ACADEMIC COUNCIL

RESEARCH AND ENTERPRISE COMMITTEE

Minutes for the third meeting of the Research & Enterprise Committee in the 2011/12 Academic Session, held on Wednesday 15th February 2012, 2.15pm, B028, Medway campus

PRESENT:

Prof T Barnes / Chair
Prof A Reed / Vice-Chair and Director of Postgraduate Research (PGR)
Ms T Banton / Research Support Manager (GRE)
Prof A Benati / Director of Research & Enterprise (HSS)
Mrs W Curran / Finance Manager (Finance)
Dr M Davies / Director of Research & Enterprise (GRE)
Prof D Isaac / Director of Research & Enterprise (A&C)
Prof E Galea
Miss S Griffiths / Director of Research (CMS)
Repository Administrator (ILS)
Dr J Jameson / Director of Enterprise (EDU)
Prof Andrew Lambirth / Director of Research (EDU)
Prof J Orchard / Director of Research (NRI)
Prof S Thomas / Director of Research (BUS)
Dr S Woodhead / Director of Research & Enterprise (ENG)
Dr D Wray / Director of Enterprise (SCI)

1. APOLOGIES FOR ABSENCE

Prof C Birch / Director of Enterprise (BUS)
Prof C Bellamy / Director of Research & Enterprise (GMI)
Prof C Bailey / Director of Enterprise (CMS)
Prof S Golding / Research Ethics Chair (HSS)
Prof P Maras / ECR Director (HSC)
Ms C Nyandoro-Kunzvi / Secretary (GRE)
Prof J Morton / Director of Enterprise (NRI)
Mr J Wallace / Administrative Secretary (Vice Chancellors Office)
Prof E West / Director of Research & Enterprise (HSC)
Prof S Wicks / Director of Research (SCI)


2. ITEMS FROM THE CHAIR

2.1 The Chair welcomed Miss Sarah Griffiths, Repository Administrator from Information Services.

3. MINUTES OF THE FIRST MEETING OF THE RESEARCH AND ENTERPRISE COMMITTEE HELD IN 2010/12 ON THE 14th DECEMBER 2011.

The minutes of the Research and Enterprise Committee held on 14th December 2011 were agreed by the Committee as a true and accurate record of the last meeting.

4. MATTERS ARISING FROM THE MINUTES

5.1 The Finance Manager confirmed the submission of late invoices had reduced during the last month.

5.2 The Research Support Manager confirmed that the submission of Form 1 and 2 was increasing with new staff members keen to submit, however it was a little difficult to gauge whether there were any outstanding completions, as a proportion of submitted bids remained unknown until receipt of the Form 1. The Chair urged members to contract GRE if any assistance with completion of these forms was required. Members were also advised that colleagues should seek assistance from GRE with more complex bids such as Interreg bids at the earliest stage of bid preparation, as the University must aim to optimise project resources whilst demonstrating equal match-funding to income. Such proposals must be approved by the School Dean prior to sign off by the DVC.

5.3 Members confirmed that information on the Every Researcher Counts training resources was received from the ECR Director and circulated to colleagues within respective schools.

7.1 The abolition of ‘write up’ fees for existing students was discussed under item 7.1 of the current agenda.

7.2 The update on waiving of tuition fees was discussed under item 7.1 of the current agenda.

5. GREENWICH RESEARCH AND ENTERPRISE

5.1 Research and Enterprise Financial Activity Reports

The Chair presented the annual Research and Enterprise financial activity report to the month ending 31st December 2011.

Revenues to the end of December 2011 were £4.4m (including NRI), this figure is down compared to the target for this month. Five months into the financial year should show that the University’s revenues should be at least £6m. The dip could potentially be due to late submission of invoices. However, the Chair was pleased that the catch up of invoices in January should contribute to a rise in revenues across all schools.

Contracting to the end December 2011 was also £4.4m (including NRI) down by £61k on average compared to December 2010. CMS’ activity was showing a marginal increase, whilst NRI was down by £471k, December’s figure did not include a £1.9m contract recently award to the Institute. Contracting within Engineering had also fell in comparison to last year, the Director of Research & Enterprise (ENG) informed the Chair that a number of contracts were due to be announced during the next few weeks. Science had exceeded its target for December by £378k, in addition to the Business School also increased activity by an average of 30%.

Figures presented for contracting compared to money burn showed an improvement to a few years ago, providing a better pipeline of contracts, however the Chair encouraged colleagues to increase the number of staff applying for bids.

5.2 Research and Enterprise Bidding Activity Report

The Research Support Manager (GRE) presented the annual Research & Enterprise bidding activity report for the period ending 31st December 2011.

Bidding totals to the end of December 2011 (incl NRI) were £8.2m. Bidding between August – October was at £4.1m and the same figure between November - December. The monthly breakdown for August to December the bidding totals and values was as follows:

Aug 201123 bids with a value of £1.7m

Sep 2011 25 bids with a value of £1.4m

Oct 2011 16 bids with a value of £939K

Nov 2011 42 bids with a value of £3.5m

Dec 2011 19 bids with a value of £600K

Bidding status showed that 70 bids at £6.2m were pending an outcome, 19 bids at £704K were rejected and 36 bids worth £1.2m were awarded. Looking at the same period over a three year trend showed that overall the schools bidding activity had increased in value during 2010/11 compared to 2009/2010, but had dropped this academic year compared to last by approx. £4m. The number of bids had increased from 116 to 125 for August to December 2011/12 compared to last year. Bidding by funding source showed that 51% of the total number of bids had been submitted to the EU, 14% to overseas funders, 10% to UK Centre Government & TSB, 13% to Research Councils, and 8% of the bids had been submitted to Charities.

