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The University of Western Australia
MINUTES OF THE MEETING OF THE SPH RESEARCH RENEWAL COMMITTEE
School of Population Health Conference Room
Monday 11 April 2016
MEMBERS:
Professor Elizabeth Geelhoed (Chair)
Professor Colleen Fisher (Head of School)
Professor David Preen (Deputy Head of School)
Ms Anne McKenzie AM (Consumer Advocate/Manager, Consumer and Community Participation Program
Professor Matthew Knuiman
Ms Jenny Mountain (The Raine Study)
Assoc/Professor Tom Briffa
Professor Jane Heyworth
Assoc/Professor Gina Ambrosini
Professor Angus Cook
Dr Sue Young (Social Work, Graduate Research Coordinator)
Dr Susan Peters
Asst/Prof Lisa Wood
Ms Fiona Maley (Executive Officer Support))
PRESENT:
Liz Geelhoed, Colleen Fisher, Matthew Knuiman, Tom Briffa, Gina Ambrosini, Jenny Mountain, Susan Peters, Fiona Maley
APOLOGIES:
Anne McKenzie, David Preen, Angus Cook, Jane Heyworth, Lisa Wood
WELCOME
1. Agenda
Additions to the agenda: To be added to ‘Other Business’, an update on the MRFF (by Colleen)
2. Actions from previous meetings
As there are many apologies from members for this meeting, it is requested that the minutes be changed in the future to list apologies and attendees.
Minor changes to be made:
- Faculty Research Committee item; remove ‘check with Colleen’ query from the statement about the academic positions to be lost in the restructure;
- Plutus item: remove ‘central’ query from the statement about feedback being sent back to research services.
- Foster ECRs and MCRs item: typographical error; change ‘doing’ to ‘don’t really use it much’ regarding the use of Yammer.
With these changes, the minutes of the March RRC meeting are accepted.
School committee minutes are loaded onto the SPH website once accepted; for the March RRC meeting, it was requested that the minutes be put on the relevant webpage after the board meeting in which the announcement concerning the Lottery West funding has been made, which will be around 26 April.
Action: Colleen will inform Fiona when this is ready to be done.
Actions from previous minutes:
· Colleen’s meeting with Wendy Erber is scheduled for next Monday 18 April.
· In a discussion about changing the research culture in the school, it was suggested by Colleen/Liz that this discussion be deferred until after Colleen meets with Wendy, and until after the RRC can discuss the topic with the Advisory Group of Bruce Armstrong, D’Arcy Holman and Maria Harries.
· Grant communications: Fiona reported that she had checked with the Law Faculty’s Research Development Advisor, Tara McLaren, on how she communicates grant opportunities. Tara compiles a newsletter to send to all staff, and also targets individuals with specific opportunities. However, neither of these options are supportive of a collaborative discussion. Gina has suggested the Blackboard community page, which has some possibilities, however loading all staff onto the page has been problematic.
Further action: Fiona will follow up with Blackboard support to find a solution.
· Seminar series: Chloe Thomson has now contacted several RRC members regarding doing a talk in the Tuesday seminar series and Matthew has done his.
Further action: Liz will prompt Chloe to contact all academic staff members.
· Panel information: Liz reported that only Gina has responded to her email regarding panel membership.
Further action: Liz will contact individuals on this topic.
3. Standing item updates.
a. Funding
No updates
b. WAHTN
Liz reported that Science on the Swan is being promoted at present.
She said that the Public Health workshop planning is led by Lin Fritschi, and includes Rachael Huxley. Matthew said that he went to the first meeting, at Curtin, but hasn’t heard anything since.
Liz said that she had been invited to the second meeting, which was last Thursday 7 April at Curtin, but that the timing was inconvenient. Telethon Kids Institute (TKI) representatives were at the first meeting, as were some UWA people.
Action: Liz will follow this up with John Challis, as there should be a UWA SPH presence there.
c. Linked data
No updates
d. Faculty Research Committee
Liz reported that David Mackey is temporarily standing down as chair of this committee as he is now on sabbatical.
Colleen has met with Susan Yates, who has also contacted Liz. Susan is targeting ECR/MCRs but Liz has suggested doing a Tuesday seminar so that everyone can attend, and people can follow up individually later.
e. Plutus
No further updates.
It was decided that this item can be deleted as a standing item.
f. Seminar series
Liz mentioned that the school needs to increase attendance at seminars, particularly HDR students and staff. Matthew agrees. Tom agrees and mentions that this is the case for all school seminars, including those run outside of the Tuesday series, such as student research proposals. He goes on to say that research group leaders can promote this to their own group, as participation is part of self-development and also part of duty to the school. This also needs to be promoted from a higher level and made an expectation.
Other ideas are discussed: Should the frequency be changed to be less than weekly? Should the time be moved to 12-1pm, allowing people to eat their lunches during the seminar? Should sandwiches be provided? Should the seminars be mixed with journal clubs and HDR presentations?
Gina and Susan mentioned that the current timing clashes with a class and a meeting this semester. Matthew stated that where possible, seminars should be made a priority with meetings scheduled around that, but agrees that this is not always possible.
Colleen said that it is probably less about timing and more about the culture. She suggested making it a requirement for HDR students and for academics to attend a certain number per year, including adding it as an aspect in PDRs.
Action: Update this item next meeting.
4. Report on 4 priority strategic areas
a. Foster new ideas
The RRC is seeking a project that everyone in the School can be involved in and which is widely promoted. David will present his in the May meeting.
