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Research in Arts and Humanities > Research Strategy

Research Strategy

Aims

The Faculty's broad strategy is to encourage as many staff as possible to be research active and for students to benefit from the fruits of research in their courses and programmes. More specifically, the Faculty aims to:

  • Develop a strong research culture across its six departments;
  • Promote the development of inter-disciplinary research across the Faculty;
  • Enhance and resource the production of peer-reviewed research;
  • Increase the number and quality of the Faculty's international links and, where appropriate, international funding;
  • Develop a system of mentoring, seminars and institutional support by which inexperienced academic staff are resourced to develop their research profiles and productivity;
  • Establish a progressive and wide-ranging research culture in which diversity and inter-disciplinary work complement more traditional approaches to scholarship and publications.

More specifically, the Faculty's strategy for the period 2006 - 2010 is as follows:

Faculty of Arts and Humanities Strategic Plan 2006-10

Research Section*

The Faculty will aim:

  1. to establish research as a standard agenda item at Faculty Executive Meetings; and to invite departmental Research Co-ordinators to attend some of these meetings when research is a major agenda item.
  2. to organise a number of departmental annual international research conferences, with the intention of publishing the proceedings as a volume or volumes, edited at least in part by CCCU staff, with an academic publishing house. Attempts will be made to try to ensure that the conferences are self-funding, partly by making bids to external funding bodies. By 2008 all Departments will aim to organise these annual conferences and seek external funding to support them. This will not preclude the holding of other smaller-scale conferences or research events.
  3. for each Department to make at least one research bid each year to one of the major research funding bodies (e.g. AHRC, ESRC). This may take the form of a collaborative project bid, involving several members of staff, or an individual bid. This will not preclude individual members of staff from making smaller-scale bids. Departments will aim to explore possibilities of making bids in partnership with other Departments, Faculties and Universities. Collectively, all Departments will aim to meet and, if possible, exceed the Faculty research income generation target set by the University.
  4. for a number of Departments to make bids to external funding bodies that enable overseas academics to come to UK HEIs to undertake and disseminate research.
  5. for each Department to liaise proactively with the Director of Knowledge Transfer in order to try to develop at least one significant new externally funded Knowledge Transfer project or partnership per Department each year.
  6. to issue a Faculty Research and KT magazine/journal three times a year, including details on activities, achievements, seminars, projects, partnerships, funding streams and applications, in order to facilitate the sharing of information, best practice and collaborations.
  7. to hold an annual Faculty event (or events) devoted to research and research funding: these might include research conferences, lectures, and seminars.
  8. to establish an interdisciplinary research seminar, for staff and postgraduates, to be held at least twice a year.
  9. for each Department to seek, every year, to encourage applications for AHRC and other externally funded postgraduate studentships, and to acquaint itself with new AHRC bidding procedures.
  10. to review the teaching undertaken by its postgraduate students in order to maximise research potential and opportunities for students.
  11. to review and further develop its marketing strategy for postgraduate courses, seeking to utilise the marketing potential of its human and other resources.
  12. to explore in 2007 the possibility of validating a generic Arts and Humanities MA programme incorporating several subject pathways (this could include other Faculties).
  13. to review the teaching timetables of its academic staff, with the aim of facilitating research.
  14. to encourage staff who are not currently research active to become so.
  15. to encourage staff to be external examiners of MA, MPhil and PhD programmes.
  16. to encourage staff to apply for study leave and development leave.
  17. to explore the possibility of establishing an e-based interdisciplinary journal.
  18. further to underpin its teaching with research and develop research-informed teaching projects and bids.

* Research is here defined as including both theoretical and practical research

Both Departments and the Faculty as a whole are responsible for the realisation of these aims and practices, and the Faculty Executive (the heads of the Faculty's constituent departments) together with the Dean of Faculty meet regularly to discuss the implementation and operation of this Research Strategy.

At all stages the guiding principle will be to provide every opportunity for all academic staff to engage in the kind of critical, principled, scholarly and public research that lies at the heart of the Faculty's Research Policy.