EARMA Conference Oslo

Attracting talent to Small and Medium-sized public Universities (SMU)

Strategies to attract the best early-stage and consolidated researchers

Format: Fifteen-Minute Discussion Tables

Category: Operational Lessons Learned

Topic: Organising Support Services & Team Building

Small and medium sized public universities (SMU) face challenges when have to recruit scientist for their research projects and teaching activity.
Location, research environment (infrastructure, connections, facilities, research excellence of hosting research groups), position in rankings may not help on being attractive to the best scientists.
However, some SMU are getting very good results, managing a process of continuous improvement. Everyone has his own recipe and secret ingredients… but what are the key actions and the common patterns?
The session will present the experience of a group of SMU that are facing this challenge, with case studies on the actions undertaken to make working conditions attractive, to align strategy policy and actions, to use regional, national and EU funding to reach the goals.
In addition, focus will be made on what are the prerequisites to frame those single actions in a sustainable strategy. Having a good dedicated budget is important, but it may be not enough if governance commitment, long term plans, top support services are missing.

Bridging the R&I divide within Europe

How to enhance the excellence and research infrastructure of WIDERA countries?

Format: Fifteen-Minute Discussion Tables

Category: Discussion Starter

Topic: Policy, Strategy, Evaluation and Foresight

While the Horizon 2020 funding framework has produced great results and impacts across Europe, its effectiveness to bridge the research&innovation divide between East and West is a more complicated question. This roundtable invites participants to reflect on past developments (impact of Horizon 2020 on R&I capacity building in widening countries, targeted calls, imbalance of funding) and the potential of Horizon Europe to address the lingering issues and offer new opportunities for building convergence and a more even European Research Area.

Bringing an century old institution into modern science landscape

The case of University of Coimbra Institute of Legal Research

Format: Fifteen-Minute Discussion Tables

Category: Case Study

Topic: Organising Support Services & Team Building

The University of Coimbra Institute of Legal Research (UCILeR) has two official starting dates: the first in 1911 and the other in 2013. This double birth still marks the identity and the understanding of how science is done at this research institute. The analysis of institutional history is important to define its position in the scientific field, and to understand researcher’s identity. It is relevant because institutional history is one of the great conditions for science management.

Career development programmes for researchers: A strategic approach

Format: Fifteen-Minute Discussion Tables

Category: Case Study

Topic: Professional Development and Recognition

Why do institutions establish career development programmes for researchers? Are such programmes necessarily a privilege for the select few that already have a solid financial platform? May they help institutions reach strategic goals? If so, what goals are more important: Ensuring that academic staff are acquainted with research ethics, regulations and laws; increasing external funding; or creating a better connection between research, education and innovation? Should programmes be shared with others – across disciplines and institutions – to enhance understanding, or should they be aimed at increasing one’s own competitiveness? These questions do not have a definite answer, and need to be revisited regularly.

Democratising access to AI across a research organisation

How to get AI into the system of a large research organisation

Format: Fifteen-Minute Discussion Tables

Category: Good Practice

Topic: Organising Support Services & Team Building

In this table I'd like to discuss our unique AI consulting concept and how it works in practice.

We set up a free AI consulting service for Helmholtz Association scientists, i.e. currently 35 AI experts work for an organisation of 42,000 in short and mid term projects (no charge, our AI consulting is free for the researchers!); I'd like to share how we manage and pair supply/demand and would be happy to happy to discuss friction points and success stories.

How to achieve the goals with RDI services?

Format: Fifteen-Minute Discussion Tables

Category: Discussion Starter

Topic: Organising Support Services & Team Building

The topic of Discussion Table relates to the Research, Development and Innovation (RDI) work and how RDI, more specific pre-award services, can support in achieving the goals in RDI funding. Host presenter, development manager Sanna Juvonen leads RDI service team at Finnish University of Applied Sciences, Laurea. She is responsible of pre award services, which have been created due to the organizational change, where faculty became responsible persons of RDI-project in addition to submitting RDI applications. Services are meant for faculty who participates to the project application process. The need and level of support varies depending on how experienced the faculty is in RDI and what kind of help is needed in project preparation process. Services differ from sparring the idea according to the funding instrument, guidance, building a consortium, supporting the search for partners and the quality assurance of the consortium, producing text paragraphs, also directing writing strategically and submitting the application. Communication and guidance of financial instruments means the selection of financial instrument and suggestion of options, review of application criteria.
The development work in RDI services brought out important perspectives in RDI application process. Pre award services are not enough to achieve RDI funding but project preparation team needs to create a common understanding of the goals in addition to the tasks, which are related to the goals. Moreover, project preparation is diverse and requires special expertise. To achieve RDI goals, it is important to clarify, whether project preparation team has the expertise needed in RDI preparation and who are responsible of different tasks in project preparation. Discussion table views practices, how to better achieve the goals with RDI services.

IBEC Projects Office: An integral, personalised and tailor-made Research Management Support

Format: Fifteen-Minute Discussion Tables

Category: Practical Initiatives

Topic: Organising Support Services & Team Building

We present the unique model of our Projects Office at IBEC, based on providing a global vision of both the research group and institution. This enables a targeted and personalized management which is aligned with the group interests, institutional strategy and (inter)national scientific landscape. We believe this is the future model for institutional Projects Offices, in which Projects Managers are not only administrative managers but represent an integral support system for the researchers.

Impact driven multidisciplinary research proposals – challenge for RMA

Format: Fifteen-Minute Discussion Tables

Category: Discussion Starter

Topic: Proposal Development

Adjusting the pre-award process early enough to implement the structure leading to impactful outcomes is often a challenging task for the pre-award RMA supporting the multidisciplinary proposals. Diversified scientific teams participating in multidisciplinary proposals view differently their contributions to the expected impact of the research project. Experienced pre-award RMA will support multidisciplinary team in finding focus on distinct contribution to the expected impact, while meeting the specificities of the particular funding call/program.

MSCA Cofund management

A discussion on the opportunities, challenges and lessons learned.

Format: Fifteen-Minute Discussion Tables

Category: Operational Lessons Learned

Topic: Project Management

Cofunds foster excellence in researchers' training, mobility and career development, spreading the best practices of Marie Sklodowska-Curie Actions and form the next generation of research leaders. Ireland, through its several higher education institutions and research centres, has secured 17 cofunds to date in areas such as Arts & Humanities, ICT Standards, Software Engineering and Advanced Materials. This session is aimed at project managers who are currently managing MSCA cofunds and those in the process of setting up their grants, and it will discuss the challenges of running such programme. This 15-min round table will discuss 2 main topics in managing cofunds: i) Dissemination of the call and its evaluation process; and ii) Training and development. 4 PMs with different levels of expertise will stir the discussion and capture lessons learned from participants. We will focus on lessons learned, issues and their solutions, and processes that the different PMs have encountered along the post-award journey of their Grants. In each table, we will also discuss the impact that the pandemic has caused in the proper execution of the programmes focusing on how the PMs overcame those issues. Learning outcomes from this session include main issues to watch out for when managing a cofund; ideas for support and collaborative opportunities within a network of cofund managers and NCP, and how to maximize training and development opportunities. At the end of this session, we expect to have captured a comprehensive idea of the issues that all attendees have faced and we will put together a report with our findings for dissemination to the EARMA network (JoRMA).

Managing Projects or Managing Uncertainty? The Complex Role of the Post-Award PM

Defining project leadership, responsibility and accountability in the context of standard PM methodologies

Format: Fifteen-Minute Discussion Tables

Category: Discussion Starter

Topic: Project Management

Over the last year, the authors have collected survey data on existing capacities, structures and best practice in research project management across Europe. We found that while all respondents were involved in project support, less than a quarter had any formal training in project management, and only 20% consistently follow a standard project management methodology. Many of these RMAs are designated ‘project manager’ alongside a Principle Investigator (PI), but we asked ourselves, if the PI is accountable and responsible for project delivery, how well do the standard methodologies apply to the RMA-Project Manager role?

Measuring societal impact; the quantitative vs qualitative approach

A discussion towards a common societal impact analysis framework

Format: Fifteen-Minute Discussion Tables

Category: Discussion Starter

Topic: Impact

The societal impact of academic research is increasingly getting attention. The impact planned for in the first Horizon Europe grant proposals where this was a requirement, should by now have materialized. But the EU lacks a clear framework for societal impact analysis. Therefore, a debate about how to measure societal impact is long overdue.

Working in research support in a university hospital in the Netherlands, the UMC Groningen, I notice a stark contrast between two ways of showcasing societal impact. My librarian colleagues focus strongly on measuring societal impact metrics of our institute as a whole. The way they are able to collect impact metrics is nothing short of impressive, but in my view this approach ignores the intricate nuances of a given impact project somewhat. On the other hand, my colleagues of the communication department have a keen eye for the story, but without quantitative support, the showcased impact lacks hard evidence and makes comparisons between institutions or projects impossible.

My experience in the United Kingdom taught me that both strategies could be reconciled. When I was working in an impact team at a Welsh university, I noticed there was a very strong focus on evidencing impact. Per impact project an impact case study was written, where often quantitative data was collected to show the reach of the claimed impact. This was then combined with qualitative data, to show the significance, or depth, of the impact. Both this quantitative and qualitative data are then brought together into one narrative and presented as an impact case study. For instance: “Our newly developed medical treatment has had the following positive effects on these ten interviewed patients. The treatment has been applied a thousand times, therefore, the health benefits of the treatment can be extrapolated, giving a sense of both reach and significance.”

Combining both quantitative and qualitative evidence in an impact case study, much like the British approach, allows for showcasing all facets of societal impact of research. However, benchmarking against other institutes is arbitrary (when compared to a purely quantitative approach). Where do you stand in this debate? Should your institution focus on qualitative evidence, allowing for the broadest range of impact possible but forsaking comparability? Or should we develop a finite list of impact indicators so we could compare our institution against others? Or thirdly, as proposed here, a combination of the two; best of both worlds or the worst?

Take home message: increasingly, research funders focus on the societal impact of the projects they fund. To assess whether higher education institutions have delivered on their promises requires a societal impact assessment framework. What should impact assessment look like, should we follow a qualitative or a quantitative approach, or a mix of both?

New demands in a new era: Cluster building for greater impact

Taking advantage of the experiences of the EURION cluster

Format: Fifteen-Minute Discussion Tables

Category: Good Practice

Topic: Impact

With the increasing emphasis on impact of
research and synergies across research activities and projects, new requirements
are emerging for research managers and administrators to facilitate this strive
for greater impact. This session will scan the horizons for new requirements, opportunities,
skills and potential obstacles for joint collaboration across EU-funded
research projects. The participants will discuss and share their ideas,
experiences and lessons learned on joint efforts from research management as
well as communication and dissemination perspectives. 

Research leadership programmes

Format: Fifteen-Minute Discussion Tables

Category: Case Study

Topic: Professional Development and Recognition

The University of Oslo Research Leadership Programmes have run since 2007, and offer one course (“Starting Level”) for researchers who recently have been given leadership responsibilities and one (“Consolidating Level”) for more experienced research leaders. The programmes are tailored specifically for research leaders on the operational level, with an emphasis on personal development and peer learning. About 700 research leaders have participated over the years, one fourth of these coming from other Norwegian institutions.

Talent development for young researchers

Format: Fifteen-Minute Discussion Tables

Category: Case Study

Topic: Professional Development and Recognition

The NMBU Talent Program is a career development program that supports young, talented researchers in their effort to develop as researchers. The program provides an opportunity to build on skills and competences that will improve the chances for attaining funding from top research programs nationally and internationally. The duration of the program is three-years and includes support per participant with (1) Funds for competence building, (2) Allocation to a mentor, and (3) Participation in biannual meetings.

The ERC game: grant assignment mechanism and choice to apply

Format: Fifteen-Minute Discussion Tables

Category: Discussion Starter

Topic: Proposal Development

We discuss the advantages and disadvantages of grant assignment mechanisms, in particular the ERC bottom-up approach. The bottom-up assignment mechanism avoids arbitrary prioritization across fields and domains. However, it ends up penalizing fields with smaller uncertainty about applicants ranking. In such fields, applicants below the winning threshold are less likely to apply, reducing the number of applications and—by the bottom-up approach—also reducing the number of awardees in the field. In contrast, the top-down approach avoids that researchers’ “choice to apply” affects the distribution of grants across fields. However, this requires a decision about how to assign grants across fields.

The European RMA Community: The Leiden Group

A dialogue and discussion about building a broad European RMA community

Format: Fifteen-Minute Discussion Tables

Category: Discussion Starter

Topic: EARMA and professional associations

In 2015 various European RMA networks, including EARMA, gathered in Leiden, The Netherlands, to consider the establishment of a pan-European network of networks with the specific objective of working together to support RMAs working across the continent.

The Leiden Group was never conceived of as an umbrella-association or a 'one ring to rule them all' association but as a shared workspace promoting mutual collaborations where, critically, each member maintains their own identity and role but pools our shared experiences and requirements.

Now we, the originators of the idea, want to bring the idea to the wider RMA community, all of our members and give colleagues the chance to be part of a wider discussion.

Transnational approaches for strengthening early stage research administrators

Questions and experiences from the ADMIN project

Format: Fifteen-Minute Discussion Tables

Category: Good Practice

Topic: Professional Development and Recognition

The main objective of the ADMIN project (Boosting Research Administration Skills and Services) with partners from five European countries (2020-2022) is to contribute to capacity building of research support staff and enhancing the prospect for Research & Innovation (R&I) projects and initiatives in European funding schemes. The second objective is to strengthen and expand the network of research support staff across project partner countries and beyond so as to allow free flow of information, knowledge and exchange of best practices hence increasing the prospects for excellence in research administration. The overall aim is to boost the capacities of research administrators by improving their performance, highlighting the visibility of their work and outcomes and strengthening relations with academic/scientific staff. The target groups are early stage research administrators who are faced to the challenge to respond to every-day tasks on R&I projects, academic staff, stakeholders and students. We would like to discuss some major questions central to the project with conference participants: Are you familiar with innovative best practice approaches for research management (case studies from various institutions)? What are daily challenges/problems you are facing in your work environment? Results of the discussions will be incorporated in project outputs: an educational video "alone in the office" and a project management handbook including case studies with best practice approaches from varous countries, among them the Application Lab at Harz University/Germany.

What is grant writing?

Grant writers’ key skills and expertise

Format: Fifteen-Minute Discussion Tables

Category: Interactive Session

Topic: Proposal Development

Grant writing covers a diverse range of support services for researchers in the grant proposal preparation, but its definition is not well established. In this work, we aim at clarifying the definitions of the term, focusing on the nature of the tasks and expertise needed at different levels of grant writing.

What makes research support excellent?

Research support’s irreversible relation with excellence

Format: Fifteen-Minute Discussion Tables

Category: Interactive Session

Topic: Professional Development and Recognition

The session will investigate and problematize some common assumptions in research and research support, for example "talent" and "excellence", relating them to scientific evidence rather than political declarations. Through reflection and debate, participants will gain deeper insight into the core mission of research support.

Working Together: A Call to Create a Transnational Research Management Support Community for Universities of Applied Sciences

Format: Fifteen-Minute Discussion Tables

Category: Interactive Session

Topic: Professional Development and Recognition

The expectations and demands concerning the societal, economic, and environmental impact of all types of research is continually growing in Europe and around the world. In order for the European Higher Education Institutional community to meet these expectations, it is necessary that contributors of varied expertise be fully engaged. While the role of fundamental universities in the quadruple helix process is undisputed, the role of UASs continues to play a less visible role despite the fact that Universities of Applied Sciences (UAS) now have two decades of research experience behind them. Our strengths in the innovation ecosystem, namely close and constant dialogue with local and regional actors such as SMEs as well as our thorough understanding of regional development have made us unique. However, to date, this has not always been effectively capitalized and consequently, requires competencies and tooling to bring it to fruition.

For UASs to increase their role, the research achieved at UASs needs to be properly supported by professional Research Managers (RMs) with an understanding of the unique nature of the research taking place at UASs. While research in the UASs has matured and simultaneously the support we, as Research Managers of the UASs, provide, RMs in UASs continue to struggle to offer the optimum level of support necessary for research. This struggle concerns time and resources as well as expertise. Professional competences and skills necessary for RMs in UASs are often different from those in fundamental universities pursuing basic science research because of the short history of UAS research and its different mission. In addition, issues like making science Open, evaluating Research impact and making it visible, and creating UAS-specific tools and systems such as a CRIS continue to be a challenge. One size does not seem to fit all.

Fortunately, we often have national collaborators to provide a sounding board for ideas. Occasionally, we discover a partner UAS in another country, but UASs struggle with the same issues international and we should collectively be able to support each other. As a result of these perceived deficiencies in the current system, we would like to create a transnational network for research support advisors that provides a platform for sharing and learning together; a network that is open, transparent, and has added value for members that leads to support, change and professionalization of the RM role in UASs.

In our 15-minute interactive session we would like to brainstorm and reflect with RMs of all types of institutions, whether they are from fundamental universities or UASs, about how we can successfully, collectively, work together to provide an established support community specifically focused on UASs.

