have leadership roles.

Important breakthroughs in medical treatments have improved outcomes for patients suffering from several types of cancer. However, many oncological treatments approved by regulatory agencies are of low value and do not contribute significantly to cancer mortality reduction, but lead to unrealistic patient expectations and push even affluent societies to unsustainable health care costs. Several factors that contribute to approvals of low-value oncology treatments are addressed, including issues with clinical trials, bias in reporting, regulatory agency shortcomings and drug pricing. With the COVID-19 pandemic enforcing the elimination of low-value interventions in all fields of medicine, efforts should urgently be made by all involved in cancer care to select only high-value and sustainable interventions. Transformation of medical education, improvement in clinical trial design, quality, conduct and reporting, strict adherence to scientific norms by regulatory agencies and use of value-based scales can all contribute to raising the bar for oncology drug approvals and influence drug pricing and availability.

Sponsoring someone is not a one-off act. Their success is your success, so support them throughout the process. Sponsoring someone is not a one-off act. Their success is your success, so support them throughout the process.

Simple, regular checks could squelch some pernicious practices by unscrupulous publishers and preserve your digital presence. Simple, regular checks could squelch some pernicious practices by unscrupulous publishers and preserve your digital presence.

To thwart publishing rackets that undermine scholars and scholarly publishing, legitimate journals should show their workings. To thwart publishing rackets that undermine scholars and scholarly publishing, legitimate journals should show their workings.

In this four-part podcast series, Nature follows two scientists to find what it takes to launch a research lab. Nature follows two scientists to find what it takes to launch a research lab.

Efforts to share research with the public must include mechanisms to prevent harm resulting from low-quality work. Efforts to share research with the public must include mechanisms to prevent harm resulting from low-quality work.

Researchers and scientists face globally, and parallel to their core research activities, increased pressure to successfully lead or participate in fundraising activities. The field has been experiencing fierce competition with success rates of proposals falling dramatically down, while the complexity of the funding instruments and the need for acquiring a wide understanding of issues related to impacts, research priorities in connection to wider national and transnational (e.g. EU-wide) policy aspects, increases discomfort levels for the individual researchers and scientists. In the paper we suggest the use of transdisciplinary AI tools to support (semi-)automation of several steps of the application and proposal preparation processes. (Abstract)

High-tech tools are increasingly being consolidated into specialized centres. Running these technological wonderlands takes a unique blend of skills. High-tech tools are increasingly being consolidated into specialized centres. Running these technological wonderlands takes a unique blend of skills.

A good communications strategy can get your research seen by decision makers, says Rebecca Fuoco. A good communications strategy can get your research seen by decision makers, says Rebecca Fuoco.

Study of nearly 7,000 scientists also finds that more than half engage in ‘questionable research practices’. Study of nearly 7,000 scientists also finds that more than half engage in ‘questionable research practices’.

Satheesh Kumar has found ways to be productive without ever visiting his supervisor or lab. Satheesh Kumar has found ways to be productive without ever visiting his supervisor or lab.

The purpose of this article is to analyze the evaluation of the institutional evaluation of research aspects. The results of the analysis on several articles that are spoken, performance evaluation, evaluation of several basic factors in evaluating the impact of research for decision making on the development of research proposal performance, theory of institutional evaluation research concepts, research team trails, research management, research impact, research mobilization and research participant groups.

I found job satisfaction and exciting opportunities in supporting other academics — but it’s a career path that many don’t consider. Try it. I found job satisfaction and exciting opportunities in supporting other academics — but it’s a career path that many don’t consider. Try it.

Image-making, research and visual technologies have shaped each other over the past century and a half, argues Geoffrey Belknap, marking Nature’s anniversary. Image-making, research and visual technologies have shaped each other over the past century and a half, argues Geoffrey Belknap, marking Nature’s anniversary.

U.S. university engagement with Africa in various areas including global health, education, environment, and agriculture has grown in the last 15 years. However, there is limited literature that acknowledges the scholarly output and impact of U.S.-Africa university research collaboration in support of their respective institutions’ comprehensive internationalization goals. Using Michigan State University (MSU)—a public, research-intensive, land grant university with long history of engagement with Africa, as a case study, this paper aims to measure the research output, describe the collaboration patterns and research trends, and assess the impact of MSU’s research engagement on Africa for the last 10 years (2006–2015). It also attempts to determine the gender dimension of MSU’s research focus on Africa. Our scientometric and social network analysis provide strong quantitative evidence of scholarly success, research focus and diversification, collaboration, and impact on MSU’s engagement on Africa, especially in science, technology, engineering, and math-related disciplines. The co-authorship data provides evidence of greater collaboration of MSU with non-African countries on African-focused research but a growing number of partner institutions from African countries. This growing collaboration provides significant benefits on strategic research conducted and its impact, as well as increasing the recognition of African researchers as contributors to impactful international research collaborations and improving the ability of MSU and its global and African partners to co-generate knowledge and innovation that can help solve global problems more effectively. Finally, this study provides additional evidence of the increasing involvement of women in advancing knowledge and global innovation to address Africa’s socio-economic development challenges. The paper, overall, contributes to the science, research management, and gender perspectives of university internationalization goals and initiatives.

