Abstract

Background:
Firmly dedicated to nurturing talent, investing in innovation and supporting researchers, Ca’ Foscari has achieved notable success in securing substantial funding from national and international programs.

Research-related activities and support services are managed by various offices. Primary reference points are: central administration's Research Area Office for pre-award activities and Research Units within each department, for post-award services. By fostering a result oriented logic over a tight “corporate compliance” one, this centralized-decentralized system provides comprehensive support to researchers throughout the entire project lifecycle. This support encompasses application procedures, implementation, and fund management.

Over the past decade, Ca’ Foscari has witnessed significant growth in its staff. Coupled with a substantial turnover rate, these changes have led to a transformed staff composition: as of the end of 2022, 34% of administrative staff and 41% of research staff have been employed for less than five years.

The Challenge:
Growth in staff, high turnover, along with factors like the pandemic, regulatory alterations, and increased financial resources competitive grants, have had a profound impact on the community of individuals who, despite being part of the same institution, often do not know each other. Know-how and best practices sharing has been challenging, and maintaining uniformity in knowledge updates has proven difficult. Communication gap also affects the management of centralization-decentralization trade-offs and the efficiency of interdependencies between the central Research Area Office and Research Units. Hence, the need to reimagine coordination mechanisms.

The Solution: "Research Knowledge Community (RKC)":
In March 2022 Ca’ Foscari introduced the "RKC" a cross-functional and permanent working group comprising 20 staff members from both central Administration and Departments, officially appointed by decree and actively engaged in research management. They serve as a hub for sharing knowledge, experiences, and best practices. RKC also invites colleagues with expertise crucial for developing new tools, like IT services, Legal, Human Resources, etc., upon request.

Goals:
-Enhance expertise in research management
-Promote dialogue between offices
-Proactively address emerging issues
-Define the roles of Research Managers and Administrators
-Create user-centered, integrated, streamlined, and secure services
-Manage change
-University's organizational model improvement

Functioning:
RKC doesn’t involve middle managers: participants are peers—research officers sharing work experiences, challenges, best practices, addressing common issues. Members identify specific cases and critical issues, promote the use of existing management tools, and propose new ones. Work is conducted remotely and in person through monthly meetings and collaborative document drafting. Meeting agendas encompass topics related to regular management, minutes are distributed to participants. Outcomes are shared within participant's "home offices". This approach ensures alignment and coherence among facilities procedures. Meetings are held at different locations on a rotating basis to foster collaboration and inclusivity.

Tangible outcomes have been delivered, such as models of measurements, specifications, and guidelines, making the RKC a platform for analysis, problem-solving, and proposing solutions.
RKC is proving to be a successful model: requests for clarifications and the overall response timing have significantly decreased over the past year. There is more clarity of the “who does what” within the research related services workflow.