All Quiet on the Front? Impressions of LERU researchers and RSOs on the preparation and submission of proposals under pillar II

Format: Oral 30 Minutes

Category: Technical Report

Topic: Proposal Development

Horizon Europe was launched in 2021 after a bumpy ride towards adoption. The European Commis-sion’s mantra on Horizon Europe is that it is very much an evolution, rather than a revolution. Much indeed looks the same, or at least not completely new and unfamiliar (e.g., three pillar structure, types of actions, etc.). However, once you start looking more closely under the bonnet, in particular at im-plementation modalities, there are various new elements researchers and RSOs need to come to grips with or which may even raise an eyebrow (e.g., new rules for MSCA doctoral fellowships and training networks, new pillar for innovation, portfolio management, etc.).

Applying eight communication management principles in a research organization

Format: Oral 30 Minutes

Category: Operational Lessons Learned

Topic: Policy, Strategy, Evaluation and Foresight

The discussion on how to manage organizations effectively has been ongoing for decades but problems persist and the research organizations make no exception here. “My door is open” is a sentence that belongs to every manager's vocabulary. What does it mean in reality? And how can a manager apply this policy in virtual teams? This study dives into these practices and experiences gained through experimentation with creating strong communication practices at TalTech, Estonia. 

Assessment of the impact of research and innovation projects sponsored by the European Commission: insights from a case studies approach

Format: Oral 30 Minutes

Category: Case Study

Topic: Impact

Research impact assessment is a “wicked” issue as it involves necessarily tangible and intangible aspects. This may include e.g. scientific outputs and economic impacts, but also tacit knowledge, social and environmental impacts, by nature often more difficult to appraise. The topic of circular bioeconomy, at the intersection of the circular economy and bioeconomy concepts, will be used as a case study to demonstrate how the impact of research projects on the society at large can be assessed. Those attending will gain a practical perspective about how to assess research impact and about short, medium and long-term effects of research topics driven by public policies.

Brokerage: a tool to support collaborative research initiatives

Format: Oral 30 Minutes

Category: Practical Initiatives

Topic: Proposal Development

The need for interdisciplinary and cross-sectorial approach in competitive funding schemes for collaborative research is evident. However, how to make this happen? Brokerage or matchmaking is one of the tools to help pre-award consortia building activities with identifying potential partners and elaborating proposal ideas. This tool could be used internally bringing together different faculties, supporting strategic networking with other partner institutions, or exploring new opportunities. The events could be organized as physical, online or hybrid ones.

Building a Project Management Team

During this session we will discuss the Project Management team of Université de Paris’ Research Directorate, from the creation to its implementation.

Format: Oral 30 Minutes

Category: Good Practice

Topic: Project Management

Born in 2019 from the merger of the universities of Paris Diderot, Paris Descartes and Institut de physique du Globe de Paris, the ambition of Université de Paris is to lead and develop an exceptional potential to meet the challenges of tomorrow’s society. The merger that led to the creation of Université de Paris is unlike other French university mergers because both constituent institutions were quasi comprehensive and of equivalent size. As a result, the three Faculties that structure UP integrate entities from both universities and, within each Faculty, most departments will also undergo a process of transformation and merger. At the central level of the institution, in the Directorate General for Research, International, Technology Transfer et Graduate Schools Department (DRIVE), the Project Managers (PM) are responsible for a the portfolio of projects coordinated at Université de Paris. It includes ERC grants, MSCA, mutli-benieficary projects funded under H2020 Pillar 3 and COST actions. PM, as they follow closely the projects from the granting process to the end, are key actors of the research projects. They indeed: - Are expert of EU funding schemes - Close to the ground: they are in contact with the PI, the research teams and the administrators who run the laboratories - In the heart of the central level: they can easily be in contact with the Finance or Accounting office as well as HR or doctoral schools. However, their knowledge is not shared in the institution. This is the main reason why we decided to reorganise the time of projects managers and link them to the central bodies of the institution, at the DRIVE. So we split their time between projects coordination (between 50% and 60%) and share of good practice. The latter goes from creation of process to organisation of European working group and include the creation of white paper or wiki. The scientific aspect aside, the good implementation of a research project might also remain on every different administrative teams working smoothly together. This is however not easy achieve. Especially after a merging process, the communication between administrative teams can slow down. There is then an urgent need to reconnect everybody together. We hope that this new organisation will lead to the acquisition of skills for every teams participating to the success of the projects. This will also raise awareness of EU projects rules in Departments that are not at the heart of project management but who are however key to their success. We intend that the good implementation of the projects will come back to the writing Grant office in the Faculties, which will have concrete example of how to run a successful project.The purspose of this presentation is to share the actions and the tools we put in place to improve the dialogue between teams and their results.

CHALLENGING ‘THE NORMS’ IN ACADEMIA

IS THE SECTOR LOSING ITS APPETITE FOR CHANGE?

Format: Oral 30 Minutes

Category: Case Study

Topic: Impact

Over the last few years, many academics have become
increasingly disillusioned by ‘the norms’ within research culture that are
holding back progress. The academy’s tie to incentives and its influence over
career progression, a trend towards insecure contracts, and a lack of
diversity, are among the issues that have come to the fore. COVID has
compounded these issues, leading to greater insecurity and deepening
disparities. The need for real societal change to encourage a fairer, more
equitable environment for research to thrive is becoming increasingly more
urgent.

In this session we will share a whistle-stop tour of Emerald's '2021 Time
for Change' report. Now in its third year, it reflects the views of over
2,000 researchers world-wide.  The report looks at trends in attitudes to
research evaluation, academic culture, openness and transparency and the
evolving role of the publisher. It explores the challenges researchers face,
and the impact on personal lives and career aspirations.

Claire Jackson, Emerald’s Head of Community Engagement, will
present the main findings, explore regional differences, and give examples of where
positive change is happening plus, discuss the growing role of publishers as
facilitators of research impact. 

Caddies of science: Project Managers

Having centrally employed project managers makes everyone's life better.

Format: Oral 30 Minutes

Category: Case Study

Topic: Project Management

We all know a Principal Investigator (PI) who swore off being a coordinator because of the administrative load. They all complain about being inundated with the bureaucratic procedures , chasing partnes, keeping track of rules, deadlines etc., and not being able to do their science which is why they join the project in the first place. Just like a caddy carrying the burden of the golf clubs for the golfer and assisting with guidance on the way to success, a Project Manager (PM) working with the PI can take the administrative burden of being the coordinator of a collaborative project.
Many PIs, especially when they first try coordinatorship, try to do the project management themselves, later they push the mundane(!) tasks to a Postdoc or a PhD student. This of course decrease the time that Postdoc or PhD student can dedicate to their science and worse when they leave the knowledge/experience accrued during the project leaves the organisation with them. Employing a PM for the project duration is another option, which is of course a temporary arrangement and the PM in that position tends to start looking for their next assignment towards the end of the project losing focus or moves on at a crucial point of time. Some entities have a central project management office that take over the PM role but this of course incurs quite an economic load to the central funds.
At KTH we have our PMs employed centrally at Research Support Office and assigned to the projects according to their availability and fit, both in personality and skill. PMs keep records of their hours per project and then the projects are invoiced internally based on the timesheets. Every PM is only assigned to projects for parts of their time in order to have the possibility of supporting new proposals, develop guides and temples for the greater benefit of all our PIs such as risk management, change management, quality management, management structure, etc., which can all be customize by the PM to fit the project’s needs. We try to match our PMs with PIs at the proposal stage to coach the PI to increase the likelihood of approval as well as building personal relationships and trying out the personal chemistry before the projects are even approved. We are currently working on lessons to be included in our regular proposal workshop for PIs provided centrally and planning to create our own project management methodology for collaborative scientific projects, based on PM2, which will take KTH’s internal rules and regulations into account.
With this model of centrally employed, project funded PMs the university gets to keep the knowledge/experience accrued in house, the PM gets to have stability on both employment face and area they work on, namely EU-funded collaborative scientific projects, the EC gets to interact with PMs that are already experienced in EU projects and the PIs have their project run smoother and they and their teams can focus on their science.

Challenges for RMA involved in a European University Network, the case of Ghent University in the ENLIGHT consortium

Format: Oral 30 Minutes

Category: Discussion Starter

Topic: Organising Support Services & Team Building

The European University Alliance, called ENLIGHT, won
extra project funding through the SwafS call under H2020. This project (named
ENLIGHT RISE) is coordinated by the University of Bordeaux.

The goals of this project are put forward at the level
of the alliance: 1) empower R&I transformation; 2) increase the research
capacity; 3) strengthen the innovation capacity; 4) increase the capacity to
attract and retain talents; 5) create impact for society; 6) contribute to the
longer-term deployment of European Universities.

At Ghent University, most activities will be performed
at the central research department. There are 9 work packages leading to 47
project deliverables within a timeframe of 3 years. This adds an extra workload
on the shoulders of the Research Managers and Administrators (RMA) at each of
the 9 ENLIGHT partners.

Unfortunately, the project funding is too limited to
significantly reduce this workload. In addition, the international aspect of
the project adds an extra layer of challenges and potential issues on top of
the daily tasks of the RMAs. The RMAs hardly knew their colleagues from the partner
universities and had even never before worked together in the context of a
joint international project.

Within the partnership, the difference in size,
organisation and available personnel at each partners’ Research Support Office
(RSO) and Tech Transfer Offices (TTOs) has equally played its role and proven a
challenge to quickly identify the most indicated contact person for each work
package.

With 9 partners (with 2 different time zones) and 9
work packages leading to 47 deliverables, the project is work intense including
a speedy and vast sequence of meetings which further stresses the RMAs
availability. Furthermore, due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the RSOs/RMAs
have been unable to physically meet during neither the proposal nor the start-up
and execution phases of the project, thereby slowing down the mutual
acquaintance and possibility to lengthy talk some issues through and thoroughly
outlay and discuss each other’s priorities, work organisation and institutional
strategies.

Other challenges include the (non)existing fields of
expertise, how to include/interest researchers to the centrally led project, the
different (level of) experiences between the partnership concerning valorisation,
the re-assessment within RSOs of self-created work tools and work processes,
communicating the broader European University Network strategy amongst administrators
and researchers, linking different strategies on topics as e.g. young researchers,
etc.

To tackle many of these challenges, the network has – amongst
others – highly engaged in consortium wide mapping and internal surveys.At the EARMA conference 2022 we will share and discuss
our experiences at Ghent University with regard to the start of this project
and the execution of a first set of project activities during the first half
year of this project.

Co-creating strategies with research environments

Format: Oral 30 Minutes

Category: Good Practice

Topic: Organising Support Services & Team Building

Research environments/groups often need a strategy to become successful. However, we lack guidelines and processes to aid environments in their strategic development. In this session we share our conclusions from working closely with research environments to define strategic plans and implementation through co-creation. We will thereby suggest that facilitating co-creative processes enables refined strategies and action plans anchored within a research environment.

Connecting research support structures to stimulate an impact culture among researchers

Format: Oral 30 Minutes

Category: Discussion Starter

Topic: Impact

In many universities the turn to recognizing and rewarding impact beyond the academic realm has been taken. At Ghent university such desire to recognize and appreciate other forms of impact has been formalized into policies and support structures at the central and faculty level. However, challenges remain on how to implement and operationalize those policies. What kind of support (structure) do our researchers need? What initiatives lead to a conducive or stimulating environment or culture to focus on societal and economic impact of one’s research?

Contemporary art for research support activities

How art can be involved in research projects, especially in Open Science activities

Format: Oral 30 Minutes

Category: Methodological Session

Topic: Open Science & Responsible Research & Innovation

The presentation explores the opportunities to involve art practices in research processes, especially when we deal with aspects related to Opens Science and Responsible Research & Innovation (RRI), mainly to public engagement. It Addresses both theoretical and practical questions for a research manager, showing different examples also directly manged by the speaker.

DESIGN OF ACADEMIC RESEARCH PROJECTS WITH SOCIAL IMPACT

Format: Oral 30 Minutes

Category: 2. Theoretical

Topic: Impact

Academic research cannot be oblivious to social problems and needs, so projects with the capacity for transformation and impact have to prevail, especially in a context of uncertainty and change. In order to design projects with social impact, we will introduce the Theory of Change, as a project design methodology used to explain how and why the activities of a project will lead to the desired changes, expressed as a medium and long-term benefit obtained by the target population.

Developing Project Managers' Competence at Laurea University of Applied Sciences

Format: Oral 30 Minutes

Category: Good Practice

Topic: Professional Development and Recognition

The discussion table session will give a quick sight into Laurea University of Applied Sciences' (Finland) actions to develop competence in project management. These measures include a training programme for project managers and informal coffee and sympathy discussion sessions for project experts. Laurea’s in-house training programme, Certified Project Manager (CPM), and informal discussion sessions are open for project managers and research and development (R&D) experts.

Diamonds in your Sofa

What you don't know you know in your institutional repository

Format: Oral 30 Minutes

Category: Good Practice

Topic: Research information systems (CRIS)

Every RPO has or should have an institutional repository. As a showcase for what you do especially outputs that are not suitable for 'publication, they are hard to beat but how many of us extract the full value from them? How many of us treat them as electronic warehouses and never look at them again? In short, how many of us have no idea of how much really know?

Repositories store so much more than just full-text articles, they are used to catalogue everything from artworks to zoom logs and everything in between and that breadth represents hidden but real actionable intelligence for strategy and planning.

We will present our experience in TU Dublin as we use our repository, alongside all the other sources to plan our new research ecosystem.

ERION: The Ethics & Research Integrity community within EARMA

Building bridges between administrators, researchers and policy-makers

Format: Oral 30 Minutes

Category: Good Practice

Topic: Policy, Strategy, Evaluation and Foresight

We will reflect on the importance of
ethics and research integrity for research managers and administrators in the European
context and what EARMA is doing in this regard since 2018. ERION is the
Ethics and Research Integrity Officer Network within EARMA. Topics addressed in
the meetings have covered ethics and research integrity in Horizon Europe, Open
Science, GDPR implementation, training and many others.ERION acts as a stakeholder for the European Commission DG R&I
Ethics Sector.

A key component
of ERION is the SOPs4RI project which is working for a strong research
integrity culture in Europe.

Easy access to the Marie Sklodowska-Curie Actions: A toolbox for researchers and research managers

A set of of useful documents and tools, prepared by the MSCA National Contact Points

Format: Oral 30 Minutes

Category: Practical Initiatives

Topic: Proposal Development

The Marie Sklodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) are among the most attractive yet most competitive funding schemes of Horizon Europe. In order to lower the entry barrier for researchers and RMAs to obtain MSCA grants, the MSCA National Contact Points develop within the EU project MSCA-Net a set of tools for applicants and supporters, e.g. writing guides for the different actions or an FAQ Blog. Attendees to this session will learn about the toolbox, where to find it, how and when to use it.

European Union Research and Innovation policy: Implementation of Technology Transfer network for research projects

Format: Oral 30 Minutes

Category: 2. Theoretical

Topic: Open Science & Responsible Research & Innovation

Authors: Serena ManciniAffiliations: University of Padova - Department of Women’s and Children’s HealthPresenting author: Serena ManciniVia Giustiniani 2, 35128, Padua, Italye-mail: serena.mancini@unipd.itPreferred Presentation type: Oral Presentation or Poster presentationAbstractBackground: Most HEIs need to be part of networks to get their innovations and develop special research projects focused on technology transfer and to rapidly create new collaboration and synergies with SMEs. The creation of “joint labs” between university (HEIs) or public research bodies (PRIs) and industry (SMEs), in a specific area (e.g., biotechnology) is crucial to sustaining new high–tech industries.Although there exists a well-developed tradition of industrial network research there is a lack of individuals who are appropriately trained with high-level technical and academic skills, complemented with business-oriented professional skills and a creative, independent entrepreneurial spirit which could be crucial to implement an EU strategy on Biotech and Health fields. This is one of the Innovation policy priority areas for the EU as well as an area of research that is scoring high concerning R&D expenditures.Needs: However, the valorization of the research outputs in the Biotech and Health fields is very low and does not fully exploit its potential to support innovation levels within the EU and beyond.Further funding focused on technology transfer of academia into the commercial world are therefore crucially important. Universities teach basic sciences, such as genetics, biochemistry, molecular biology, etc. with a rather narrow academic perspective and often without a sufficient reference to the possible commercialization of ideas and new technologies. According to COM(2017) 2476 final in comparison to the US and Japan, too few Ph.D. holders in the EU go on to work outside academia. Up to 75% of Ph.D. graduates remain in higher education, state research institutes, or public service. Therefore, relatively few highly qualified students currently consider the industry as a future employer or even consider setting up an independent spin-off/start-up company. HEIs need to promote this through greater focus on funding programs on the application of knowledge transfer and interaction with future employers and promote creative entrepreneurial thinking. This approach has been promoted since 2006 (COM(2006) 337) implementing the Community Lisbon Programme: fostering entrepreneurial mindsets through education and learning, requiring universities and technical institutes to integrate entrepreneurship as an important part of the curriculum, spread across different subjects, encourage students to take entrepreneurship courses and promote mobility between the university and the business world.Among the most recent documents, the Entrepreneurship 2020 Action Plan identifies entrepreneurial education and training as one of the three areas, requiring immediate intervention. According to the Plan, entrepreneurship education should be accomplished through hands-on, real-life experiences, and research projects, as well as promoted beyond educational institutions to businesses and the wider community.Conclusions: Therefore, the relevance of the technology transfer network has been greatly increased due to interdisciplinary modern innovations, and cross-sectoral collaboration in research projects implementation. This allows to development perspective national technology transfer model based on the concept of the innovation ecosystem and open innovation. Being knowledge actors, HEIs, PRIs, and SMEs play a vital role in technology transfer. The results of this analysis address an empirical study to develop a systematic conceptual Model of Innovation network of technology transfer that will help academics, policymakers, government, and business owners with a more depth understanding of the practical mechanisms that support innovation policy strategy.Abstract topic: Technology transfer; Innovation; Networks; Biotech; Health

European developments as catalyser for advancing EU research support

Example of UASNL

Format: Oral 30 Minutes

Category: Operational Lessons Learned

Topic: Policy, Strategy, Evaluation and Foresight

Practice based research, next to education and innovation, has become an important pillar of Universities of Applied Sciences (UAS). Accordingly, development of EU strategy and research support at UAS has picked up the pace. Over the last decade, UAS have started to contribute to the European research landscape, establishing valuable research collaborations with international partners in order to tackle societal challenges together.
In this context, we would like to share our experiences with establishing a national network of UAS, which affected different levels of research support. Our main observations are a) that this external organisation accelerated also internal support processes in each organisation, and b) collaboration rather than competition has advanced the EU readiness of all partners.

