1. Research Management: Becoming Digital by Design
Dr Ian Lyne, Director of Research & Innovation
Reconnect UK 2017 Annual Conference

2. Research Management: Becoming Digital by Design?
Dr Ian Lyne, Director of Research & Innovation
Reconnect UK 2017 Annual Conference

3. Overview A bit of background on my interest in this area
Thoughts and reflections on leadership, and making change happen.

4. My involvement in the area
Led the RCUK Research Outcomes Harmonisation (ROH) Project in 2014
Which led to the adoption by all Research Councils of the Researchfish platform
Co-authored the RCUK-JISC report ‘Overview of Systems Interoperability’ (OSIP) with Catherine Grout and Balviar Notay (2015)
Moved to Lancaster University in 2016 – where I chair an internal oversight / policy committee ROADMaP (Research, Open Access, Data Management and Pure)

5. Ok, let’s talk about research outcomes collection…
The ROH project encapsulated many thorny issues around research information and interoperability
Information structure, not just about choice of system
Common question set
Data quality and standards
Business models… who pays?

6. Leadership and making change happen
Leadership needs to happen at lots of different levels.
Research organisations
Publishers
Funders
National as well as international contexts
Making change happen at each level brings its own challenges

7. One useful model: Force field analysis
Current position
Source:

8. One useful model: Force field analysis
Current position
Source:

9. Forces resisting change…
One force here is the technical nature of the area
So in institutions is it vital to think about how to make sure the right senior managers understand.
Lancaster’s ROADMaP group reports to the overarching Research Committee and brings together the relevant experts
Communication to researchers important too – for example, around uptake of ORCIDs

10. Forces resisting change…
A similar issue can occur within funding bodies – how to bridge the gap that can open between the technical / systems level and senior managers? This was one of the main aims of the OSIP report.
The changes in the UK research funding landscape around UKRI present challenges but also opportunities for pushing the agenda.
How to influence UKRI priorities?

11. Forces for change…
Other national developments can help move things in the right direction…
REF
Citation metrics and their importance for HEI league tables
At an institutional level, the core message of CASRAI should play well
efficiency in research management and reduction of duplication of effort by researchers and managers.

12. Moving things on…
Applying the force field analysis at each level doesn’t quite capture then interconnected nature of change.
Change also needs to connect top-down and bottom-up approaches.

13. Moving things on… Bottom-up: how to engage research managers
Potential here to work with ARMA – shouldn’t the digital research information landscape be a key part of the development of research managers and administrators?

14. Moving things on…
Top-down: How to develop leadership at national level?
What role for national coordinating bodies?
Partnership working is vital, but also coordination – this was the conclusion of the OSIP report.

15. Moving things on… The OSIP report concluded:
Partnership working with others in this space is vital, e.g. Jisc, HEFCE, ARMA, Wellcome, HESA, etc. RCUK should support Jisc in its on-going coordination of key interoperability initiatives in this space with partners.
Consideration should also be given to establishing a UK Research Information Steering Group, possibly led by Jisc, that would bring together the main partners in this area, and chaired by a senior Research Information champion from the sector

16. Things moving on…? What are your own views of progress in this area?
What do you see as the current opportunities to progress things?
What are the main inhibiting forces, and how do we minimise them?

17. Things moving on…?
Just to get you thinking… what else did the OSIP report conclude?
You will be more aware of progress on some than me…

18. The OSIP report… The OSIP report recommendations.
RCUK should explore how to encourage any PI or Co-I making an application to Research Councils through Je-S to use/register an ORCID ID.
RCUK should adopt ISNI as its organisational ID of choice. RCUK and Jisc should issue a joint commitment to taking forward the results of the Casrai-UK working group, with ISNI as the backbone of the UK research community’s approach to identifying organisations.
Research outputs collection and a long-term Research Outputs Interoperability Roadmap

19. The OSIP report… OSIP report:
Continue to work with Jisc and other partners to support initiatives which help ROs manage and demonstrate their OA obligations, and which enable the efficient flow of information about open access publications.
On-going investment in GtR as a vital part of RCUK data stewardship should include the development needed to enable grant references themselves to become public, persistent and resolvable digital identifiers, thereby enabling the more effective use and re-use of information accessible about a grant project through GtR.
RCUK should seek to explore the development of an API to allow interoperability between the Je-S Student Data system and HEI student information systems.

20. So, things moving on…?
What are your own views of progress in this area?
What do you see as the current opportunities to progress things?
What are the main inhibiting forces, and how do we minimise them?