Minutes for the second meeting of the Research & Enterprise Committee for the 2016/17 Academic Session, held on Wednesday,7thDecember 2016, 2.00pm inQA075, GreenwichCampus

PRESENT:

Prof JBonet
Prof A Westby
Prof A Reed
Prof P Griffiths / Chair, Deputy Vice-Chancellor (R&E)
Vice Chair, Deputy Pro Vice-Chancellor (R&E)
Director of Postgraduate Research
InterimDirector of Research & Enterprise (GRE)
Prof NSpiller
Prof C Bailey
Prof B Cronin
Prof P Maras / PVC (ACH) Nominee
PVC (ACH) Nominee
PVC (BUS) Nominee
PVC (E&H) Nominee & uREC Chair
Prof A Lambirth
Prof DWray
MrN Cormack-Bissett / PVC (E&H) Nominee
PVC (E&S) Nominee
Head of Research Services
Mrs W Curran
Ms V van Lent
Mr PAngelo / Finance Manager
Student Union Representative
Secretary

APOLOGIES FOR ABSENCE:

None

R&EC-16-2-1 ITEMS FROM THE CHAIR

R&EC-16-2-1.1 / Centre for Research and Enterprise Development (CRED)
The Chair presented some slides to the Committeeshowing the latest developments with regards to the formation of the new Centre for Research and Enterprise Development (CRED). One of the key actions from the Research and Enterprise Strategy 2016-2021 was the development of a new Research and Enterprise Training Institute (RETI), and taken together with some planned changes within GRE, it has been decided to integrate these to form CRED. One of the other motivations for this was for it to start to inform the writing of the institutional environmental document that will form part of the REF 2021 submission which will be developed in the new year.
This is currently in draft form and was discussed at length by the Committee. There are still a number of details to work through with one of the main ones being around physical space and where individuals will be based across all three campuses. The Committee was in agreement with the new structure and endorsed this draft version. The Chair will prepare a paperfollowing some discussions with both the Directors of Finance and Estates to establish the funds that will be required to set this up together with locations. This paper will be presented again ata future Committee for final endorsement before going to VCG and Court for ratification.
ACTION: CHAIR
R&EC-16-2-1.2 / London Urban Research Network
The Chair briefed the Committee on a new initiative that is being led by UCL called the London Urban Research Network. The idea is to create a network for research collaboration across London involving the HEIs from across the capital. The University of Greenwich have been invited to join and the Chair informed the Committee that this has been agreed to. The paper presented was for information but the Committee was in agreement that this is something that the University should be part of in order to share research opportunities that could potentially lead to funding.
R&EC-16-2-1.3 / 2015/16 Annual Report to Court
The Committee was presented with the final version of the 2015/16 annual report that had gone to Court at the end of September. The report was for reference and brief discussion and provided a summary of the Research and Enterprise activities at the University for the last academic session. The format was similar to previous years but with the new Research and Enterprise Strategy 2016-2021 in place it will look different moving forward and be more aligned to the themes and KPIs set out in it.
R&EC-16-2-1.4 / Faculty Research & Enterprise Strategy Targets
The Secretary circulated some documents showing the agreed Faculty targets for the four aims identified in the Research and Enterprise Strategy 2016-2021. There were still a few outstanding issues, one of which related to the gap in the target for ‘Enterprise & Related Income’. There is currently a shortfall of just over £4m but these figures do not include incomes generated directly from initiatives such as the EEN (Enterprise Europe Network) so there is some scope for bridging this deficit. It may be that the University target of £25m is scaled back slightly but the Faculty targets are set for now and progress will be monitored closely with reporting scheduled for every quarter. Targets that are not possible to measure quarterly will be reviewed annually.
R&EC-16-2-1.5 / Review of Research & Enterprise Strategy Action Table
The Chair updated the Committee with the latest status of the actions as set out in the Research and Enterprise Strategy 2016-2021 action table. This will be reviewed at subsequent meetings but they are classified in three categories of high/medium/low priority. Most of the actions marked under high priority are well under way and good progress has been made. There are a couple of actions that need some more immediate attention but there are no real concerns.Work has started on most of those marked with medium/low priority as well and progress will be reviewed on a regular basis.

R&EC-16-2-2 MINUTES OF THE PREVIOUS MEETING

R&EC-16-2-2.1 / Minutes of the firstmeeting of the Research Enterprise Committee for the 2016/17 academic sessionheld onWednesday,28thSeptember 2016
Theminutes of the Research Enterprise Committee held on Wednesday, 28thSeptember 2016 were agreed by the Committee to be a true and accurate record of the meeting.