Finding funds made easy!

Personalized funding opportunities: Engage researchers in searching for funding opportunities.

Format: Oral 30 Minutes

Category: Practical Initiatives

Topic: Proposal Development

UMC Utrecht is, as an innovative University medical center, always looking for better ways to inform researchers about funding opportunities. In Utrecht we use ResearchConnect as a platform to search for funding opportunities, combined with the integrated search algorithms of another company, Impacter.
The issue we were dealing with is that only a small portion of researchers is engaged in the process of fund searching. We were looking for ways to engage the researchers in this process and the idea was to show personalized funding matches to the researchers in a relevant channel that would nudge them to interact more with the funding database and with us as the research office. 

From Strategy, to planning, to execution

How theory collides with reality in a practical case study

Format: Oral 30 Minutes

Category: Case Study

Topic: Policy, Strategy, Evaluation and Foresight

For any organisation the journey from initial ideas, through to a high level strategy, then detailed planning and actual implementation is fraught with challenges, but also filled with the promise of a better future. This talk will cover current thinking in organisational strategy, highlight key implementation differences between corporate and university strategy as identified by EARMA surveys, and walk through how University College Dublin managed the journey from overall university strategy, to research strategy, to annual planning, and execution. The talk will close with a live survey of the audience's experience of developing and implementing strategy.

GraINN Cluster

Bottoms up – grassroot initiative?

Format: Oral 30 Minutes

Category: Practical Initiatives

Topic: Organising Support Services & Team Building

Inland Norway University for Applied Sciences was formed in 2017 as a result of the fusion of two regional Universities of Applied Science in the Inland Region of South-East Norway. The Region is the size of Denmark and has a population of approx. 370 000 people. The campuses are distributed across the region with a driving distance of up to four hours from one campus to another. All campuses were originally district colleges before the 1970’s and have their own distinct culture and their own RMAs. The GraINN cluster was formed in order to meet the challenges of widespread campuses, different cultures and fragmented RMA-resources. It was led by a grassroot-movement of eager RMAs who understood the need for high quality cooperation across faculties and departments.

Grant proposal : journey or end?

Researchers and RMAs spend considerable time and effort writing grant proposals. How much of it is worth it?

Format: Oral 30 Minutes

Category: Discussion Starter

Topic: Policy, Strategy, Evaluation and Foresight

Modern public science funding practices involve ever larger recourse to grant-in-aid systems. The recent plummeting success rates proportionally increase the amount of time researchers have to spend on project proposals, and the need for more research support staff. In response, recent research has shown the lack of predictive validity of grant schemes. Against this background, we propose in this panel discussion session to start reflecting on the question of how much time and effort researchers’ and RMA’s should allocate to answering calls for projects.

Horizon Europe - cost reporting changes and possible implementation impacts

Format: Oral 30 Minutes

Category: Technical Report

Topic: Project Management

Although Horizon Europe represents an evolution rather than a revolution compared to Horizon 2020, there are some new
rules. Especially in the area of cost accounting, new questions arise with regard to the practical implementation and alignment and adaption of systems of organisations participating in Horizon Europe. In this context, new cost accounting rules such as the change from hourly to daily rates for personnel costs should be highlighted. This session will present the novelties as well as the resulting questions linked to the real implementation on the basis of a research organisation. Where possible solutions on how to manage these changes will be shown.

How To Utilize Tools for EU Project Management

Format: Oral 30 Minutes

Category: Operational Lessons Learned

Topic: Project Management

There are many reasons for fragmentation in EU
project management except from freedom of choice. Among them we can note the
following: Firstly, EU Projects change in terminology and in financial measures
every now and then, secondly, the people who manage projects constantly vary.What do we do differently? We assume that it is equally
important to manage communication of a project, rather than to manage the tasks
of the project. Hence, we built on an approach that the tool need not to manage
the project as such, but the communication of the project, in a way that will
suit EU consortia. 

In this
session we will share some practices, thoughts, and tips on how to implement
such tools properly, with a demonstration of a specific tool (Basecamp) that is
being used successfully. Aspects such as desired modus operandi, business model
and degree of access rights, as well as proposed “mapping” of a typical EU
project to the tool. This session will be very useful for experienced project
managers who seek ways to improve their skills and professionalism in handling
complex EU projects.

How to support researchers in aberrant, unstable situations? Experience of a research funding institution (RFI)

Urgent support of urgent activities in response to urgent situations – experience of a research and mobility financing institution

Format: Oral 30 Minutes

Category: Practical Initiatives

Topic: Organising Support Services & Team Building

The modern world, full of unusual challenges, requires the RFIs to support the scientists.

Some schemes created in early 2020 could serve for the future, e.g. the Urgency Grants in response to sudden social or natural events with substantial impacts. They enable researchers to investigate the significance of phenomena after their occurrence.

Another scheme resulted from unstable political situation in some regions. Solidarity with persecuted scholars is an obligation of safe countries. Solidarity with Belarus is an example of support provided to students & researchers at risk.

Impact evaluation of introducing a Project Manager Program in a big institution

Format: Oral 30 Minutes

Category: Case Study

Topic: Organising Support Services & Team Building

In past editions, I exposed my experience in a small institution when I joined the CMRB as Head of Projects Office in 2018 and we integrated the Project Manager figure in the department. In 2020, CMRB merged with IDIBELL, a big institution, and the challenge became to implement the tailored PM figure into a bigger and already structured Institution. After two years applying this model, we have evaluated in both researchers and RMA the impact of the merge in their day-to-day operation. In this communication, I will present the results of the survey and our experience during this merging period.

Impacting Research Management through North-South capacity development partnerships (30 min presentation)

Format: Oral 30 Minutes

Category: Case Study

Topic: Impact

There is rigorous
debate as to where "academic impact" (i.e. peer-reviewed
publications) ends and "research impact" (i.e. beyond the academe)
begins. The StoRM and the TReMOR Projects are two recent, international North-South
partnerships towards improving Research Management capacity across the
participating countries across SADC, the UK, and the EU. This presentation
showcases their capacity development initiatives, and how their online
resources, under the "new normal", have impacted RM capacity
development on the African continent and further afield.

Improving researcher's participation in Horizon Europe through effective showcase of interests in upcoming calls

Format: Oral 30 Minutes

Category: Good Practice

Topic: Policy, Strategy, Evaluation and Foresight

Some of the challenges every large organization has, when it comes to participation to European programmes and that normally impact the research support systems activities are:
• Creation of collaboration dialogues with other organisations to generate proposals
• The possibility to have fast and easy access to available expertise for specific collaborations generation
• The possibility to facilitate/stimulate the participation of newcomer scientists

It's a Research manager’s crisis baby!

Ten golden rules to survive the personal frustration when promoting European projects culture in research organizations

Format: Oral 30 Minutes

Category: Good Practice

Topic: Organising Support Services & Team Building

Once more… no answers…. It is ten o’clock in the morning and you still haven’t received any reply to the last “EU funding opportunities” mail that you sent two days ago. Siping your coffee in front of your screen you realize that actually none of your “EU funding opportunities” mails got any answer… Ever. Researchers in your institutions seem just not interested in EU projects. You feel sad and kind of useless. Do not worry, it is normal: It’s a research manager’s frustration. It is not contagious, and thanks to these ten simple rules you will soon feel better.

In the last ten years, most European research organizations have invested considerable resources to increase their European research projects portfolio. These policies originate at national level from the desire of European Countries to recover, through the funds provided by European research and innovation programs (e.g. Horizon Europe), part of the money they invest to participate in the European Union. Research organizations have therefore all implemented ambitious European policies with the scope of considerably increase the number of EU-funded projects. They equipped themselves with departments of research management and highly skilled research managers eager to help researchers to build and win thousands of EU projects. Unfortunately, these policies often sink in the shallow waters of reality. Most researchers are not attracted by European funds, which are seen as time consuming, too competitive, and also too difficult to manage compared to national funds. This Euro-inappetence makes the work of research managers difficult and undermines their chances of achieving the goals set by their organizations. This can provoke frustration and in the worst case, can lead to resignation from the job.

The European Affairs service of theInstitut National
de Recherche en Informatique et Automatique (Inria), which counts eight
offices around France, has come up with a list of 10 Golden Rules to overcome
this frustration and motivate researchers to participate and coordinate
European projects.

In this session, we will use these rules as starting point to engage an active discussion with the audience, sharing experiences, and exploring new ideas. Speakers will animate the debate encouraging the audiences to provide feedback through direct interventions (brainstorming) and through a participative game-based learning platform (e.g. Kahoot!)

Look inside – think beyond: A toolbox to support researchers in finding alternative ways of exploiting project results

Format: Oral 30 Minutes

Category: Case Study

Topic: Impact

Impact is becoming increasingly important to funding institutions, but for researchers who are the experts for excellence in their research areas it is not an easy point to address in project proposals. Our exploitation toolbox aims to bridge this valley.

Its presentation will give an overview of how researchers can be coached their way across this bridge: to align their excellence in research with stakeholders’ expectations and to find alternative ways for exploiting their results.

Managing Grant Audits Under the New Normal

Format: Oral 30 Minutes

Category: Discussion Starter

Topic: Project Management

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused chaos and challenges throughout the whole world. This session aims to provide working solutions in how to manage Horizon:2020 (and indeed other Funder) audits in such a climate.
Topics covered include:
- Working remotely and from home
- Access to substantive evidence
- How specific Funders are treating the effects of the pandemic
- What specific Funders won't (or will) accept in terms of evidence
- How to resolve issues that arise and innovative solutions

Open Data - How can I make it happen?

Putting Open Data into practice with your CRIS system

Format: Oral 30 Minutes

Category: Case Study

Topic: Open Science & Responsible Research & Innovation

The past few years, driven by funder mandates, research data management (RDM) has taken increasingly center stage in the context of managing the research life cycle. There has been a rapid growth in the appetite for making research data publicly available. In response, the number of open data repositories has risen sharply, along with open data requirements attached to research funding. Many involved in the research ecosystem, from policy makers and funders to publishers and institutions, have adopted new research data guidelines and practices. While many welcome this greater transparency, for those tasked with managing and analyzing their institution’s research outputs and their impact, the shift to extend the research life cycle management to research data brings a unique set of challenges. In this presentation, the team of a leading university will share their experiences with advancing their RDM practices by leveraging their Current Research Information System (CRIS) and specialized RDM tools, and how this has helped them shaping their strategic thinking throughout the research lifecycle. 

Open Research Europe

An alternative publishing model in action

Format: Oral 30 Minutes

Category: Good Practice

Topic: Open Science & Responsible Research & Innovation

In March 2021 the European Commission launched their new publishing platform, Open Research Europe in collaboration with F1000, in doing so, solidifying their commitment to making open science an achievable mandate for their Horizon 2020 and Horizon Europe beneficiaries. This presentation will go through the publishing model of Open Research Europe highlighting some different aspects of the platform devised to ensure it is meeting the needs of researchers from all the subject areas it covers.

Open Research: From Thought to Deed

Format: Oral 30 Minutes

Category: Case Study

Topic: Open Science & Responsible Research & Innovation

Openness as a concept in scholarly communication is gaining increased traction with more and more universities and research institutes adopting the concept. But is it just a concept or even worst an aspiration?  This paper will discuss in
practical terms the step involved in implementing open research in a single
institution and in a network of 
universities aligning with national and European policies and
infrastructures. The challenges, cultural ethos and successes will be examined
with a view to highlighting what works and what does not work. Ultimately, we
will attempt to answer the question is Open practical?

Open innovation between Universities of Applied Sciences

A case study of national Centres of Expertise in NL

Format: Oral 30 Minutes

Category: Case Study

Topic: Impact

Universities of Applied Science play a key role in innovation for tackling the societal missions of our time. This paper presents guidelines and best practices in the challenge to form nation wide cooperation between UAS research groups and societal actors.
It is presented in the form of a case study of the Dutch Centres of Expertise that have been set-up in 2018 as an instrument to create critical mass in practise based research.
The author is initiator of several centres and works across the institutional borders of universities, industry, public services and citizen stakeholder groups. With a multitude of centres focussed around six of the national innovation missions, a vibrant network of researchers is build that delivers impact. The presentation explains the reserach management principles that are applied to stimulate coorperation, interdisciplinary work and entrepreneurship.

Paths towards the creation of RMAs professional communities

A comparative perspective between Italy and Portugal

Format: Oral 30 Minutes

Category: Case Study

Topic: Professional Development and Recognition

This presentation will focus on possible paths towards the creation of RMAs professional communities in European countries where formal RMA associations do not exist, on the basis of two case studies: Portugal and Italy.
Starting from an overview of the main RMA associations worldwide, we will describe the paths developed by the two countries towards the establishment of a community of professionals, focusing on the main activities implemented so far, similarities and differences. Eventually, we’ll make some considerations on the expected impact on professional recognition.

In particular we will present the experience of two informal networks of professionals working as research support staff:
• the Platform of Professionals at the Interface of Science, established in Portugal in 2016
• a working group on RMAs under the Research Unit of the Italian National Association of University General Directors (CODAU) created in Italy in 2019/20.  The Platform of Professionals at the Interface of Science (PIC) is an informal Portuguese network, that integrates research managers and administrators working in the different areas of R&I management and communication, technology transfer and value creation. With the mission of promotion and enhancing the professional recognition of such professionals, PIC has engaged in several policy actions aiming at promoting the inclusion of RMAs in the R&I decision-making processes in Portugal.

The Italian working group is a network of Italian professionals who work in the universities in different areas of R&I management, communication and evaluation activities. It has been established with the aim of analyzing and endorsing the professional role of RMAs in Italy, in particular through the creation of a professional development framework, which identifies and maps the skills, areas of activity and training needs of Italian RMAs. The purpose was that of increasing awareness about the role and the potential of this activities within the national RMA community.

We will present a comparative analysis among the two experiences at the national level and lessons-learned on the followings:
• Mapping the community and professionals’ definition
• Raising awareness and Communication
• Training initiatives
• National context and policies towards professional recognition.    Results will show common traits and differences and highlight the importance of a bottom- up or co- creation approach in raising awareness about the RMA profession. Suggestions will be offered to colleagues who wish to implement similar activities in their own contexts.

Post-award tool kit: simplification and digitalisation to support research management

Strategies and tools to support the post award phase implemented at Ca’ Foscari University

Format: Oral 30 Minutes

Category: Good Practice

Topic: Project Management

Ca’ Foscari has launched a series of initiatives aiming at simplifying and improving the current management and post award reporting procedures. This is part of the University’s plan to develop and strengthen the support offered throughout the project life cycle.

Professional development through best-practice exchange for managers and leadership

NARMA professional development program

Format: Oral 30 Minutes

Category: Practical Initiatives

Topic: Professional Development and Recognition

NARMA (Norwegian Association of Research Management) has since its establishment in 2013 put professional development of research administration at the center of its mission by establishing initiatives and forums for best-practice exchange.In 2019 a new initiative was launched; a seminar for best-practice exchange at the management level. In this presentation we’ll briefly present the background and overall aim of this initiative, participants feedback and their experiences and lessons learned based on the initiative. 