This study analyzes the accountability and transparency of village funds management in Riau Province of Indonesia. In particular, it focuses the analysis on the implementation, reporting, planning, and accountability stages, to review the community participation in management ofvillage fund and the obstacles to its implementation. Research participants were chief of the villages, village secretaries and village treasurers of coastal villages in Riau Province.There were 31 respondents. Results showed that all stages of village management were in accordance with the existing provisions. Some obstacles were found in the program implementation. These include the lack of human resources, the community participating in all the procedures and stages of the village finances, the government conducting supervision, and giving guidance through counseling and training for village officials. In further research management of village financial using Siskeudes for financial reporting.

Publications and researches are one of the important activities of higher education institutions (HEIs) worldwide. Many HEIs, especially in Iraq, are facing different types of problems in managing publication information. This paper presents the design and implementation of researches management system (RMS) to be adopted in one of the state universities in Iraq. RMS is a web-based application to manage the publications and researches information in HEIs. The main goals of this application are collecting all submission publication information in a central database, generating different types of publication reports, generating real-time different statistics, saving all researchers information in the HEI, and facilitating checking and tracking the submitted researches.

The success of any system or interface depends on the satisfaction of the user and users are only satisfied when they are able to do their job in a simple and effective way [1]. The purpose of the SIMARECH information system [2], [3] is the piloting of research in Moroccan universities, their institutions and structures, to support researchers and enhance their scientific output. Ensuring the proper use of the SIMARECH information system has always been a real concern of the Abdelmalek Essaadi University (UAE) in Moroccan universities and national research institutions. The purpose of this study is to investigate usability issues and provide recommendations for achieving the system goal within the UAE university institutions. The objective of this research paper is to evaluate the usability of the SIMARECH platform based on a complete test methodology. The study was conducted from January to March 2018 based on Jakob Nielsen methodology [4] and the methods of data collection Nielsen’s Attributes of Usability Questionnaire (NAU) [4]. The results showed a high level of usability for the platform, but it should be further improved. It is found that the followed approach can effectively assess the usability of scientific research information systems.

This research was conducted to identify enabling factors for an effective transformation of Higher Education Institution’s (HEI’s) research management system in Indonesia towards World Class University (WCU) status. Three clusters of HEIs, particularly PTN-bh WCU, PTN-bh and PTN Non-bh produced exceptional studies output and outcome (citation) wherein PTN-bh WCU produced the best quantity of publications and citations. The data analysis technique in this study used a comparative analysis of research mapping and Biplot analysis. The result of the Biplot analysis indicate that research infrastructure as essential enabler for all HEIs. Biplot also displays the important enabler that affected research productivity in PTN Non-bh (research human resources, academic collaboration), PTN-bh (research funding, insentive, PTN-bh WCU (academic culture, system and management research). Keywords: research management system, enabler factors, transformation, world class university, Biplot analysis

CITATION: Albertyn, C. H. & Prozesky, H. 2021. Development of research excellence : insights from modes of work of high-achieving early-career researchers. South African Journal of Higher Education, 35(2):4-20, doi:10.20853/35-2-4005.

Many scientist couples move abroad together, but Gidiane Scaratti and Rafael Kenji Nishihora chose to live and work in different countries. This is what they learnt. Many scientist couples move abroad together, but Gidiane Scaratti and Rafael Kenji Nishihora chose to live and work in different countries. This is what they learnt.

Olga Malinkiewicz, founder of Saule Technologies, discusses her transition from academia to industry.

A personal perspective is given on the processes involved in managing and sustaining a high-performing mental health recovery research group. The broader context of scholarship in the United Kingdom is outlined, in which academic productivity is commodified specifically in relation to peer-reviewed journal papers. Four leadership choices in developing a high-performing research group are discussed: optimal group size; sharing the workload; maintaining a programmatic focus; and performance expectations. Approaches to maximising innovation are identified, including emotional and intellectual engagement of team members, working with diverse stakeholders and convening communities of practice. We use a highly managed approach to publications from inception to acceptance, which is described in detail. The use of these approaches is illustrated in relation to the Recovery Research Team which was formed in 2009. Specific recovery-related issues covered include demonstrating the ability to develop a significant recovery research portfolio (our four current large [>UK£2 m] studies relate to recovery narratives, global mental health peer support work, digital interventions and Recovery Colleges); the positive implications of actively recruiting researchers with mental health lived experience; how performance issues are managed; our approach to involving lived experience co-authors in papers; and our decision to conduct mixed-methods rather than solely qualitative studies.

John Tregoning reflects on writing 19 weekly(ish) columns during a pandemic. John Tregoning reflects on writing 19 weekly(ish) columns during a pandemic.

Researchers working with Indigenous partners are benefiting from traditional knowledge of the natural world. Researchers working with Indigenous partners are benefiting from traditional knowledge of the natural world.

The buzz created by a 2017 national science review has faded, prompting calls for a renewed focus on innovation. The buzz created by a 2017 national science review has faded, prompting calls for a renewed focus on innovation.

The title of this chapter refers to the new role library users can have, especially in academic library contexts, when the library, through bibliometric procedures, communicates data on the researcher’s output, productivity, and quality to, for example, university research management units. To what extent are such data also relevant and demanded by the researchers themselves for networking and fund-raising purposes? The chapter also discusses to what extent commercial digital business models and the related concept of ‘surveillance capitalism’—coined by the Harvard Business School professor emerita, Shoshana Zuboff—makes sense in a present—or a future—digital library context.