Awarded totals to the end December 2011 were recorded at £2m (incl NRI) with a value of £967K submitted in 2010/11 and announced in 2011/12. Awards by funding source were 67% from the EU, 10% from the overseas funders, 6% from the UK Centre Government & TSB, 11% from the UK Industry, and 6% of award were from Charities.

The Research Support Manager (GRE) reminded the Committee that data presented was based on the submission of Form 1 and Form 2, and encouraged members to communicate to colleagues the importance of completing such forms.

5.3 Institutional Repository and Publications Data

The Repository Administrator presented the status of publications uploaded on to the research repository GALA. To the end of January, 2012 a total of 5,828 ‘Live’ and ‘Under Review’ items were deposited, this was a 5% increase on September 2011. All (eligible) deposits are actively encouraged, especially from those staff that self deposit, however priority is given for those items which are research outputs published from 2008 to date to support the REF submission, pre-2008 items may need to wait a little longer to be checked.

To the end of January 2012 there are 2244 live items on GALA, a 16% uplift on items since September 2011. 74% of the total items on GALA for 2008 and later are now checked and visible both internally and externally. 1033 items currently still ‘Under Review’ as of Jan-12. An investment by GRE for additional staff support to help clear the ‘Under Review’ backlog has had significant impact on total (now down 23% on Sep-11). The Repository Administrator advised members that items under review’ is a moving target as it also includes duplicate records, deposits by more than one co-author, records with incomplete data, insufficient evidence of publication, unpublished outputs, etc.

The Repository Administrator introduced members to Scopus Sciverse providing a quick demonstration on how to use the system. This system was recently acquired to assist researchers with access to e-journals and analytical tools whilst also providing meta-data for GALA. Scopus will help to streamline the process of checking and validation of outputs and is now visible on GALA which provides a link to Scopus and any external citations captured by Scopus. The Chair informed members that Scopus will be used by HEFCE to provide baseline reporting for the REF2014. Scopus can be found on the Research tab of the portal and is open for all academic staff to use.

The Chair thanked the Repository Administrator for the presentation and urged members to contact ILS or GRE with any queries in relation to Scopus or GALA.

5.4 Peer Review of Research Funding Applications

This item was deferred to the next meeting of the Research & Enterprise Committee in the absence of the ECR Director (HSC).

The Chair encouraged members to extend to current list of nominations and with their experience would be beneficial to themselves forward as members to the peer review college. The Director of Research & Enterprise (ENG) raised the question of demonstrable experience which was stated in the email circulated on behalf of the ECR Director. This has caused the response from Engineering to be limited and requested as to whether the flexibility of criteria could be broadened. This was agreed by the Chair.

5.5 GREAT 2012 & REF2014 Update

The Chair thanked all members and their schools for taking part in the University’s first REF pilot; GREAT 2011, and reported an overview of the analysis conducted. The report showed that 438 staff were submitted to 23 identified units of assessment.

The Chair presented data using Publish or Perish, a software program that retrieves and analyses academic citations which showed that the H- indices for some colleagues were probably below what could be expected for someone publishing consistently at three star level. On a number of current outputs could be considered below 3* standard.

Members discussed the fact that there will b some of units of assessment that will not use citations directly. None the less analyses like those provided by p or p often provide useful and informative performance comparisons.

The Chair announced that a Code of Practice will be developed that focuses on t the University’s processes for the selection of staff. Members discussed the importance of managing expectations as there is a need for colleagues to understand that not all research active staff will be submitted to the REF2014. The Chair made it clear that it is of great importance that those staff not returned in the REF2014 submission, understand that their contributions to the research and enterprise portfolio are valued and whilst they may not able to be a part of the first REF submission the University will do all it can to support them with the aim of possible inclusion to the next assessment.

The Director of Research (CMS) suggested to the chair that a short written report be produced concerning the outcome of the GREAT exercise and circulated to the Schools. Prof Galea felt that this was essential to provide feedback to the staff. The report need not contain sensitive or confidential information but should convey the key findings and recommended way forward.

5.6 REF2014: Institutional Codes of Practice

This item was deferred to the next meeting of the Research & Enterprise Committee.

6. ITEMS FROM SCHOOLS

6.1 Directors of Research and Enterprise Presentations on Successes, Opportunities and Challenges in Research and Enterprise activities in each School

6.1.1. School of Architecture & Construction Report

SUCCESSES

Design Research

The research group AVATAR (Advanced Virtual & Technological Architectural Research), have produced a book on ‘Living Architecture’ (Rachel Armstrong). Rachel has also hosted an on-line forum on the ‘Ecological Human’ and submitted an article to the Artificial Life Journal.

In the Architectural History and Theory Group, Alan Powers has published reviews in Country Life and the Times Literary Supplement as well as a critical narrative of Robin Hood Gardens published in Barcelona. He has chaired and given addresses at the Eric Ravilious symposium and the RIBA Art Deco debate. Teresa Stoppani participated at the Biennial of the Canary Islands and has given public lectures at Nottingham Trent University, the University of Kent and the Barbican Art Gallery; she has published several reviews and articles recently and was a member of the judging panel for the RIBA President’s Medal Student Awards.

Mark Titman has edited an issue of Architectural Design; The new pastoralists, this year he won the RIBA international competition for the Royal Parks drinking fountains. Mark Ingham’s video installation won prizes in New York and in Miami; his work will be appearing in an exhibition in Beijing. Duncan Berntsen has been selected for interview for the Digital Plaza Project (Birmingham Science Park), a multi-million pound development. Anastasios Margiannis has presented at conferences in Shanghai, Istanbul and Rome, he has two recent publications and his PhD is funded by the Greek State Scholarship Foundation (£35,000).

Sustainable Built Environments Research