Professionalisation of research management in Africa

Format: Oral 30 Minutes

Category: Practical Initiatives

Topic: Professional Development and Recognition

Research management is an emerging profession in Africa, with ongoing efforts to encourage institutional recognition. The Southern African Research and Innovation Management Association, supported by other African associations, initiated a programme as impetus to the professionalisation of research management. The first phase resulted in a Professional Competency Framework and the second phase involved the establishment of the International Professional Recognition Council to lead the development of a framework for a professional recognition programme.

Promoting the RMA profession over the globe

How the RMA profession is understood in different contexts?

Format: Oral 30 Minutes

Category: Discussion Starter

Topic: International

Universities, research organisations and states all around the world, each in different intensities, agree that international cooperation shall play the key role in further development towards excellence in research. Yet the level of support and means of facilitating of such cooperation differ as in many cases the vague idea of “making good thing” prevails, but the handling of such cooperation itself may in practice be a challenge without prior experience.

Quality assessment of RDI at Turku UAS: Research Group evaluation process and the role of RMA in RDI quality

Format: Oral 30 Minutes

Category: Case Study

Topic: Organising Support Services & Team Building

One of the core tasks of Finnish Universities of Applied Sciences is to deploy RDI activities that promote working life and regional development whilst contributing to the reform of the economic structure of the region. R&D activities were added to the statutory tasks of UASs in 2003 and innovation activities in 2015. Given its short history, this has had implications to the quality culture of UAS. Over the past few years, the development of RDI processes at Turku UAS has been strengthened. We present a case study depicting the connection between RDI and the internal Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA) assessment cycle: reflecting how it is working at Turku UAS for Research Groups’ evaluation and the role of Research Managers and Administrators (RMA).In Finnish HEIs the assessment of RDI is done as part of an internal self-evaluation cycle and the PDCA concept is widely implemented. The PDCA cycle is applied at Turku UAS and the quality system covers all areas and functions. The Finnish Education Evaluation Centre (FINEEC) audits quality management of research activities at Finnish HEIs. While many European HEIs focus primarily on the quality of the output, FINEEC concentrates on the quality systems that monitor and develop the quality of the processes as well as outputs.Turku UAS’ RDI assessment includes 1) RDI projects’ lifecycle evaluation, 2) Research Groups’ evaluation. In this session we focus on Research Group’s evaluation, a process conducted in two parts: a self-evaluation questionnaire of the Groups via an online questionnaire and an internal activity report compiling information from various sources (financial information; Finnish Research Publication Portal). To enforce the use of collected information, an annual target discussion with the Research Groups has been added to the process.The role of the RMA in PDCA and Research groups’ evaluation is two-folded. First, providing tools for assessment and offering compiled, visualised monitoring reports for decision making (Check-part of the PDCA). Second, unravelling the need for support in certain themes, knowledge, and issues that Research Groups have shortage and wish to develop (Act-part of PDCA) e.g., knowledge in new funding sources, Open Science, incorporation of Sustainable Development Goals, innovations, and tools for goal-oriented stakeholder networking.Turku UAS has conducted an evaluation of the Research Groups in the same format for the last four years. During this time, we have learned that there is a discrepancy between set RDI goals and available knowledge and/or human resources The top challenges vary from year to year, but internal and external cooperation and networking is a recurring theme. Establishing and maintaining cooperation is a long-term and complex task which, in most cases, relies on individuals’ personal contacts. Only synergy of operations (education, RDI, business), multidisciplinary cooperation and wider stakeholder networking can be solutions to this matter. It also craves more evolved quality culture and completion of the PDCA cycleWe wish to understand how does your organisation deal with RDI assessment. What kind of practices you have?

RMA's role in deepening stategic partnerships between universities (Pecha Kucha)

How can RMA's strengthen international (research) collaborations bottom-up? Discussion using a case study: institutional partnership Radboud University Nijmegen, University of Glasgow

Format: Oral 30 Minutes

Category: Case Study

Topic: International

Strategic partnerships
are agreed at the highest level of any institution, but it is RMA’s who have a
significant part of the responsibility for ensuring successful exploitation of
the research aspects of those partnerships.

Radboud
University and University of Glasgow have been partners
since 2018. This partnership entails funds to increase cooperation between
researchers and support staff, as well as enhance staff mobility.

The funding
is to kick start deeper collaboration
between researchers at both institutions, such as working together on Horizon applications. Key is to make both the fund and collaboration known and
applicable throughout both universities. RMA’s can play an active role in
supporting researchers with consortium building and are therefore perfectly
placed to help deepening existing institutional partnerships.

This
session will discuss how RMAs can utilise such a partnership,  facilitating increased collaboration between
researchers and European projects.

Refurbishing researcher’s information profiles in (post)COVID era

Format: Oral 30 Minutes

Category: Discussion Starter

Topic: Proposal Development

Are researcher’s online profiles targeted to fund raising purposes? Can it be an effective tool for pattern matching? How can we help researchers "to sell" their profiles in online brokerage events? This presentation will arise discussion on lights and shadows of online brokerage events.

Research Data Management: Some Challenges

Format: Oral 30 Minutes

Category: Case Study

Topic: Open Science & Responsible Research & Innovation

There is a growing wish for science to become as open as possible, with the aim to increase the impact, reproducibility, interdisciplinarity, and efficiency of research. Two important elements in this respect are open research data and FAIR data management (Wilkinson et al., 2016), which are increasingly becoming priorities on the agenda of funding agencies and governments. Open research data refers to freely accessible information in the form of text, numbers, images, audio, etc., that has been used and/or produced in research endeavors; it includes the data underlying scientific publications, as well as their metadata (European Commission, 2019; Norwegian Ministry of Education and Research, 2018; OECD, 2015; The Research Council of Norway, 2017; UNESCO, 2012). The FAIR principles stand for Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable (Wilkinson et al., 2016). In a nutshell, Findable refers to the presence of metadata and a unique and persistent identifier for a dataset; Accessible means that a dataset and the accompanying metadata are understandable to both humans and machines, and are deposited in a trustworthy repository; Interoperable refers e.g. to the use of accepted vocabularies for the data and metadata; and Reusable involves e.g. the use of standard licenses for a given dataset (LIBER, 2020). The main purpose of FAIR is to increase the quality of research data, and to facilitate their interpretation and potential re-use.Despite the increased attention on the matter, there are still challenges to make research data as open and as FAIR as possible. We present and discuss some of these challenges inspired by a survey among academic staff at Nord university. An example of such challenges is that researchers need to adhere to GDPR, which imposes several restrictions on the handling of personal data. In particular, researchers in the social sciences, who often work with data involving human participants, experience a tension between open research data and GDPR. In this respect, many issues arise. For instance, how to anonymize research data containing personal information while keeping most of their value for future re-use. Another example refers to the presence of various traditions and practices across research fields, and the need to operationalize the FAIR principles accordingly. For instance, building upon existing research data in the social sciences may be challenging not only because of the variety in types of data (e.g., qualitative interviews, observational data, and data from surveys), but also due to the plurality of theoretical perspectives and philosophical views, where knowledge is advanced not necessarily through a process of accumulation, but through the illumination of different aspects of a phenomenon. The topics of open research data and FAIR data management are complex, and discussing the challenges associated with them is important. Such a discussion can promote a reflection on how support services within research data management can assist researchers meet the increasing demands from funding agencies, governments, and publishers regarding open and FAIR research data.

Research evaluation matters

Barriers and incentives towards responsible research evaluations at Danish Universities

Format: Oral 30 Minutes

Category: Good Practice

Topic: Policy, Strategy, Evaluation and Foresight

Research evaluation is too often about measuring what can be measured instead of what should be measured. The starting point should not be the availability of data, but what is valued about the entity under evaluation. The PARE-project (Probing 5 arguments for responsible evaluation on HE leaders) examines knowledge and attitudes toward value driven research assessment among leaders at Danish universities and uncovers barriers and incentives to responsible research evaluation practice.

Research management striving to re-invent an up-to-date idea of professionalism in a post-pandemic age

How is going to be professionalism for RMAs in a post-pandemic era? Which skills can we expect to require following the pandemic? What is professionalism for those in RMA overall?

Format: Oral 30 Minutes

Category: 2. Theoretical

Topic: Professional Development and Recognition

How is going to be professionalism for RMAs in a post-pandemic era? Which skills can we expect to require following the pandemic? Following these questions, this presentation aims to define what professionalism for today’s RMAs is – consisting of qualifications, associations, professional frameworks, among others but not exclusively – but, above all, what we could expect this professionalism – its set of skills and expectations - to be in an early future.We all know that Higher Education worldwide has been experiencing a period of identity crisis and widespread criticism following the pandemic. For this reason, in a post-pandemic age, research managers (RMAs) could be expected to reshuffle their skills and re-invent themselves, not only to cope with an era where even professional knowledge has a limited lifespan (Barnett, 2008); but also to create a new idea of professionalism and up-to-date skills for the times lying ahead.All this may end up requiring the re-design of professional frameworks and qualifications so to reshuffle what we are and what we know so far in today’s research management and administration. This re-designing effort may end up impacting professional associations, institutions and the community of RMAs globally. This is, therefore, a call to action to begin re-inventing these skills as soon as we can.This presentation is meant to be theoretical; it moves from the definition of professionalism to the search for the up-to-date skills to be sought in the early future even to figure out what idea of professionalism lies ahead for all those in today's RMA.

Roadmap to R&I funding

A useful tool to define success R+D+I strategies

Format: Oral 30 Minutes

Category: Practical Initiatives

Topic: Proposal Development

The Support Unit of European R&I projects is the operational structure allowing a systematic, effective and efficient maximization of participation in R&I European projects of researchers from the Rovira i Virgili University, and thus, of the Campus of International Excellence Southern Catalonia. The most important role the unit has in the pre-award process is facilitating project concept development and project drafting of the non-strictly scientific sections. Roadmapping is a tool that allows us to guide the researchers towards interdisciplinary collaboration with the aim of diversifying the action fields of researchers and promoting talent attraction in emerging areas.

Supporting Europe-Africa Partnerships in R&I

Insights from a Decade-long Experience

Format: Oral 30 Minutes

Category: Operational Lessons Learned

Topic: International

Sociedade Portuguesa de Inovação – SPI (http://www.spieurope.eu) was created in 1996 as an active centre of national and international networks connected to the research and innovation sectors. Being involved in projects worldwide, SPI has become a leading promoter of linkages between research organisations, private sector companies, science and technology institutions, and national and international public and private organisations. After more than a decade working in projects that target African countries, SPI has gained relevant experience in supporting Europe-Africa partnerships in Research and Innovation. SPI has an overall knowledge of the business and institutional landscape in Africa, which enables its team to identify the rising opportunities for R&I collaborations between European and African individual researchers and research organisations.

The future of European research depends on its ability to build long-term partnerships through which it can assert its relevance in overcoming global challenges through research and innovation. Today, some of the world’s fastest growing economies are in Africa, a continent that has been relatively forgotten for R&I collaboration purposes. Not only is Africa a neighbour continent of Europe, as it has been attracting more and more interest on the part of the European Commission and its cooperation initiatives, namely those announced in the EU Global Approach to Research and Innovation, and the EU Comprehensive Strategy with Africa. As a European organisation which has built valuable bridges with African stakeholders, SPI has been contributing to the development of networks that strengthen and connect EU and African ecosystems.

What opportunities have arisen for European researchers to engage with African researchers and entrepreneurs? What are the strengths of organisations from one continent and the other? What are the regional and global challenges that can and should be looked through a partnership of equals between Europe and Africa? What are African Union and European Union’s research priorities? Based on the company’s past and present experience, and highlighting the ENRICH in Africa project, SPI’s Board Member Dr. Sara Medina will provide valuable insights on the aforementioned questions to all interested stakeholders.

The ETO: creating synergies between transversal funding programmes

Format: Oral 30 Minutes

Category: Good Practice

Topic: Organising Support Services & Team Building

In 2019, Université Côte d’Azur initiated a transformation process to merge the departments in charge of external fundings, which, led to the creation of the European and Territorial Office. ETO is a one-stop shop gathering policy and project Experts for all type of funding and at any level. ETO adopts an approach by project and not by call, thus creating synergies between funding programmes and supporting the scaling up from the local level to the European and international one.

The EU Policy Making Process (The Potential Impact of Research Results)

Format: Oral 30 Minutes

Category: Methodological Session

Topic: Impact

Pillar II of Horizon Europe is designed to address Global Challenges and to support European Industrial Leadership. In the proposal forms of Pillar II the researchers are asked:

“Describe possible feedback to policy measures generated by the project that will contribute to designing, monitoring, reviewing & rectifying (if necessary) existing policy & programmatic measures or shaping & supporting the implementation of new policy initiatives & decisions.”

The EU Policy Making Process is a formal process that can last between two to five years. During this process ‘evidence’ is needed by the different players to help in the policy decision making.
One of the biggest problems in EU policy making is the difference in the language between the Policy Makers and the Researchers.

The policy makers state that “Policy-makers need information which will inform their decision making process. The information must be accessible, politically useful & contribute to finding practical solutions to problems.”
The Policy makers also state that “research reports are often inaccessible and not sufficient to ensure that research findings are used to inform policy.”

This presentation provides and overview of the EU policy making process and how researchers should design their proposals to address these communication concerns.

The Evolution of the EU Framework Programmes (Framework 7 to Horizon Europe +)

Future Challenges for Research Support Offices

Format: Oral 30 Minutes

Category: Practical Initiatives

Topic: Policy, Strategy, Evaluation and Foresight

The European Framework Programmes started in 1984 (Framework 1) and have evolved in one of the World’s biggest research funding programme. The early programmes (Framework 1 to Framework 5) focussed on bringing European researchers together to tackle specific technological problems.
After Framework 6 the scope of the programmes included Social challenges. If Framework 7 the introduction of the European Research Council (ERC) expanded the scope of the programme to Fundamental Research.
This presentation will example the evolution of the Framework programmes, in particular, the evolution from Framework 7 to Horizon 2020 to the current Horizon Europe programme. The presentation will also indicate future directions of the programmes beyond Horizon Europe.

Research Offices in Universities and Research Centres support researchers in responding to immediate calls for proposals. They also support Senior Management and Directors of research groups to plan strategically for European progammes.

Based on the evolution of the Framework programmes what new support will be expected from Research Support Offices? The presentation will look at:
- How can support staff monitor these trends and develop appropriate training for their staff.
- How to support senior management in planning for new European research strategies
- How to encourage researchers to participate in European foresight activities to be part of the EU planning process

The WE*-Economy: What WE need to know now, do next and be ready for FP10

*(globally confident community not influenced by or tied to national boundaries/ obligations)

Format: Oral 30 Minutes

Category: Interactive Session

Topic: International

The UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development emphasized the fundamental role science should play in implementing the 17 Sustainable Development Goals endorsed by the global community. The European Commission responded to this societal demand on science via requesting systematic engagement in Horizon Europe.
Education, science, technology, research and innovation are a prerequisite for achieving a European and global sustainable economy meeting the SDGs. But it cannot be achieved by one country, let alone by the EU alone. Research and innovation have an important role as a catalyst for change. They are a tool for analyzing the impacts of change and a means for ensuring that any transition leads to an increase in our well-being. Hence Horizon Europe is a stepping stone into tackling the SDG challenges globally.

The EU is interested in setting the standards for the rest of the world to take the lead in implementing the SDGs and the transition towards a sustainable economy, including smart investments in innovation and key enabling technologies. But only by involving the entire world, by collaborating and researching with third countries, this endeavor can succeed.

This session focuses on the “why” and “how” of including third countries in a consortium. You will learn about the Do’s, and Don’ts, false beliefs, myths and develop mutually a scenario for a green path forward.

The rise of the Italian Research Managers and Administrators Association

A SWOT analysis

Format: Oral 30 Minutes

Category: Case Study

Topic: EARMA and professional associations

The
presentation aims to analyze the case study of the creation, establishment, and
development of the envisaged
Italian Research Managers and Administrators (RMAs) Association, under an
innovative perspective, not previously covered at a national level.

Specifically,
we are carrying out a SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats)
Analysis of the internal and external factors that have a potential positive or
negative impact on the launch of the Italian RMAs Association by an RMAs
informal working group. 

Towards a European framework for Recognition and Rewards?

Recommendations from the Netherlands, Finland and Norway

Format: Oral 30 Minutes

Category: Practical Initiatives

Topic: Open Science & Responsible Research & Innovation

In this session we will take stock of the diverse approaches, regarding the new trend of responsible assessment policies and initiatives towards assessing and recognizing a greater breadth of competencies in academic careers, - considering open science practices. Especially we will compare the three national recommendations from the Netherlands, Finland and Norway to identify common topics and differences, and furthermore; - given that open science is about to become the new norm, are we heading towards a modernised European framework for recognition and rewards?

UCD’s Portal to Digital Transformation

Format: Oral 30 Minutes

Category: Practical Initiatives

Topic: Organising Support Services & Team Building

This innovative project entailed a complete rethink and redesign of community research services information. We mapped the ‘Researcher Journey’ to deliver a fully user-focused and user-driven information platform. Replacing the service-provider approach with a researcher-centric model resulted in an agile, easy to navigate platform that puts information at researchers fingertips and builds community in an age of digital transformation. Our Communications, Public Engagement and Impact resources have expanded through co-design and collaboration to meet the growing requirements and needs within this space.

VITO Researchers find supporting information without searching, thanks to Voogle.

Voogle is an internal research information system that combines internal data with external data.

Format: Oral 30 Minutes

Category: Practical Initiatives

Topic: Open Science & Responsible Research & Innovation

VOOGLE makes it possible to search and discover research support information (calls/projects/researchers/…) with one search in regardless of whether the data is managed within or outside our research organisation.

VOOGLE connects internal structured (e.g. Data bases) and unstructured (research) data (e.g. pdf, word, ...) with external (open/fair) data based upon unique (open) ID. A knowledge graph, inspired on the Eurocris model, but extended with other useful objects, such as funding calls / project documents / …, is the start of everything within Voogle.

Linking internal data with external data, brings challenges like where to store/update your data? Which unique IDs do we use to link data? Can we reduce the amount of data that we manage internally? (Some data is kept more up to data outside our organization then inside, think about address data from companies which could be retrieved from ROR.org). How to generate in-depth meta-data automatically, especially from legacy unstructured data?

In an attempt to meet these problems, our organisation switched to a Microsoft Teams environment, But we were able to convince our management to an Data Governance approach to feed, VOOGLE with good data.

In this presentation, we illustrate how to roll out such an approach, not with one big bang, but with a coalition of believers working out a good proof of concept, and then scaling it up with consistency. We will also look further and explain the next steps in Voolge, and how this will help us realising our dream: "VITO researchers find the right information without searching".

What to expect when organising a conference?

Experience gathered over years of conference organisation

Format: Oral 30 Minutes

Category: Operational Lessons Learned

Topic: EARMA and professional associations

EARMA organises a professional conference every year and the main actor on the substance of the conference is the Annual Conference Programme Committee (ACPC). Both Zuolo and Maunula are long standing members of this committee and have years of experience in organising international and national live and digital conferences. Maunula is the current Chair of the ACPC. The Annual Conference aims at bringing together the most relevant and informative speakers in research management and administration, sharing their knowledge with the largest community of Research Managers and Administrators (RMAs) in Europe. Over the last years, we have gathered close to 1,000 people in different locations and close to 700 people fully online in 2021.

foRMAtion educational module for future RMAs

Lessons learnt and impacts measured

Format: Oral 30 Minutes

Category: Operational Lessons Learned

Topic: Professional Development and Recognition

The project foRMAtion developed an elective educational module for university students to provide a glimpse on the RMA profession. The uniqueness of the project and the solutions found aim to support the successful take-up of the educational module by any universities and contribute to the better awareness of the profession and preparedness of potential career entrants. The short-term impacts have already been detected at various levels, such as the level of the students, the teachers and researchers, as well, as of the university administration and leadership underlying the relevance of the module. The questions raised and possible strategies of knowledge transfer to other university settings will be presented and discussed with the audience.

Acknowledging Each Other’s Craftsmanship: Perspectives on Proposal–writing support

PANEL SESSION

Format: Oral 60 Minutes

Category: Discussion Starter

Topic: Proposal Development

It is widely recognised that the researcher is best placed to write the research parts of proposals, for example, most of the Excellence section of European Commission Research & Innovation Action proposals. The rest of the proposal – the Impact and Implementation sections – are where the researcher often needs help and guidance, and this is where the pre-award research support professional comes in.
The entire RIA/IA proposal benefits from pre-submission reviews and input from multiple professionals, both internal to the researcher’s organisation, and external, in the shape of proposal writing consultants. Both the local research support manager and the external consultant consider aspects such as:

- Is the proposal message clear?
- Is there a coherent story in the proposal that makes it compelling for the reader/evaluator?
- What factors persuade the evaluator to read on?
- How do we convince the evaluator that this is the right team to deliver this proposal?
- How timely and novel is this proposal?
- What is the unique selling point of this proposal and how will it deliver to the Commission exactly what they are looking for?

These are the questions always in the background in supporting researchers to craft successful proposals. This presentation will address how RMAs can best engage with proposal-writing consultants towards the goal of successful proposals. We hope to use this time to provoke a wider discussion on RMA’s and consultants’ experiences from both perspectives and will explore aspects of pre-award support, such as:

-Common traits of winning proposals; Hints and tips on common problems seen in EC proposals (by consultants and research support staff)

- Optimal modes of interaction between pre-award RMAs in academic institutions and external consultants; discuss ways in which pre-award university professional support staff can interact with external consultants for maximum benefit to the researcher

- Discussion of researcher perceptions of the value of local, compared to external, research and innovation support

- Overlap and difference in roles of RMA and consultant: how to delineate responsibilities most effectively for the academic (the customer)

-What are the questions the RMA should ask a consultant before engaging them to support a HE coordination? E.g. Can they support the writing of business and exploitation cases? Will they play a role in Dissemination or Communication as a project partner (post-award)? What would a checklist of questions look like?

-How do you choose the right consultant per programme or research area?

-How do you ensure the consultant is the right fit for the academic/researcher? What factors influence the coordinator: Discipline knowledge, previous success rate, reputation, is it personality-driven?

-Discussion/Q&A: What is the audience’s experience*:

E.g. what are experiences of ‘No win, no fee’ consultants?
We will invite the audience to share good (and bad) experiences of working with RMAs/consultants with a view to complementing each other’s work, respecting our mutual craftsmanship and getting a conversation going about we can best work together to achieve the same goal of maximizing our success.

*Audience members are asked NOT to name specific consultants in their questions/discussions.

Cooperation in Interdisciplinary Teams in Research Support

overcoming professional boundaries

Format: Oral 60 Minutes

Category: Interactive Session

Topic: Organising Support Services & Team Building

Being a Research Support Professional, you have to be an expert on Open Access & Open Data Mangement, IP & Business Plans, Ethics, Dual Use & the Nagoya Protocoll, the SMART-Method, financial management and accounting, legal issues, communication and project design- don´t you? The shifts in the europen research & innovation programmes warrant interdisciplinarity not only in research but also in research support.
In this session, we´ll - discuss how universities of different sizes tackle the multifaceted challenge - explore different approaches in our institutions regarding the hand-over between pre-award and post-award phase from research support to project management- share best practices on how to get other service divisions on board (Finanzce, HR, IT, legal, Ethics Boards…)
- sharing knowledge between the different departments (IT, Bibl, finance, HR, legal….) also pre-award and post-award – what did work, what didn’t?
- are there any IT tools that facilitate this interdisciplinary work or is it only based on human interaction?
- passing on the torch –ahh project 😊 We want to discuss, share experiences, best practices, pitfalls, compare differences between huge and small institutions and learn from each other (because we don’t have the one and only solution either, but hope to make a progress in this session) Learning outcomes:'
- getting to know examples from other institutions on interdisciplinary co-working
- get new ideas to try out or implement in your own institution
- define ourselves as the interface between the different disciplines

Data Protection and Privacy Considerations for the Research Manager

Format: Oral 60 Minutes

Category: Practical Initiatives

Topic: International

This engaging thirty minute introductory presentation will cover data protection and privacy issues which research managers need to consider in their daily work administering research and knowledge transfer. The GDPR will be part of the discussion, but this session is distinctive because it will consider basic concepts and practical applications. The key takeaway from this presentation will be enhanced understanding of these issues in the daily workplace and the practical handling thereof. A brief Q&A component at the end will wrap up the session.

Developing Staff and Their Career Paths in the New Work Environment

Format: Oral 60 Minutes

Category: Good Practice

Topic: Professional Development and Recognition

Over the past decade global investments in research and development (R&D) have continued to grow in what the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has termed the move towards “the knowledge economy”. Governments across the world have increased their investments in R&D with the universities being a major beneficiary as recipients of the research funding. This increase in research funding and requirements for proper financial and ethical management of the research enterprise has in turn resulted in continued global growth of research administration as a profession. The expansion of the profession has been helped with longstanding strategies for training of new staff and continued professional development of existing staff to meet the needs of the research enterprise. These strategies have included using internal training programs within the institutions, staff meetings, pairing of staff to work together in the office, as well as attendance in professional conferences and training offerings.
With the changes in the work environment resulting from the COVD-19 pandemic and variations in the schedule that include fully remote or a hybrid of remote and office work schedules, the existing strategies for staff development may not be as effective and need adjustments to meet the needs of the “new normal”.
This session will focus on initiating a discussion amongst participants in order to identify and share good practices in how to address the staff’s professional development needs, such as:

• How to successfully “on-board” new employees in the remote or hybrid environment?
• What are successful strategies used to maintain the team spirit and cohesiveness in this “new normal”?
• In an in-person work environment, staff gain significant knowledge from the routine conversations (“the so-called cross-pollination”) with co-workers. How can this valuable opportunity be maintained in the new work environment?
• Similarly, some of the best information exchange can happen through random interactions (passing in corridors, meeting at the water cooler). Is there an on-line equivalent?
• How can staff gain recognition for their talents where casual interactions and networking opportunities with their colleagues is limited?

EARMA Leadership in Research

A networking event on the EARMA Leadership program for previous participants and interested newcomers

Format: Oral 60 Minutes

Category: Discussion Starter

Topic: Professional Development and Recognition

The EARMA Leadership Program is transgressing into a new level and the purpose of this event is to share and build on the experiences of the previous Leadership in Research workshops.
Participants are invited to contribute to the content and format of the next generation of the EARMA Leadership program, facilitated and supervised by the planning team.
Key points from learning from previous events, and discussions with the EARMA Boards and Standing Committee members will be presented.

Evolution of research impact (30 min presentation)

Format: Oral 60 Minutes

Category: Discussion Starter

Topic: Impact

This presentation will look at research impact from RMA’s point of view: how the concept has been understood previously and where we are now. We will discuss the state-of-the-art impact from the 1990s to 2022 and beyond, how the idea of research impact has evolved from counting publications to the current understanding of science-society relations, and how the creation of impact is nowadays viewed as an interactive process. We will also examine the demands of research funders, for example, how Horizon Europe uses the impact pathway model, and bring up examples of national funders’ requirements. We will look at some of the tools and guides available so far and used by RMAs to help researchers understand their impact and write more enticing funding proposals.

First Impressions and reflections of Horizon EU

Format: Oral 60 Minutes

Category: Interactive Session

Topic: Policy, Strategy, Evaluation and Foresight

Speakers: Dipti Pandya, Stavros Fotiadis, Daniel Spichtinger, Eleonora Zuolo

As the first results of the first rounds of the Horizon Europe land, how do we, as research managers and administrators view its impact within our research and innovation communities?

Have the original aims been served such as simplification and synergies with other EU initiatives?

The EARMA Policy and Representation Committee would like to take this opportunity to fully articulate the EARMA community’s sense and initial impressions of the first calls of Horizon Europe.

GDPR and Protection of Personal Data in Horizon Europe

A Case Study for Research Managers and Administrators

Format: Oral 60 Minutes

Category: Case Study

Topic: Project Management

This live session asks participants to interact with characters from a case study on data protection issues exposed by research partners awarded with a fictional grant. Participants will play the roles of data controller and processor, committed to handle and store personal data for research purposes. Research managers will work together to seek compliance of research activities with GDPR. Within an unconventional frame, we will share our personal experience and discuss best practices.

Go/No-Go assessment for ERC project proposals – preliminary screening tools for RMAs

Format: Oral 60 Minutes

Category: Methodological Session

Topic: Proposal Development

ERC is Europe’s most prestigious research grant, supporting excellent researchers in carrying out ground-breaking, high-risk, high-gain, frontier research projects. As such, the ERC is highly competitive and rather elusive, and as such has a list of unique requirements and “unwritten” rules that should be followed to ensure the proposal is successful and meets the reviewers’ expectations. Due to its high demands and elusive nature, applicants can typically spend weeks and even months solely on the meticulous preparation and execution of this ERC proposal. Since so much time and resources are spent on the proposal preparation phase, it is incredibly important to ensure applicants head out on this path knowing they have all the necessary ERC components, and that their project idea and personal CV is a “strong match” for this ambitious grant.

How Research Management Associations can play an ever so important Role in the New Normal

Format: Oral 60 Minutes

Category: Discussion Starter

Topic: EARMA and professional associations

Shortly after the World Health Organization (WHO) declared a “COVID-19 Pandemic” on March 11, 2020, country after country followed suit declaring a state of emergency. In their efforts to stop the spread of a virus the declaration of emergencies included imposing restrictions on social interaction and closing non-essential businesses. With these declarations, the majority of universities across the world moved their teaching activities and majority of research projects to a virtual environment. The impact of this global shift to virtual operations was unprecedented as researchers, local and international collaborators, funding and governmental agencies, and research administration professional all moved towards a virtual work environment primarily working alone and from home.

Over 18 months after the initial declaration, the world is moving towards what is being called the “new normal”, with continued precautionary restrictions (e.g. vaccination requirements, use of face masks, periodic testing of employees for COVD-19 virus, etc.). One of the major changes in this new normal impacting the employees, especially also research managers and administrators is the move towards alternative work schedules which include a continuation of working remotely or a hybrid work schedule in which employees split their times between working remotely and in their offices. The experiences of the past 18 months have shown that research managers across the globe have continued to provide their research community with the support needed effectively and efficiently and that the new work schedules offer them to balance their needs with those of their jobs.

While a remote or hybrid work environment provides many benefits for both employers (e.g. ability to recruit employees from a wider geographical area or retain the existing workforce) and employees, it also offers some disadvantages for the employees as they become somewhat isolated from their colleagues at work. This is where the important role of Research Management Associations across the globe grows significantly in the “new normal”! Associations have played an important role in bringing the research management and administration communities together and help connecting them; this is the moment where this role becomes critical and where the Associations can become the solid bridge between the membership in exchanging experiences, foster knowledge transfer and reciprocal learning.

In this discussion session we hope to initiate a spark exchange amongst participants on this important topic to identify specific actions that the Associations can take individually, or collectively, to help the research management and administration community to stay connected with each other for the benefit of the researchers whom they serve.

How to improve researcher competencies in policy advice by creating a trainer network across Europe?

Format: Oral 60 Minutes

Category: Case Study

Topic: Impact

This session gives an insight into how both a research policy unit at a university and a training unit at JCR are jointly looking towards increasing researcher competencies in advising and shaping policy.

Informal professional learning in supporting lecturer research development and know-how

The Research Career Wheel in a nutshell

Format: Oral 60 Minutes

Category: Good Practice

Topic: Professional Development and Recognition

We investigated how academic staff move from implicit to explicit professional development, identifying the utilisation of internal and external enablers to support changing from a ‘restricted’ to an ‘extended’ research professional (Evans, 2013). Sampling a cross section of academics and research managers in 15 UK (post 1992 and Russell Group) and 11 Applied Universities a small online survey investigated how increased research quality can be achieved by developing the internal enablers first, helping researchers increase confidence and develop expertise and where internal experienced teacher-researchers mentored and encouraged growth of new researchers. Preliminary results indicate that university driven motivation is a positive and significant predictor of the development of a researcher’s development. Our results also indicate that a lack of institutional reputation has a significant effect on the development of a researcher’s confidence. These key findings are presented in one poster, the ‘Research Career Wheel’– identifying the importance of recognising internal and external ‘enablers’ in academic staff transitioning to research outputs, together with the impact of recognition by formal external bodies accelerating and facilitating the development of internal research policies and development cultures. International accreditations (AACSB, EPAS) and rankings highlight the need for inclusive approaches to developing research capacity of Faculty staff.
Ultimately, Faculty staff that develop into more professional researchers enrich the delivery of their subject matter and the academic curriculum, as well as potentially making novel knowledge contributions to academic fields. The development of scholarly active Faculty staff benefits the Higher Education Institutes (HEIs) and various stakeholders, including students, teachers, corporate partners, academics, practitioners and policy makers, and simultaneously strongly underpins the HEIs Research Policy and Strategy.
Important learning outcomes of the session will be:
- how to use the Research Career Wheel in a workshop format as a researcher development tool;
- discuss what forms of university driven motivation you could use to enhance researchers’ professional journey
- allowing delegates sharing best practices in a Q&A

Open Acces Pilots - changing funders' OA policies and practice in Widening countries

Experiences from implementation of Open Access policies in Poland and Czech Republic with EEA and Norway Grants

Format: Oral 60 Minutes

Category: Good Practice

Topic: Open Science & Responsible Research & Innovation

Researchers alone cannot make Open Access happen, as institutional policies at funding agency level play an important role. In countries with low participation in Horizon, experience with H2020-OA conditions remains limited. Hence, implementation of OA policies by national research funders is an important prerequisite for Open Science in Europe. This session explores the progress made and challenges remaining in introducing Open Access, based on experiences from research programmes supported by EEA and Norway Grants.