Gina had sent hers out by email to RRC members (see the outline at the end of these minutes). She and Jenny went over the scoping of their ideas on a Raine Study cohort NHMRC program grant or at least a Centre of Research Excellence (CRE), as per the outline.
Liz mentioned that a CRE is probably easier to get but returns less research funding. A CRE would need a capacity building component, with good translational research focus. It doesn’t fund core research projects but launches the profile and encourages collaborators. Jenny said that it could fund postdocs and PhDs, although funds are needed for the follow up studies and professional staff such as those running the sleep study.
Tom said that Craig Anderson (?) and Bruce Neil are superstar researchers and a program grant would need researchers of this calibre to be involved.
Tom said that it is troubling that only one successful research project grant involves collecting new data – the other two use existing data. Gina said that with the decline in NHMRC success, something different may be the way to go.
Matthew said that a program grant requires 3-5 very high-level researchers to put their name on it, which is difficult because they can then only have one other research grant. Tom agreed and Matthew said that with researchers in Perth struggling for research funds, it is a big ask to ‘put all their eggs in one basket’, but that a couple of high-level researchers could be contacted now and may be interested in a few years. SPH should be at the table in these discussions.
Liz suggested that project grants aren’t enough and that CRE is the next step up, with a program grant a step further, where high-level people are on the program. Combining cohort studies towards a CRE could be an avenue but there are many cohort studies in Australia; a national one would require new rules and sharing agreements, which could be limiting and therefore hard to ‘sell’.
Gina/Jenny said that no one in SPH is a principal investigator on the Raine Study. A CRE has been discussed, but it needs someone to take the lead; as the Raine Study is now in SPH, it should be inclusive.
RRC members are supportive of going to the next step. A program grant is unlikely, given the limitations, but it is worth looking above project grant level and getting SPH more involved. Identification comes through success, so need to increase every year, but must be involved.
Colleen mentioned that we need timely data on how many grant applications have been put in. Fiona said that we had looked at this for the last whole of school meeting, but that the Research Grants Office hadn’t loaded the information into the reporting system – they say it generally takes a couple of months – she couldn’t run a report and that as grant applications and acceptances no longer come through admin, there is no information on file.
Action: Jenny said that she can send a list of applications involving the Raine Study which have SPH researchers on them.
Liz supported Gina’s idea of a preliminary meeting to discuss the potential of a program grant, including the requirements of 4-5 international-calibre researchers forgoing other research grants and the possibility of CRE or other ideas. She thanked Gina and Jenny for all their work on this scoping exercise.
Action: Jenny, Gina and Liz to discuss with Raine Study high level researchers and get an idea of how SPH could help them. This idea to be revisited at the next RRC meeting.
Tom said that one big option for SPH is data linkage and vulnerable groups, as this combines two strengths. What data linkage has achieved (through Libby Roughead, D’Arcy Holman, David Preen etc) represents a greater chance of controlling and leading. SPH should be involved in others, but would be requested for assistance more often. This may be included in the topic of David’s outline next month.
Both this and the Raine Study idea would be worth raising with the Advisory Group to discuss.
Action: David will present his linked data outline for the next RRC meeting.
b. Foster industry links
No updates.
c. Foster Early-Career Researchers (ECRs) and Mid-Career Researchers (MCRs)
Tom has set up a meeting with this group, in order to find out what the group needs and how the RRC can help them. Colleen suggested that SW people such as Mark be added as they are keen to be involved.
Action: Liz will attend this meeting too.
d. Leadership.
A few more people reported being contacted by Chloe for seminars.
Action: Liz will remind Chloe to contact more researchers.
5. Other business:
a. Advisory group
Liz suggested that the Advisory Group (D’Arcy, Bruce and Maria) be invited to attend the June meeting, and that 10-15 minutes in the May meeting be used to determine how best to use their time. In particular, new ideas and funding via CREs/program grants are to be discussed.
Action: Put this on agenda for May meeting (Fiona)
Liz reported that the one-on-one meetings with Bruce are all booked into May, that they are working well and that Bruce is getting a lot out of them as well. Matthew asked if he has seen any common themes in having met with 7 people so far?
Action: Liz will ask Bruce this question.
b. Recommended changes to SPH research incentives and awards
Liz thanked Matthew for putting these together. They have been discussed at previous meetings, but now they can be forwarded to the F&SP committee meeting. They have been given support via email by Jane and Lisa.
In answer to a question, Matthew mentioned that last year Colleen interviewed 25-30 people over the School to ask which incentives people wanted. These recommendations are based on this information.
In addition, the UWA restructure is creating doubt on whether SPH will retain the money for this scheme and for grant matching, so it is considered that these schemes should be implemented this year while the money can still be used.
Liz asked a question regarding conference awards, where researchers/research students not part of a well-off research group can’t go to conferences; if this is the case, she is not supportive of this change. Matthew replied that funds can be accumulated based on publication points.
Gina asked whether the change from paying publication charges based on impact factors will include charges for open access. Matthew replied no, but open access fees weren’t covered in the old scheme either.
Gina mentioned that the 1% for ‘highly cited’ is very high.
Fiona asked about the publication points – as this will be the basis of conference travel now, does this mean that publication point money will now be awarded to HDR students? Matthew replied no, the money will still go to the school, where it will cover some of the money each HDR student can access including for conference travel.
Note general support for these changes.
Action: Changes to be sent to F&S Committee (Liz)
c. Update on Medical Research Futures Fund (MRFF)
Colleen reported that the membership for the advisory board to the MRFF has been announced. The Australian Medical Research Advisory Board members are: