Sustaining Research Intensity Over a Career

Chair — John King
Other resource people — Franco Berruti, Lorne Babiuk, David Smith (reporter)

The group concluded that actions in the matter of research intensity fell into two broad categories:

• University responsibilities
• individual responsibilities

• The University must nurture an atmosphere that encourages research to prosper:
  • with the right atmosphere, individuals can build the track record required to succeed in competition for grants;
  • with the wrong atmosphere, individuals will eventually burn out because of demands on themselves and failure to establish research credibility.
  
   
• Universities talk favourably of interdisciplinary work and studies: do they actually act upon this talk? Can interdisciplinary concerns be incorporated into hiring practices? As it stands, individuals with some interdisciplinary training find themselves excluded from, rather than welcomed into, particular disciplines.
   
• A large number of faculty who are not young do not fit into the research- intensive scheme. At best, they seem to approximate only half of the teacher- scholar model. It is the University's responsibility to try to engage these people in research. Department heads share some of this responsibility, and they should seek to establish models of scholarship which faculty might emulate.
   
• The University has special responsibilities to promote conditions for research success among women who, because of small numbers, experience special demands on their time, for example, in the proportion of their time devoted to committee work.

• Responsibility for a sustained career in research rests primarily with the individual faculty member. Whatever favourable conditions the University promotes to encourage research activity depend for their success upon the desire of faculty to do research. It is faculty who, ultimately, decide to apply for grants; to take the initiative to inform themselves of what research opportunities exist, and whether to pursue them.
   
• Similarly, it is the individual who must remain committed to the research culture. A life-long career of research requires different qualities from faculty than does the initiation of a research career. While the University through its reward system may recognize sustained success, it is the individual who achieves that recognition through his or her own efforts.
   
• Sustained research means having more than one iron in the fire, one string to your bow, etc. Successful researchers are adaptable and flexible. Researchers make themselves vulnerable if they concentrate only on one activity or one enterprise. In addition, a broader research focus is more intellectually stimulating.
   
• One member of the group summarized the research endeavour as the five Cs: commitment, creativity, collaboration, communication and change. In each instance, the "actor" was an individual, not an institution.

• Establish an appropriate balance of expectations to allow individuals to sustain scholarship:
  • establish teaching loads that allow development of research and scholarship;
  • provide support to those who take on extra roles (e.g., in administration) to allow them the time to continue to sustain research in their careers;
  • reduce the number of committees, the number of committee assignments per faculty member and the length of committee meetings.
  
   
• Rationalize what we mean by "the teacher-scholar model":
  • create an atmosphere of encouragement and expectation that a "teacher- scholar" is the norm, e.g., provide more opportunities for release time; provide as much assistance for research grant preparation as possible; make sure that sabbatical leave rules and expectations encourage optimum use of the program; provide support for regular and frequent travel (to archives, other research laboratories, etc.) and for others to come here.
  
   
• Create a performance support system to make opting into research and scholarship attractive (or conversely, making opting out, unattractive):
  • hold day-long workshops on survival skills for young academics;
  • hold day-long workshops on re-entry skills for academics whose research performance needs a boost.
  
   
• Be more adept at using our available funds as leverage in national funding programs, e.g., using capital equipment funds for leverage with NSERC, CFI, etc.
   
• Encourage the broadening of thinking about possible sources of funding. It may be obvious that those in agriculture and engineering, for example, must be involved in collaborations with industry but are there some similar opportunities for others (e.g., social scientists) in these sorts of directions? If so, how can we take advantage?
   
• Reinstitute/increase sources of funding for internal competition:
  • to attract and keep the best possible (Canadian) graduate students;
  • to attract high quality post-doctoral fellows;
  • to encourage established faculty to invest time and effort in learning new technologies or taking new research directions.
  
   
• Keep the facilities for electronic communication current and make them universally accessible.