Open Science - connecting the dots

Alliances and networks for Open Science

Format: Oral 60 Minutes

Category: Interactive Session

Topic: Open Science & Responsible Research & Innovation

Open Science stakeholders will in this panel discussion present the perspectives for Open Science. What are the internal institutional challenges? How will the changing environment for scientists and academic publishing, review, and recognition processes effect our work and our institutions? How can we contribute to this transition? And who are the new players and agendas in science?
The panel will consist of experts from research institutions, the academic community, and other key actors. The purpose is to provide an overview over the current state of Open Science, and reach out to and engage EARMA members in contributing to the further development of Open Science.

Open(ing) Access

An RMA Inclusive Cabaret

Format: Oral 60 Minutes

Category: Interactive Session

Topic: Organising Support Services & Team Building

Some days I find inclusion work overwhelming, some days I rise to the challenge, some days I feel alone and unsupported. I see the struggles and pain of others and I read the damming statistics on diversity; yet little has changed. Higher Education is not inclusive. Higher Education doesn’t respect and value difference. Through metrics, targets, and precarious employment, Higher Education cajoles us into being and thinking in certain ways. Higher Education is not open.

The increasingly diverse student population and staff base, though, means that this needs to change and Research Management and Administration has an important role to play in ushering in this change and creating a more inclusive and open research culture.

In this immersive, interactive and performative paper, I will queer and unsettle research management through song, dance, and audience participation. Drawing on critical race theory (Collins, 1999), outsider theory (Eburne, 2018), and queer theory (Ahmed, 2006, 2012), I explore how to make research cultures more inclusive (Smith, 2015). Drawing on my own lived experience of research management and inclusion work, this interactive cabaret seeks stimulate thoughts on the place of equality, diversity, and inclusion work within research management and administration.By the end of the session,
participants will have:* Obtained a good understanding of
issues of equality, diversity, and inclusion and how they pertain to research
management.* Considered opportunities to
develop best practice in terms of developing an inclusive team culture.

* Gained confidence in talking and
discussing issues of equality, diversity, and inclusion

Rainbows, unicorns and your super power soft skills workshop

Format: Oral 60 Minutes

Category: Interactive Session

Topic: Professional Development and Recognition

By Edwin Kanters UU University Utrecht and Merel-Marlijn Sondervan UMCU University Medical Center UtrechtResearch administration isn’t all rainbows and unicorns. Not rarely the research administrator ends up in situations where soft skills are essential to make it through the day alive, these skills should be a large proportion of our toolkit. For some they come naturally but they can also be learned. Sometimes you'll find yourself in a situation where you will have to gear up and put on your super power warrior suit to solve an issue. How to know when to transform and what will actually help you? During our session we will address how to recognise what is happening and identify what is needed to proceed from there. Developing your soft skills requires practice but also experience. In the session you meet different archetypes:The micro managing researcherThe teflon researcherThe clueless researcherThe buddy researcherThe old school researcherThe ''God'' researcherIn this workshop we will use our acting skills to show you 3 hairy situations.After every short play we will go into depth and present the theory and soft skills to manage those situations. The following topics will be addressed: conflict handling, posture/attitude, perfectionism/service level and role/responsibility and played with enlarged archetypes.At the end of the session you will have a better understanding of how to influence behaviour by adapting your communication style to the situation.

The role of open science

What are publishers doing to promote responsible research?

Format: Oral 60 Minutes

Category: Practical Initiatives

Topic: Open Science & Responsible Research & Innovation

In May 2021, the UKRI published a report outlining the funders’ role in ensuring a responsible research culture and assessment practices – highlighting the importance of diversity, collaboration, and the need for change in research assessment. The European Commission identified open access as one of the five central themes of responsible research and innovation. But what about the role of the scholarly publisher? Scholarly publishers play a vital role in facilitating open access and open science policy and practice, but open science requires collaboration among all the stakeholders in the scholarly ecosystem.

This presentation will show practical ways in which collaboration between the key stakeholders in the scholarly research system can facilitate the shift to open science, and bring about real change in how we discover, value, and use research – to the benefit of our shared research system and society as a whole.

The transformation of basic research governance in Hungary: implications for research management

Format: Oral 60 Minutes

Category: Case Study

Topic: Policy, Strategy, Evaluation and Foresight

The presentation aims to analyse the interplay between organizational transformation, staff development and regulatory framework in case of the transformation of the research governance of a given country. The focus is on Hungary, where a new actor, the Eötvös Loránd Research Network was established two years ago.

Towards a value-driven research culture

Impact expert – an essential role in a value-driven research culture. Where we want to be in 5 years and what might help us to get there.

Format: Oral 60 Minutes

Category: Interactive Session

Topic: Impact

How are research professionals developing in this evolving culture to meet today’s challenges, and those that lie over the horizon? How are we developing and honing our skills and expertise in order to bring impat to the fore in our day-to-day work? How will this shape our work profiles and responsibilities in the future and what skills will we need to acquire to meet the challenges ahead? Importantly, how will we exchange impact knowledge and expertise that often eminates from a number of sources within our respective institutions?

Together with the participants of this session, we would like to discuss these questions, share our knowledge and finally co-create some storylines that will paint a picture of how the ”impact expert” of the future may look. This is an interactive session, so please come and share, be creative and feel welcome to think outside the box.

Warming up to Excellence in the New Normal

A cross-institutional, cross disciplinary study/presentation of Excellence Grants - from the social and digital sciences areas

Format: Oral 60 Minutes

Category: Interactive Session

Topic: Proposal Development

Three Danish Universities (Copenhagen Business School (CBS), IT University of Copenhagen (ITU) and University of Copenhagen (KU)) will together explain their roadmaps and strategic actions and set ups towards attracting Excellence Grants (ERC, MSCA and other international, regional or national "individual" funding instruments). When it comes to attracting Excellence Grants we do compete against each other. The idea of going together across three Danish universities and develop new methods and tools to improve the way we work with supporting Excellence Grants will benefit us and our audience.

You will learn good practices from each university (a small university (ITU), a middle sized university (CBS) and a large university (KU) and benefit from a cross-disciplinary approach and discussion. Although rather different fields of science across all three universities, we all have a focus on SSH and experience in supporting interdisciplinary excellence projects. This will be the “uniting/common discipline” in the discussions. We will discuss the differences in management involvement including questions such as:

• how supportive are the management of the research support?

• what are the levels of control, levels of trust, and levels of interest from the management in regards to research support staff?

• what kind of structure and environment makes a research supporter thrive and perform?

We will also present and discuss the ways we use internal reviews as a means to improve Excellence Grants.

All three universities do offer internal reviews but with different set-ups. Is one better than the other or will the discussion create a new and better way of support – A New Normal? In the meeting each participant will also contribute to and get a “Word Cloud” of how to approach Excellence Grants when leaving the presentation.

A holistic approach to researcher’s career development

The role of the Office for Coordination and Research Management

Format: Pecha Kucha

Category: Case Study

Topic: Policy, Strategy, Evaluation and Foresight

The Office for Coordination and Research Management promotes researchers career development, facilitating and aligning actions from the different departments, especially Education and Training and Human Resources.
We will present ISGlobal’s holistic approach for researcher’s career development covering the whole track from predoctoral researchers to research professors. We will discuss the training, mentoring, career development activities and periodic research assessments all along the research career track.

COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF THE LEVEL OF PSYCHOLOGICAL WELL-BEING AMONG RF AND RA YOUNG RESEARHERS (PhD students)

Format: Pecha Kucha

Category: Methodological Session

Topic: Professional Development and Recognition

Abstract: The rapid changes, crises, pandemics and wars, that take place in the modern world, introduce new requirements to a person and his/her adaptive resources. All these above-mentioned external factors in the form of separate stressors, and sometimes all together combined, have a complex effect on a person's psychological well-being. We aimed to study the PWB characterisctis among Republic of Armenia (hereinafter, RA) and Russian Federation (hereafter, RF) young researchers.

Collaboration of Research Managers within University Alliances

Format: Pecha Kucha

Category: Good Practice

Topic: Proposal Development

Many of us belong to established university alliances, but haven’t you ever had the feeling that nothing concrete comes out of the collaboration? What is the secret of developing a fruitful long-term strategic collaboration between research managers, which really supports and facilitates your daily work?
At Nordic Five Tech, we found a good recipe for success that we want to share with you in our presentation.

Establishing a cohesive cross-functional RMA team through Covid and beyond

Format: Pecha Kucha

Category: Operational Lessons Learned

Topic: Project Management

RMA in a multi-institutional, multi-disciplinary research centre presents many learning experiences for the RMA profession. How do we ensure compliance with a multitude of institutional and departmental practices and engage effectively to maximise synergy with local RMA support, while ensuring duplication is avoided? How do we ensure effective collaboration across both pre and post-award stages especially when faced with the challenging remote working conditions resulting from Covid? This Pecha Kucha, highlights our attempt to address such questions.Our research centre, the ADAPT Centre, is a nationally funded centre of excellence for Digital Content Technology involving eight Higher Education Institutions across three provinces in Ireland. We support over 300 researchers from numerous disciplines including Computer, Social and Health Sciences. Our RMA team, or Research Development Team (RDT), includes 3 FTE pre and 3 FTE post-award specialists. Our remit spans all activities from call horizon scanning, concept ideation and development to submission, award, project set up, management, reporting and completion, i.e. the full lifecycle. There is no one size fits all or best practice model for providing RMA in this setting and our team has evolved to cater to the needs of our researchers striving to work optimally within our affiliated institutions, through open lines of communication with all stakeholders.Establishing a Cohesive Cross-Functional Team: Pre-Covid, the crossover between the pre and post-award RMA occurred during a monthly meeting. During Covid we pivoted our operations to meet virtually bi-weekly, troubleshoot daily via Slack and prioritise regular strategic planning days. Each team member has past experience working in typical “siloed” RMA roles and this schedule has emphasised the enormous benefits of pre- and post-award experts working together regularly with constant two way knowledge sharing.Feedback on the practicalities of day to day post-award project management continuously expands the knowledge of the pre-award specialists, while content at proposal development stage is reviewed and critiqued by the post-award specialists. Strategic horizon scanning to identify follow-on funding for existing projects in advance of projects ending becomes naturally systematic. Resources and templates for EU project coordination and implementation including project handbooks, intranet structures, reporting requirements, and even essential agenda items etc. can be shared and streamlined across projects and standardised as deliverables at pre-award. ​Seamless project execution from the kick-off is also enabled with continual support and knowledge handover from the pre-award specialists who were involved during writing and submission. Relationships with applicants as well as partner organisations are further strengthened through a consistent channel of support.Operating across multiple institutions: Our modus operandi is to work harmoniously with our partner institutions RMA practices and complement and collaborate with the existing support provided while ensuring compliance with local processes. Communication is crucial with the relevant divisions, Research Offices, Contracts Sections, Heads of Schools, Deans and Directors of Research. We prioritise maintaining knowledge of local procedures and any changes to such. Strong working relationships with our RMA counterparts are invaluable and are core to our RDT’s mission.Learning outcomes of this session are aimed at research managers, both pre and post-award, at any career stage. We hope to provide a comprehensive picture of the benefits we have discovered through Covid of a cross-functional RMA set up.

European Research Strategy

A systematic approach towards Horizon Europe that activates resreachers.

Format: Pecha Kucha

Category: Practical Initiatives

Topic: Policy, Strategy, Evaluation and Foresight

To foster a systematic approach of PIs and resreach groups towards HEU we developed a workshop series with the following purpose: 1) To develop a structured and personalized application plan for PIs, groups and departments for the various HEU programmes and calls for over the coming 4 years. 2) To outline the support need to execute this plan (capacity building, hiring, matchmaking,…) Our target group: were research groups and PIs who wish to develop a structured plan for their funding activities in the first 4 years of Horizon Europe (European Research Strategy); the workshops were open of all PIs.Outcome:1) PIs had an understand the EU funding landscape, know how to plan ahead and have a clear and realistic process to follow for the coming 4 years, including a detailed schedule for the calls for the first 2 years.2) The reserch groups have developed an understanding and plan for:Who are the ERC PIs,Who are the Marie Curie PIs,Who are the global challenge (consortia) PIs,Who are the “close to industry / innovation” PIs in our group?And how do we get there.3) Increased cooperation between research groups Univerisity internally.4) less and more intersting work for the reserach supportIn this Pecha Kucha we present the concept, methodology and first results of the European Research Startegy.

Forming a professional association – REGON Case Study

Format: Pecha Kucha

Category: Case Study

Topic: EARMA and professional associations

Czech Republic, South Moravia, around 2010 - vast investment from the structural funds rapidly improves the research infrastructures of local research centres and attracts many excellent researchers. However, the Regional Innovation Strategy (RIS) recognizes that such investments, in isolation, are not sufficient for sustainable development of research and innovation potential of the whole region. The RIS also highlighted the fact that there is a lack of experience in supporting research projects and in research management in general.
Around the South Moravian Innovation Centre (JIC) as the RIS coordinator has formed a group of experts willing to meet and share best practices, discuss common problems and find solutions to them. A Regional Grant Offices Network (REGON) was created. At the begging of 2020, Masaryk University, the most successful Czech institution in the obtaining the projects from the Framework programmes, took a lead of the group and was about to launch the new chapter of REGON. However, COVID-19 suddenly changed plans – the physical meetings were not possible.
Paradoxically, this helped in the end - online platforms created new forms of communication and opened meetings to the research management community from the whole country. The ability to regularly bring together probably the largest group of RM professionals raised the question of how to take advantage of this movement, concentration of skills, great ideas and common goals and benefit together in the long term. This led us to the idea of establishing a professional association - the Czech Association of Research Managers and Administrators (CZARMA). I will guide you through the REGON journey from a regional meeting of a few international project management enthusiasts to an attempt to create a broad professional platform.

Funder metadata at 10: where are we and where to next? (Pecha Kucha)

Format: Pecha Kucha

Category: Practical Initiatives

Topic: Policy, Strategy, Evaluation and Foresight

Crossref has been working with funders to help tie grants to research outputs. This aims to help more accurate reporting and save time and manual data entry and searching for funders, research offices and researchers themselves. As part of this work, Crossref has been surveying funder members and the wider funder community to investigate what their needs are in terms of supporting their grantees. We’re also collaborating with other infrastructure organizations - ORCID, ROR and DataCite.

We’ll report back on the progress we’ve made in grant registration, grant identifiers and other methods of improving connections between different research objects. Join us for an update, questions and to see what you can do with openly available grant metadata and suggest next steps for us

How can EAIC members and EARMA members can cooperate together

EAIC: promoting the role of Innovation consultants in Europe

Format: Pecha Kucha

Category: Practical Initiatives

Topic: EARMA and professional associations

The purpose of this presentation is to present the recently established EAIC, the European Association of Innovation Consultants to EARMA members and present various collaboration opportunities: project management; conference organisation in common; training; common policy position promotion...
EAIC currently gather 50 companies established in more than 20 Member States, its purpose is to elaborate synergies among consultancy companies in Europe. By joining forces on goals of common interest, the currently fragmented landscape of consultancy companies could enhance the impact of actions at European level. EAIC's missions are:
1. Create synergies between European consulting companies specialized in research and innovation (R&I) financing and management to promote the added value their professional services bring to R&I collaborations in Europe and carry out actions of common interests and benefits for its members. ​
2. Enhance a positive image of European professional innovation consulting companies by ensuring and maintaining high professionalism and ethical values among members.​
3. Represent the EAIC towards European institutions and stakeholders to defend the specific expertise and professionalism of EAIC members and acknowledge the increased project impact they deliver to the European research community. ​
4. Identify common issues and goals of its members and pursue them in a coordinated manner on a national level by contributing to national concertation and enhancing direct dialogues with the different representations of the EU Member States. ​
5. ​Facilitate knowledge sharing on best practices and information between members on latest evolutions in the European R&I ecosystem. ​
6. Foster the participation of the private sector to European R&I programmes for stronger impact and exploitation of results. ​
EAIC and EARMA have a lot of common interest in common!

Intellectual Assets Management (IAM): does it work?

Format: Pecha Kucha

Category: Methodological Session

Topic: Impact

The
learning outcome for the session participants will be a glim to the
methods they could use in capturing, managing, and preparing the strategy for
the intellectual assets’ management and impact. The concept of useful
use is no longer associated only with technological innovations commercialised,
but they also include social, public, inclusive, grassroots and
challenge-driven innovations created in collaboration between academia and
other societal actors. A one-sided focus on patents and intellectual property
can prevent the spread of broader societal benefits, as lock-in knowledge can
slow down the development and dissemination of project results and innovations.
It is essential to capture the Intellectual Assets that research generates and
decide how they will be managed. LTU participated in the project where large
number of universities participated to have a common view on how universities
should manage their intellectual assets https://imp-act.se.
One of the pilots was carried out at LTU.  We had an excellent opportunity
to support researchers to ensure that the intangible assets generated by
project is managed properly. We tested the IAM methods and developed our
research support services in the management of intellectual assets. In this
session the overview of the service package and methods will be presented. 

