Driving forward excellence in research: institutional strategies and approaches

Professor Malcolm Grant UCL President and Provost

HEPI conferenceResearch Excellence: Competition or Collaboration in

today‘s globalised HE sector2 December 2010, The Royal Society

• UCL's status

• Knowledge transfer

• UCL Grand Challenges

• UCL strategies for research excellence

• UCL's national and international role

• Conditions for research excellence

About UCLThen…• The foundation of UCL – as the first English

university to open its doors to all, regardless of race, creed or political belief – embodied many of Jeremy Bentham’s ideas on education and society.

And now…• London’s global university• 24,000 students; 4,000 researchers• Multidisciplinary research excellence

UCL research excellence: success in research funding

Top 20 institutions in receipt of Research Council funding 2008-09

0 20000 40000 60000 80000 100000 120000

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9

13

17

Funding

Top 20 institutions in receipt of block grant funding 2008-09

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Funding £000

UCL research excellence: success in research outputsUCL field-weighted citation impact 2003-08 (size of bubble proportional to world impact. [World = 1; UK = 1.338; UCL = 1.594.]

Source: Elsevier / Scopus.

UCL annual research article outputs: 2003-2009

Source: Elsevier / Scopus.

ESI citations: Top 20 institutions

0

500,000

1,000,000

1,500,000

2,000,000

2,500,000

3,000,000

3,500,000

Cit

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UCL research excellence: Success in people

• In the RAE 2008, UCL submitted over 1,800 staff to 49 UoAs. At least 50% of staff in most submissions ranked at 4* or 3*.

• UCL’s academic community includes: 36 Fellows of the Royal Society; 26 Fellows of the British Academy; 10 Fellows of the Royal Academy of Engineering; 78 Fellows of the Academy of Medical Sciences

•There has been at least one Nobel Laureate from the UCL community every decade since the establishment of the Nobel Prizes in 1901

Knowledge transfer

• Research benefits from engagement with the world outside academia

• UCL’s obligation as university• Five core pillars:

– Scholarship – Public engagement– Enterprise– Healthcare– Public policy

Grand Challenges

• Harnessing UCL’s collective expertise to address global problems

• Promoting novel cross-disciplinary collaboration

Advancing research excellence(Institutional strategies)

• Facilitating cross-disciplinary working

• Strategic use of QR

• Supporting researchers

• Collaborating with external partners

• Joined-up research planning

• Investing in infrastructure

Providing leadership

• Working with Government and funders to ensure the excellence and global reputation of the UK research base

• Pursuing research collaborations – locally, nationally, globally

• Delivering research with impact: achieving societal benefit

• Generating knowledge and wisdom that can address global problems

UCL: Developing a culture of wisdom

RESEARCH

KNOWLEDGE

WISDOM

IMPACT

KNOWLEDGE

KNOWLEDGE

What are the (national) conditions for sustaining research excellence?• Maintaining sustainable public funding

(including block grant) 

• Institutional autonomy

• Supporting concentrations of research excellence and critical mass

• Enhanced support for cross-disciplinary working

• Investing in the best researchers

• International free flow of scholars

Competition or collaboration?Both• Competition within the sector drives excellence

and efficiency; internationally it pushes us to be a global leader in research

• A changing landscape for universities (globalised university sector; global problems; economic climate; radical changes to higher education in UK) mean that increased collaboration is both necessary and desirable

Driving forward excellence in research: institutional strategies and approaches

Professor Malcolm Grant UCL President and Provost

HEPI conferenceResearch Excellence: Competition or Collaboration in

today‘s globalised HE sector2 December 2010, The Royal Society