R&EC-16-2-3 MATTERS ARISING FROM THE MINUTES

R&EC-16-2-3.1 / Please refer to the action sheet attached.
All the actions other than the one mentioned below are now complete or are to be discussed in more detail at this or subsequent meetings.
Action points still in progress from previous meeting:
R&EC 16-1-7.3The Director of Postgraduate Research will meet with Faculty Directors of Research & Enterprise outside of this Committee to discuss better ways in which the University can market itself in order to increase PGR student recruitment.

R&EC-16-2-4RESEARCH EXCELLENCE FRAMEWORK 2021 PREPARATIONS

R&EC-16-2-4.1 / GREATImpact Cases Assessment
The Head of Research Services circulated some data showing the outcomes of the GREAT 2016 impact case studies assessment. In total, 66 potential impact case studies were received and most of them had now been assessed. These were scored on a scale of 0-4 to determine how viable they were, with those only scoring ‘3’ or ‘4’ being regarded as having the potential to be submitted to REF 2021. Of these 66 case studies, 18 were graded as having a score of ’3’ or ‘4’ (15 scored ‘3’ with the other 3 scoring ‘4’). These were evenly spread across panels A/B/C but there was only one high scoring case study in panel D.
Once the exercise is complete it is hoped that there will be around 25 case studies scoring a ‘3’ or ‘4’ but this number will need to be higher. The intention is to involve Enterprise Services when this is repeated for GREAT 2017 to potentially help academic staff increase their reach and significance and convert some of those scored at ‘2’ to ‘3’ and the ones at ‘3’ to ‘4’. Training will also be provided to members of staff to help them better understand impact and what a strong case study should look like.
R&EC-16-2-4.2 / Research Environment
The Chairpresented another set of data to the Committee which showed the current situation following GREAT 2016 in terms of the research environment. This data had been related at VCO and was for discussion. Members of staff had now been assigned to research groups and had submitted papers for both internal and external evaluation. The initial analysis involving information gathered from GREAT 2016/Finance/PGRO/SciVal revealed that there were some strong performing research groups while others were considerably weaker. The Chair now expects the Faculties to use this information to drive forward their own research strategies. Some of these research groups should now be clustered together to create stronger areas of activity. The research groups are not expected to merge but these clusters could potentially be mapped to Units of Assessment in the future.
The Chair explained that the way this data will be presented in the future will evolve to include things such as ‘Category A eligible FTE’ rather than headcount and ‘QR/HEIFexpenditure’ against each research group/cluster. The Head of Research Services will work with the Chair and Faculty Directors of Research & Enterprise to include these new columns for when the data is next presented. For clarity, the QR/HEIF expenditure totals should be the ones from the last academic session.
ACTION: CHAIR/HEAD OF RESEARCH SERVICES/FACULTY DIRECTORS OF RESEARCH & ENTERPRISE
R&EC-16-2-4.3 / HEFCE Consultation on Stern Review
The Chair reminded the Committee that HEFCE were scheduled to officially publish their consultation document onREF 2021 in the coming days. An unofficial version had been made available to the Chair and the Committee was briefed on the main point of interest.
Potentially the most substantial development to come out of the consultation is how HEFCE are defining a research active member of staff following the recommendation from the Stern Review that all research active staff should be submitted to REF 2021. HEFCE are defining this as any member of staff that is submitted to HESA under the T&R (Teaching & Research) category.
In addition, the consultation suggests that HEFCE will carry out a mapping exercise using the HESA cost codes that academic staff are submitted under,to the REF UoAs. This would represent a big shift from previous exercises where the University essentially decided which UoA members of staff would submit under. If this proposal goes ahead then it will have some significant repercussionsas it would impact the way that academic members of staff are submitted to HESA. The intention is for a similar process to also be followed for the TEF (Teaching Excellence Framework) but all of this would have major financial consequences for the University. It was important to stress that this is at consultation phase so there is scope for this to change but the University will be monitoring this very closely once the official version is released.

R&EC-16-2-5 GREENWICH RESEARCH ENTERPRISE

R&EC-16-2-5.1 / Research EnterpriseFinancial Summary Report
TheCommittee noted the financial summary report by Faculty from 1stAugust 2016 to 31stOctober 2016.
Theinterim Director of Research & Enterprisereported that there had been a strong start to the year and reminded the Committee that the corporate plan target for 2016/17 was to achieve £21m in revenues. Figures at the same point last year were generally up, with NRI performing particularly well. If revenue growth were to continue in a similar vein, then the University would reach its targets, but these were relatively early days.
The Committee also had a general discussion on the way that the financial information is currently presented and there was general agreement that from this point forward the revenues and contracting figures by Facultyshould be separated for ‘Research’ and ‘Enterprise’ activities.
R&EC-16-2-5.2 / Research EnterpriseBiddingActivity Report
The Committee noted the bidding activity report by Faculty from 1stAugust 2016 to 31stOctober 2016.
Bidding activity for the start of the yearhad produced some mixed results although not too much emphasis should be placed on these at this stage and a better picture will develop for the next Committee meeting in February. There were no real concerns over the figures and the data was noted for information. The Committee agreed that the tables presently representing the ‘Value of Bids’ and ‘Value of Awards’ by academic discipline should be removed as they still contained some of the old nomenclature and that the data should just be Faculty orientated.