Lessons learned from switching an intensive MSCA proposal preparation event online due to COVID-19 restrictions

Format: Pecha Kucha

Category: Case Study

Topic: Proposal Development

This Pecha Kucha presentation highlights the experiences of RMAs in Eurac Research with organizing an intensive proposal preparation event for Marie Sklodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Fellowships. We used to hold an in-person event that has moved online due to COVID-19 restrictions in the last two years. In this presentation, we discuss our lessons learned about each of the two formats and highlight our doubts about returning to the in-person events once restrictions ease.

MSCA PF support scheme as a tool for maintaining the sustainability of an established research centre from structural funds

Format: Pecha Kucha

Category: Good Practice

Topic: Proposal Development

Since 2010, there have been almost 50 research centres built in Czechia thanks to the financial support from ERDF/ESF. However, the challenge they face remains: How to secure sustainability without support from structural funds? Moreover, at CATRIN research centre, connected to Palacký University Olomouc, we are not widely involved in teaching activities, and therefore lack the backup of “money for students”, which makes sustainability an even more imminent issue. For that reason, we have to refocus from structural/national grants to more competitive (and excellent) schemes under Horizon Europe. So what kind of grant strategy and measures should we take to achieve further development of our research activities and their sustainable growth? In case of CATRIN, we particularly focus on ERC, WIDERA and EIC grants that are already being implemented, but also on measures leading to a more extensive involvement in Pillar II, as well as MSCA.It is specifically our MSCA experience that shows how developed support schemes for Marie Curie Postdoctoral Fellowship applicants can be developed on lower level at Universities and other research institutions. On the case of Sinophone Borderlands research centre (a part of Faculty of Arts, Palacký University Olomouc) we will show how , over the last three years this support scheme has had a very concrete impact on the amount of submitted proposals and the success rate. We will present tools useful especially for widening countries as well as the how to attract early stage researchers. On the basis of surveys between MSCA applicants, we will present what level of support is expected from their perspective. Additionally, various tips for motivating potential supervisors will be discussed. The core of the presented functional support MSCA-PF mechanism consists of a three-month course (1 hour/per week) – 30-minute presentations by the project manager, 30-minute discussion between applicants, MS Teams support platform (as an information hub with general as well as private channels), 2 MSCA hackathons (intensive writing weeks when consultants on different topics are available all day – ethics, dissemination, open science, gender etc.), Show & Tell Day (opening the proposal to other applicants and their supervisors), Internal peer-review process (comments from three experts), and individual consultations. Advantages and disadvantages of this approach will be shown in concrete examples. The engagement of previous success holders is necessary.A more intensive communication, collaboration and integration of effective MSCA preparation approaches and teams across other motivated Czech institution is our next goal for the near future. To pilot a novel mode of co-creation/co-designing and a common implementation of training programmes for both MSCA-PF candidates and MSCA research support staff, we started an intensive collaboration with a MSCA team from Masaryk University In January 2022.Our ambition for 2023 is to share the resulting experience and training programmes with a wider Czech research support staff community. Within the framework of the recently established CZARMA, we will organise a series of facilitated meetings and establish specific working groups to support preparation of MSCA schemes, but also to generally strengthen MSCA relevant knowledge, including post-award practice. Integrated efforts of such a significant community can be beneficial for a wider international community, too, and have potential to get/raise our collaborative capabilities and competences, as research support professionals, to a next level.

Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions and Erasmus+: how enhance synergies

How enhance synergies among education, research and innovation on the two programmes MSCA and Erasmus+

Format: Pecha Kucha

Category: Discussion Starter

Topic: Proposal Development

Here we look possible synergies/complementarities between actions targeting higher education: MSCA under Horizon Europe and Erasmus+. Both schemes offer opportunities for mobility, training, career development and staff exchange. They have a strong international dimension beyond the EU and contribute strengthening Europe’s attractiveness. However, university staff often work in silos, and those dealing with the MSCA might not be aware of Erasmus+, and vice versa. This Pecha Kucha highlight successful synergies between these programmes promoting the joint participation.

Promote Your Research

UCD’s new website to help researchers increase the visibility of their work

Format: Pecha Kucha

Category: Practical Initiatives

Topic: Impact

Millions of research outputs are published every year. Unfortunately, this means a lot of excellent research gets lost in a sea of publications, prototypes, creative works, and datasets. But there are steps that researchers can take to make their research stand out. UCD’s new “Promote Your Research” website gives advice on how to increase the visibility of outputs, making it more likely that people will discover, use, and cite them. As well as increasing citations, the website helps researchers to build their profile, find future collaborators, and connect with those who stand to benefit from their work (giving it a better chance of having a positive impact on society).It includes tips on how to prepare for publication, how to identify your audience, how to develop your message, how to promote research using social media platforms, how to create multimedia resources, how to reach wider audiences, and how to monitor where outputs are being picked up and used.  In this session, David Bennett, UCD’s Research Impact Officer, will introduce UCD’s new website. He will discuss why UCD felt the need to make it and how they pulled it together, and he will describe the various tools and resources it contains.

Research Support Professionals and Lifelong Learning

The core activities of the Professional Development and Recognition Committee (PDRC) of EARMA

Format: Pecha Kucha

Category: Technical Report

Topic: Professional Development and Recognition

The aim of this session is to present the core activities of the Professional Development and Recognition Committee (PDRC) of EARMA. The scope of PDRC is for EARMA to provide a comprehensive and relevant professional training program for our community members, also available for non-members. Considering that professional research managers and administrators (RMAs) worldwide are facing the transition to the “new normal”, we seek a wider understanding of emerging RMA training needs in order to provide input for high quality training.In this session we will present the results of a survey launched in 2021 on training initiatives and needs of RMAs in Europe and beyond. The survey originates from the mapping of existing training initiatives of RMAs associations worldwide, carried out by an Italian RMAs working group in 2020, that pointed out how different is the approach to training in each country. However, data on training at national level are hardly available worldwide, thus hampering studies on common training needs among RMAs in Europe. The survey aims to provide a general overvie of existing training courses for RMAs at national level and to identify relevant topics, emerging skills and preferred training tools, according to RMAs needs. Other surveys on this topic have been considered and the consistence with the RAAAP survey has been investigated.To complement the results of the survey we present the current EARMA training program and how the PDRC works to develop a comprehensive multilevel program where members at all stages can engage and undertake different tasks, as for instance trainers, assessors and mentors. We welcome all input, experience and suggestions from the audience in the discussion following our presentation.

The looking-glass world of grant proposals

How to write a grant with zero chance of being funded

Format: Pecha Kucha

Category: Methodological Session

Topic: Proposal Development

All research proposals are not well-written, and many RMA’s put substantial effort into improving the quality of proposals, a sometimes-frustrating task. But what if you had to write a proposal that you did *not* want to be funded? Could a project be made unfundable just by writing a proposal that excels in being atrocious? What lessons may be learned from such an exercise?

With service design to user-driven impact service

Format: Pecha Kucha

Category: Practical Initiatives

Topic: Organising Support Services & Team Building

The significance of impact generated through research has been increasingly emphasized by both academia and society in Finland and globally. Researchers from all scientific fields are held accountable for the footprint their endeavors leave within and outside academia. Strategy of the University of Eastern Finland (UEF) highlights that impact constitutes an integral part of the UEF activities. Open operational culture enhances interaction, thus boosting knowledge transfer, commercialization of research findings and their extensive and collaborative use within the society.In terms of research projects, enabling impact creation denotes that each project phase calls for a careful planning. Optimally it is implemented through a collaborative effort uniting researchers and their projects’ vital stakeholders. Such approach requires user-driven services helping researchers to plan, engage for and evidence any impact they will generate via their research.At the UEF research impact service will be created using service design with the goal of understanding and identifying user needs and improving the user service experience. Design thinking refers to the utilization of design methods in problem solving. It involves a solution-focused and participatory modes. Our ultimate objective is to provide a comprehensive, approachable, informative, specific and verifiable service platform, where the help is only one mouse click away.In practice, this means that the needs of researchers are not assumed. Instead, we – research services personnel - start working with them to find out the bottlenecks related to the impact planning, implementation, verification and mainstreaming. We aim to find out at the grassroots level through interviews which existing UEF services are effective and what is still missing in order to create researcher-centered service paths for all disciplines.“Customer journey”- as it is called in the professional jargon - is a visual description of the service progress from the customer's (researcher’s) perspective. It illustrates the interaction between the service user and the service provider. The thematic sections of the impact service will be embracing, among others, definitions of impact, impact planning tools, toolkit for scientific impact as well as for interaction, dissemination, IPR issues, impact indicators etc.The customer journey design constitutes a concrete development task and will involve cooperation of all units providing impact services at the UEF. It stretches beyond pre-award and post-award research services, including communication services, entrepreneurship and innovation services, as well as library and even legal department.The research impact service platform is still in the conceptualization phase and will be tested with the researchers. It will be made available in May 2022 via UEF user interface website. The process will serve as a prelude to the implementation of two goals mentioned in the UEF 2030 strategy – to foster the impact generated by the university activities and make service design thinking an integral part of all university activities.

Adapting to the new policies – turning IBEC into a fully open institute

Format: Poster

Category: Good Practice

Topic: Open Science & Responsible Research & Innovation

Open science is a policy priority for the European Commission and the standard method of working under its research and innovation funding programmes.
As open science is one of the strategic areas of the Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia (IBEC), the Strategic Initiatives unit at IBEC, in charge of the overall institutional positioning strategy of IBEC, has adapted its structure to foster our work on this field.

Automatic Thesis Agreement Generator Tool for Supporting Fresh Researchers

Format: Poster

Category: Practical Initiatives

Topic: Open Science & Responsible Research & Innovation

As the operating environment of universities of applied sciences becomes increasingly complex, it is useful to adopt holistic approaches to students’ thesis work. As potential future researchers, their thesis work emerges as one of the focal points of many issues contributing to this added complexity. These issues include rapidly developing data protection regulations and methods, varied business cooperation, the open science paradigm shift, increasing awareness of ethical and IPR issues as well as the diversification of education due to multimodal learning environments and e-learning methodologies.To overcome these accumulating challenges, Turku University of Applied Sciences is in the process of adopting a new self-developed tool for all students and their thesis supervisors. The background juridical material for the tool has been created in the “Open RDI, learning, and the innovation ecosystem of Finnish UAS” project co-funded by the Finnish Ministry of Education and Culture. Thus far, the tool has piloted by a total of 25 thesis supervisors.

Data Management Plans from A to Z (and Ø)

Practical advice on starting and updating your project's DMP

Format: Poster

Category: Methodological Session

Topic: Open Science & Responsible Research & Innovation

If you know what a data management plan is, but not sure how to get started creating one or even what sections are needed, then come to this session. Several key elements are defined and explained, with references and tips to help guide even the newest manager to feel confident when approaching the first draft of a data management plan. Designed for those who need help getting started and progressing through a DMP.

Developing Support for Clinical and Health Researchers

Format: Poster

Category: Case Study

Topic: Proposal Development

The College of Medicine and Health (CoMH) in University College cork, Ireland, spans 6 schools and is the academic hub for 11 hospitals. In 2019, a Research Support Officer role was created, and a clinician was appointed as the Vice Dean of Research and Innovation – normally an academic appointment. This is our story so far – on how we are developing research and research support strategies for both our academic and clinical researchers, including those who wish to become research active. While the college is affiliated with a number of hospitals in the region, many researchers based at those hospitals do not receive/seek out university/college-level support for their research efforts. Aside from 2 large research centres, there has been little collaboration between the college and the hospitals. The hospitals are often considered as separate entities to the college, and many academic researchers are unaware of the research efforts within the hospitals (and vice versa), despite studies being similar with potential for collaboration. The reasons for such disconnect are many, and historical.Since 2019, we have been developing a mechanism to provide research support across the college and our affiliated hospitals. Our aims include increasing awareness of the local research supports available, increasing local academic-clinical collaborations, helping researchers navigate the funding landscape and map out a career path, and ultimately, to increase the research outputs and impact of the college. Here, we present some of the challenges we have met and continue to meet, some of our efforts and achievements to date, and what we hope to achieve in the future.

Development of a national standard research classification system in Ireland

Format: Poster

Category: Case Study

Topic: Policy, Strategy, Evaluation and Foresight

This project is developing a national standard research classification system in Ireland. It is being designed for the primary purpose of the categorisation of all exchequer-funded research in the Republic of Ireland, but will have the potential to be used more broadly in categorising all research being undertaken nationally. The classification will be inclusive of all research performing sectors in Ireland. It will contribute to the development of evidence-based policy and contribute to the discussion of the impact of research funding.

EEA BALTIC RESEARCH PROGRAMME -

A unique opportunity to promote regional cooperation between scientists, research institutions, national policy makers and policy implementers

Format: Poster

Category: Operational Lessons Learned

Topic: International

MAIN GOAL: Enhance research performance of the Baltic States at the international level and increase cooperation between the Baltic and EEA regions. 
CURRENT STATUS: 28 high-level projects with a total budget of € 23 million will be implemented through international cooperation by April 2024.  RMAs in each of the Baltic countries manage the implementation of projects funded through their calls for proposals. 
WHAT MAKES OUR PROGRAMME UNIQUE?• It addresses common challenges of the Baltic region by promoting closer cooperation between the Baltics and facilitating cooperation with donor countries. • It is a significant incentive for researchers to gain new experience in leading large-scale international projects, as well as to expand collaboration and achieve new scientific results. • Researchers from all participating countries had the opportunity to network before preparing project applications. • 1 programme, but 3 open calls, launched by each of the Baltic States, which offers a unique opportunity to RMAs to work together. • One strategic decision-making body - a joint programme committee consisting of experts from Norway, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania. WHAT DO WE LOVE IN OUR PROGRAMME? • The atmosphere of communication and collaboration between colleagues in the partner countries is inspiring. • The programme community could be portrayed as a friendly and helpful multicultural family. • Regular exchange of information, knowledge and experience and capacity building of those involved in project implementation and monitoring. • It is a great opportunity to support creative and diverse project teams that develop new research directions and promote international collaboration and the growth of researchers. LESSONS LEARNT Challenge 1: Different practices and implementation provisions • The knowledge and experience gained in solving challenges related to different approaches and regulatory frameworks to create a programme on equal terms in all three Baltic States. • Consultations of research institutions on calls organized by other countries and their requirements, as well as advising PPs during the implementation phase. • Establishing of institutional framework of each country for the implementation of the programme.  Challenge 2: Timely opening of the call for proposals • Time pressure to launch a call to allow for a more flexible time frame for project implementation. • No one can start preparing a programme too early. • Harmonization of documents is always more time consuming than one can expect. • Diversity of choices and solutions for IT systems used in different application and implementation phases. • Effective cooperation between other RMAs in participating countries is crucial.  Challenge 3: Organizing international events and remotely if needed  • Despite long experience in organizing information events, it has still been possible to acquire new skills (eg organising a matchmaking event for more than 200 participants from different countries). • The pandemic situation has led to organising the remote events and meetings, together with a challenge to make them as effective as the real ones. It has been possible only thanks to a motivated team. • Different implementation phases as well as planning of joint activities create a constant need for close collaboration between RMAs. Regular meetings are vital to discuss current issues, share best practices and learn from each other's experiences.

From Need Identification to Impactful Projects – Co-Creative Process to Support Project Idea and Proposal Preparation

Format: Poster

Category: Good Practice

Topic: Impact

World’s multidimensional global challenges need to be addressed using all intertwined potential of science and research, innovation, business, public sector and civil society. Identification of the large-scale challenges and more specific needs at local level is a joint effort. Utilisation of foresight information is of utmost importance in finding the pathways towards sustainable and inclusive solutions and impact for societies.

To capitalise the value of impact, it’s essential to ensure that impact is considered as the starting point for project ideation process. The link between project portfolio and institutional strategy needs to be strengthened, as strategy defines the pathway towards desired impact On the other hand, it also constitutes the main tool to prioritise operative actions during times of scarce resources.

Tampere University of Applied Sciences (TAMK) implements the project idea process and platform (EARMA Conference 2021). New elements include incorporation of a pre-ideation phase and clarification of impact targets of project ideas. Yet, the main aim remains to be to secure the alignment of externally funded project portfolio with the institution strategy. The objective of the new elements is to increase the number of new, more mature project ideas, to improve the quality of early-stage idea expert support, and to guarantee an open, collaborative platform for staff members for cross-disciplinary project idea maturation.

In the new phase regarding raw project ideas, idea description can still be short and unorganised. The online platform is accessible for all staff members offering the opportunity for collaborative and cross-disciplinary reflection among peers and early support from RDI experts. There is a direct channel to the second phase where the project idea is elaborated in more detail. The main project objectives must be described, and a financial plan defined. Alignment with institution’s strategy is ensured, and targeted impacts have to be described. The process also requires reflecting the idea against the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

In the transparent decision-making process, the Vice President and Head of External Funding give either approval to proceed with the application preparation with necessary resources, or the idea is returned with constructive feedback.

The coverage of project idea management with one process and platform supported by RDI specialists effectively supports TAMK’s strategic, managerial, financial and quality processes and facilitates impact creation. Systematic supportive approach from project idea need identification to early-stage impact consideration has ensured that TAMK’s project portfolio has grown both in number and in quality. Process also strengthens joint institutional values such as co-creation, transparency, equality, cross-disciplinarity and openness. TAMK is more ready to identify and tackle multidimensional local and global challenges with the collaboration of relevant actors to achieve impactful solutions.

The strategic idea process has been implemented in TAMK since 2014. Besides the successes, there still are obvious places for improvement. These include the growing demand for continuous competence development of RDI support experts and research managers in areas such as impact thinking, early-stage idea facilitation, forecasting capabilities, and knowledge of various funding schemes and the policy frameworks behind them.

Global Collaboration: The Bitter, Sweet & Keys to Success

International research collaboration challenges, pandemic effects and implications for research support strategies

Format: Poster

Category: Interactive Session

Topic: International

The session reveals the results, findings and implications of a collaborative international researcher survey conducted jointly in UK and Malaysia. The session will highlight the main international collaboration drivers, the challenges faced across the project lifecycle and the effects and impact of the pandemic on international collaboration, all from the perspective of a cohort of researchers at different levels of experience in the UK and Malaysia.  The role of research support services is featured and ideas and suggestions shared indicating how research support service practitioners could enhance contributions to their institution's strategy for international research collaboration. 

How I Became a Research Manager and Administrator (HIBARMA)

The third iteration of the international Research Administration as a Profession (RAAAP-3) survey focuses on how people came into the profession

Format: Poster

Category: Practical Initiatives

Topic: Professional Development and Recognition

You knew from the time you were a child you wanted to become a research manager and administrator when you grew up, right? No one in the history of ever has probably uttered those words. Everyone is different and seems to fall into or meander into the profession along different paths. Unfortunately, there is no degree course to get you into the profession - it is not something that is (yet) on the horizon of most undergraduates. The entry into the world of research management and administration is still uncharted territory, so how do we end up here, in “The best job of all”? This is the question we aim to answer with the 3rd iteration of the Research Administration as a Profession (RAAAP) survey, to be launched in early 2022.Previous surveys (including previous iterations of RAAAP) have provided some information about routes into the profession and recent initiatives for collecting testimonials and personal stories are in place (eg. SRAI call for participation) have added some colour. Our poster will summarise some of these findings and initiatives, and call on the RMA community to actively participate in them.With easy QR Code access, visitors will be called to fill in the RAAAP survey with their data, but also will be able to record and write their personal stories about “How they became RMAs”. The data collected during the EARMA Conference will be part of the overall RAAAP-3 data collection exercise and later anonymised and disseminated to the whole community. There will also be an opportunity to leave details for possible follow-up interviews.In this burgeoning profession, learning more about the pathways leading into our particular craft can help inform future curriculum developers, policymakers, institutional administrators, and indeed those trying to find the right profession for themselves. It will also be interesting to look at the geographical contexts in getting to the profession and to suggest target actions, relative to each context.

Implementation of European Charter for Researchers by Estonian research institutions

Format: Poster

Category: Case Study

Topic: Policy, Strategy, Evaluation and Foresight

The European Commission ‘Human Resource Strategy for Researchers’ supports research institutions and funding organizations in the implementation of the Charter & Code in their policies and practices. The aim of the study carried out in 2021 was to analyse the implementation of the Charter & Code principles by research institutions in Estonia, also if and how the implementation is supporting the goals of the national Research and Innovation Strategy. 10 institutions in Estonia took part of the study. The outcome of the project were recommendations to the R&D institutions and policymakers.
The poster gives a comparative overview of the outcome.

Insights from a pilot multi-phase study to increase researchers' engagement in the Italian scientific research and treatment institutes (IRCCS)

Format: Poster

Category: Case Study

Topic: Research information systems (CRIS)

Research engagement is the interaction between researchers and research end-users and/or partners. Decision-makers and scientists have paid little attention to define strategies for increasing research engagement in Countries of Southern Europe, such as Italy.In Italy, research activities in healthcare are mainly performed by the Scientific Research and Treatment Institutes (named as IRCCS from the Italian acronym of these organisations). IRCCS hospitals represent the excellence of the Italian research and healthcare system with high standards of health research and staff training. Regardless of their public or private nature or their affiliations with local Universities, IRCCS hospitals receive economic and practical recognitions only by the Italian Ministry of Health. Currently, 51 hospitals obtained recognition as IRCCS hospitals in Italy, of which 21 are public and 30 private.In this context, the General Directorate for Research and Innovation in Healthcare of the Italian Ministry of Health started to organise periodical round tables to map the activities and the specific needs of Senior Researchers and Junior Researchers within the network of IRCCS hospitals. The need to determine a strategy for enhancing the engagement of researchers was the rationale underpinning the round tables. Moreover, following the European strategies and recommendations, the Scientific Departments of IRCCS hospitals and the Grant Offices (GO) also promoted initiatives to sustain research engagement in order to improve the strategic support of researchers in the design management and in the implementation of research activities.This pilot and multi-phase study aimed at developing and initially validating a brief questionnaire to explore research engagement, providing an initial mono-centric description of the research engagement's levels, preliminary identifying clusters of researchers' engagement and identifying an initial theory-grounded framework for guiding future research endeavours in the field of research engagement in Italy. The developed questionnaire measured "Project-oriented engagement" and "Organisation-oriented engagement". Fifty researchers were enrolled. Among responders, two main clusters were identified: one with a trend of higher project-oriented engagement (characterised by a higher number of senior researchers), the other one with a slightly higher organisation-oriented engagement. A two-level framework was hypothesised to study the research engagement in future research, considering the theoretical interconnection between the individual-level engagement, its consequences and its organisational characteristics. Further research is required to provide an in-depth description of research engagement and its antecedents and outcomes.

Lockdown as a catalyst for researcher engagement

Reimagining effective strategies

Format: Poster

Category: Good Practice

Topic: Proposal Development

In this poster the ADAPT Research Development team (RDT) reflects on how researcher engagement was re-imagined throughout the Covid lockdowns. We invite you to share your ideas on novel hybrid/blended solutions of providing RMA. What worked well for your institutions during these times? What didn’t? With the re-emergence from lockdowns will it all be online from now on? This session will explore strategies used, and how to retain best practices in our post-Covid world? Since the emergence of Covid and the move to working from home the multi-institutional ADAPT RDT (which includes eight Higher Education Institutions spread across three provinces in Ireland with over 300 researchers from numerous disciplines) instigated a number of tools and techniques to assist with effective researcher engagement in remote working environments. Traditionally pre-Covid, a significant amount of the team’s engagement with researchers was via formal pre-organised and informal in-person meetings, as well as open door drop-ins in the office, resulting in strengthened relationships and engagement. In our Research Centre, this is particularly pertinent with the RDT working side-by-side with academics, postdocs and PhD students all sharing the same space. With the forced move to work off-site, these interactions were lost. To begin addressing this void during Covid, the team implemented several new processes to connect in a novel way with researchers. Tailored virtual call information sessions were scheduled, after exercises to map activities for specific calls. Virtual writing sprints, proposal intelligence workshops, recorded training sessions, feedback loop/s for draft material and portal guidance were all incorporated into our practices. These virtual processes were promoted through various channels, from mailing lists, collaborations with both Education and Public Engagement, Marketing and Communications colleagues within the Centre, to directly through PI’s leading groups across the Centre. In addition, the RDT became increasingly aware of the importance of researcher well-being at this time. This was emphasized by the results of several questionnaires circulated to research staff via Centre management and observed in our day-to-day internal interactions. The focus on researcher well-being led to a softer engagement strategy; not only call/opportunity based but in the form of light touch weekly “drop-in” coffee sessions, focussed on free discussion, as well as one-to-one follow-up sessions when and where necessary. The well-being of the members of the RDT was also brought into focus with bi-weekly check-in sessions scheduled, as informal catch-ups with emphasis on team welfare. Learning outcomes: The researcher-managed process sessions have generated strong interest, been well attended and submission numbers in those calls have remained steady and in some cases increased throughout the pandemic period. The “drop-in” coffee sessions have led to a number of fruitful discussions between researchers, in particular some collaborative transdisciplinary research opportunities have stemmed from these weekly interactions, as well as building and sustaining relationships during difficult times. This session is aimed at pre-award research managers in any stage of their career (beginner to expert). The focus is to share ideas on novel blended solutions of providing RMA and retaining best practices on a return to office settings.

REDCap a CTMS management solution for Italian Research Hospitals – IRCCS: simplifying the management of research teams

Format: Poster

Category: Practical Initiatives

Topic: Policy, Strategy, Evaluation and Foresight

“IRCCS” - Ricovero e Cura a Carattere Scientifico - are (private or public) Italian Research Hospitals with excellence qualification partially funded by Italian Ministry of Health (MOH) and in some cases affiliated with public universities.
IRCCS research teams handle projects funded by MOH, pharmaceutical companies and private and/or public research grants. Research Administrators need different types of competences to manage this complex reality and to control the progress of milestones and deliverables of the projects.
Researchers and Scientific Directorate work together to achieve strategic goals, to attract increasingly competitively sought after funding, to engage with audiences within the hospital, and juggling the many administrative requests in between all this. In this scenario, we think it is certainly worth to contrive tailored tools for research management and administration.
REDCap (Research Electronic Data Capture) is a secure, web-based software platform designed to support data capture for research studies, providing:
1. an intuitive interface for validated data capture;
2. audit trails for tracking data manipulation and export procedures;
3. automated export procedures for seamless data downloads to common statistical packages;
4. procedures for data integration and interoperability with external sources
5. fast and flexible production-level database based on requirement
6. sharing of data between different roles in clinical research
Scientific Directorate of IRCCS Policlinico San Donato (PSD), in 2018 decided to use REDCap for eCRF, patient recruiting, patient monitoring, document management but also for investigator research management with national and international projects registry, clinical trials registry and Scientific Library registry.. These registries included technical specific aspects of research area.
Each Team Leader of a Clinical Unit can control online and update his research activities by REDCap, which is organised and managed by the Research Administration. In three years, the Scientific Directorate organized with REDCap the annually reports of 482 trials, 106 MOH and other funded projects and archived characteristics of 1482 scientific papers. The Trial registry includes information about type of study, Ethical committee approval, insurance policy and ongoing update during enrolment. Grant office database contains for each project the type of funding and deadlines, MOH classification, background, aims and annual results. Scientific Library manager updates for physicians every 3 months all papers printed and researchs could classify the property of each publication. PSD Scientific Direction.
Finally PSD use REDCap for institutional survey for education activities.
Based on the first three years, we are implemented this scientific tool as institutional CTMS aspects and important connection way between researchers and administrators.

Research management experiences and needs of researchers in India

Format: Poster

Category: Operational Lessons Learned

Topic: Organising Support Services & Team Building

The scope of public health research is growing in India, creating the need for effective and efficient pre and post grant management systems in research organizations. The growing demand for grant management services is justified considering the responsibility toward funding agencies and other stakeholders. The key to efficient implementation of research projects is a dedicated research office with skilled personnel and efficient systems. Under the India Research Management Initiative (IRMI) Fellowship, an online survey and qualitative interviews were conducted to understand the research management experiences and needs of researchers in India. This survey was conducted to facilitate the setting up of central research office within local research organizations and to build capacity of researchers and support in pre and post award processes. Currently, management of research grants at local organizations in India is entirely dependent on the Principal Investigator (and his/her team). While it is essential for research teams to possess relevant research management skills, in the long term, it creates significant burden on individuals who can be distracted from focusing on the research priorities and goals of the funded projects. Also, although the research teams comprise of qualified clinical/research staff, most do not have grant management training. A good research management practices that are implemented by a project or research group do not systematically get scaled up across the organisation.
India’s growing research portfolio necessitates the development of a bespoke research office catering to the grant management needs across the organisation. A well established research office in an organization will provide strong centralized leadership through personnel with a high level of administrative and financial acumen, and with relevant experience of dealing with research funding. We particularly need to (1) develop and strengthen specialist knowledge and experience of research management (none of our current centralised staff have research management-related training), and (2) expand the numbers of staff to manage the increasingly large organisational workload, and train these staff in basic research management practices.

The online survey was initiated to understand the needs and existing support systems for researchers in India and qualitative interviews were conducted to get insight into the findings from the survey.

The research management survey is aim further to examine the strengths and gaps in the research ecosystem in India. We particularly need to:
(1) Develop and strengthen specialist knowledge and experience of research management in India.
(2) Build capacity of young researchers to respond to growing need for efficient and effective grant management.
The survey and qualitative interview findings will be used to
1. Develop Standard operating procedure (SOP) and policies to guide research organizations locally in the Indian research ecosystem.
2. Develop a report to highlight gaps and opportunities.

Story of the KAPPA Programme

How it started and how it's going - a story of Czech newbies setting up a schema of European format, that despite all challenges became a resistant and unique programme at the TA CR.

Format: Poster

Category: Good Practice

Topic: International

The poster shows the timeline of the KAPPA funding programme for applied research financed by the EEA and Norway Grants, with some interesting numbers reached since its launch. The programme is aimed at supporting international cooperation between Czechia and Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein, which makes it a unique programme in many ways. Some of the challenges and newly adopted practices inspired by the European programmes are displayed.

THE ISGLOBAL PROJECTS UNIT: AN INTEGRATED APPROACH OF SCIENCE COORDINATION AND ADMINISTRATION

How to align science and management after the merge of three institutions

Format: Poster

Category: Good Practice

Topic: Organising Support Services & Team Building

The Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal) mission is to improve global health and promote health equity. ISGlobal approach is multidisciplinary, ranging from the molecular to the population level and including disciplines across health sciences, life sciences, environmental, social and climate sciences. It is the result of a large integration process of three previously existing research and translation centers of excellence (CRESIB, CREAL and ISGlobal) which was completed in 2016.Regarding the research and scientific coordination, and the grants management, the previous projects offices of CREAL and CRESIB went through an integration process, involving 1) an analysis of the structures, processes and resources at that time, 2) an analysis of the internal satisfaction surveys, and 3) and a benchmarking analysis, including several national and international institutes. As a result of this process, an integrated approach was proposed: the ISGLOBAL PROJECTS UNIT. The Terms of Reference of the Projects Unit were approved by the Direction Committee in December 2016, as a hierarchically dependent structure both from the Scientific Director and from the General Manager, guaranteeing that science and administration are completely aligned.The Projects Unit includes two offices: 1) the Office for Coordination and Research Management; in charge of scientific and strategy coordination, development and implementation of institutional and scientific internal policies, research integrity and ethics, and quality; and 2) the Grants Office, which provides personalized and anticipatory support to identify and successfully approach the more relevant funders and funding opportunities, and supports researchers and other teams in the preparation and submission of proposals and the follow up of awarded project and fellowships. The key members of the Unit meet weekly to coordinate, plan and review the main activities at the Projects Unit Coordination Committee.The Unit works closely with i) the HHRR area to support the development of the HRS4R accreditation logo and implement procedures that reinforce internationalization, career development, promote gender equality and foster social responsiveness; ii) the ISGlobal teams to prepare grants submissions including costing, management and ethical issues and to provide support to sponsored projects including contracting, financial reports and audits. Since its approval, the Projects Unit has been positively evaluated by the Direction Committee (July 2019) and has received competitive funds (~0.5M€) to deploy its strategy during the period 2019-2023, especially the preparation for the new EU framework programme, Horizon Europe.Thanks to the unique expertise of each office, the Projects Unit provides high-value management support to researchers and becomes a key element within the institutional strategy to promote its international leadership.

Take the customer journey

Pre-award support for EU funding in the new normal

Format: Poster

Category: Discussion Starter

Topic: Proposal Development

We present service design methodology as a practical tool for developing user-friendly EU funding pre-award support services in small research organizations. Growing competition for research funding has increased the need to design efficient pre-award support services to provide targeted services to enhance researchers’ fund-raising continuum of their research career in the new normal. We discuss how implementation of research management can benefit from service design and what new challenges entering the new normal brings to the support services and how they could be solved.

The History of EARMA

Format: Poster

Category: Technical Report

Topic: EARMA and professional associations

EARMA represents the community of Research Managers and Administrators (RM&As) in Europe. As such, its history is also the history of the RMAs in Europe and the dedicated individuals engaged in making it a true collaborative and European professional community.
We look back on the first 25 years of EARMA, and will showcase its most relevant milestones, the drivers behind them and the dedicated people that put their heart and soul into bringing EARMA to the enrich and vibrant community that is currently.
Information will be collected from the existing documentation (such as the annual reports, meeting minutes and newsletters) and by interviewing past EARMA Board members and other key actors involved during the years.

The Impact Workshop- Success Story on Collaboration of Research Funding and Innovation Advisors

Format: Poster

Category: Good Practice

Topic: Impact

We began the development of The Impact workshop 2013. The starting point was that funding organisations expect research projects to have an impact that is not just innovation development, but a wider concept where the results of projects are exploited by society at large. To meet this need an “Impact Clinic” was developed as a collaborative effort of research funding and innovation advisors at the University of Jyväskylä. In the presentation, we explore the development phases of the workshop from an open event to a tailored workshop offered to support the design of individual projects.