R&EC-16-2-6ITEMS FROM FACULTY RESEARCH & ENTERPRISE COMMITTEES

No items were brought to the attention of the Committee.

R&EC-16-2-7 POSTGRADUATE RESEARCH MATTERS

R&EC-16-2-7.1 / PGR Completions – Recommendations for Academic Council
The Committee noted the list of postgraduate research degree awards recommended by examiners and considered at recent meetings of Faculty Research Degrees Committees.
The Committee confirmed these recommendations and the Secretary will pass this information on to Academic Council for ratification.
ACTION: SECRETARY
R&EC-16-2-7.2 / Summary of PGR related business by FRDCs for 2016/17 to date
For information, the Director of Postgraduate Research presented a table providing a summary of FRDC activity in terms of submissions of various RDA forms for the first quarter (Q1) of academic session 2016/17 across all four Faculties.
R&EC-16-2-7.3 / Monitoring PGR KPIs – Research and Enterprise Strategy 2016-2021
The Director of Postgraduate Research briefed the Committee with a series of tables and graphs showing the latest progress with regards to the PGR related KPIs for Aim 1 (Research Culture) and Aim 3 (Research Training) of the Research and Enterprise Strategy 2016-2021.
In terms of Aim 1 (Research Culture), as at the end of the first quarter (Q1) of 2016/17, there were currently 520 registered PGR students against a target of 700 by the end of 2020/21.
The bar charts relating to Aim 3 (Research Training) showed the doctoral completions (PhD/EdD) by Faculty together with the pan-universitytotal. These were presented in a different way to that of previous meetings to better reflect the annual targets set on Faculties and todemonstrate the projected year on year growth. These are fixed on the final target but in this way they can be re-calibrated at the end of each year. The Committee was in agreement that this doctoral completion data should be presented in this format in the future.
R&EC-16-2-7.4 / Review of Academic Regulations for Postgraduate Research Awards– Update following consideration by Academic Council
The Director of Postgraduate Research informed the Committee that the review of the Academic Regulations for Postgraduate Research Awards had been tabled again at a recent meeting of Academic Council following the modifications discussed at the last Committee meeting in September. Academic Council ratified these changes and the regulations were now with Academic Registry for issue early next year. The Director of Postgraduate Research took the opportunity to thank everybody involved, including the Student Union representative present, for all their contributions in getting these finalised and approved.
R&EC-16-2-7.5 / DfE ‘Consultation on Postgraduate Doctoral Loans’ – Draft for consideration
The Director of Postgraduate Research circulated a document relating to the Government consultation on postgraduate doctoral loans for discussion by the Committee. The University has an opportunity to respond to the consultation and the Director of Postgraduate Research invited any feedback from members to help inform this. These loans allow students to register with the University to undertake doctoral awards and, when operational, the scheme should be strongly promoted. The Director of Postgraduate Research stated that the deadline for the University response was Friday, 16th December so any comments or feedback from the Committee should be forwarded by early next week.
ACTION: CHAIR/DIRECTOR OF POSTGRADUATE RESEARCH/FACULTY DIRECTORS OF RESEARCH & ENTERPRISE

R&EC-16-2-8ITEMS FOR INFORMATION

There were no items for information presented to the Committee.

R&EC-16-2-9 ANY OTHER BUSINESS

One of the PVC (ACH) Nominees took the opportunity to inform the Committee that four colleagues in FACH (Alessandro Benati, Andrew King, Tracey Reynolds and Vanessa Taylor) had recently been appointed to the AHRC Peer Review College which was very positive news.

No other business was discussed and the meeting was duly closed.

R&EC-16-2-10 DATES & TIMES OF 2016/17 MEETINGS

Meeting
February 8th 2017, Medway Campus, Room B028, 2.00pm
April 12th 2017, Medway Campus, Room B028, 2.00pm
May 24th 2017, Medway Campus, Room B028, 2.00pm
July 5th 2017, Greenwich Campus, Room QA075, 2.00pm