Key Strategies for Building Research Capacity of University Faculty Members

Abstract

Universities are under pressure to increase external research funding, and some federal agencies offer programs to expand research capacity in certain kinds of institutions. However, conflicts within faculty roles and other aspects of university operations influence the effectiveness of particular strategies for increasing research activity. We review conventional approaches to increasing research, focusing on outcomes for individual faculty members and use one federally-funded effort to build cancer-related research capacity at a public university as an example to explore the impact of various strategies on research outcomes. We close with hypotheses that should be tested in future formal studies.

Mixed-Methods Assessment of a Mentoring Program

“…Mixed method studies (Bean et al, 2014;Fox, 2012;Marcellino, 2011;Thomas et al, 2015) and qualitative studies (Bell & Treleaven, 2011;Carney et al, 2016;Hubball et al, 2010) compose a minority of the mentoring assessments. Quantitative studies, employing one or more methods, are more prevalent (Bertram et al, 2015;Browning et al, 2014;Cofrancesco et al, 2018;Huenneke et al, 2017;Mayer et al, 2014;Minnick et al, 2018;Morrison et al, 2014;Sheridan et al, 2015;Slimmer, 2012;Varkey et al, 2012;Weaver, 2013). This finding suggests a shift toward quantitative assessment since 2014.…”

“…The other dominant research method applied in both mixed methods and quantitative studies is data analysis of tenure and promotion records. The data analysis usually focuses on the curriculum vitae of protégés and tallies the number of manuscripts submitted and published, grants proposed and awarded, presentations, and other scholarly activities after participation in the mentoring program (Bertram et al, 2015;Browning et al, 2014;Cofrancesco et al, 2018;Huenneke et al, 2017;Marcellino, 2011;Mayer et al, 2014;Minnick et al, 2018;Varkey et al, 2012;Weaver et al, 2013). Three studies analyze tenure and promotion data to determine years to promotion (Morrison et al, 2014), number of successful tenure applications (Bertram et al, 2015;Huenneke et al, 2017), and retention of the protégés (Huenneke et al, 2017).…”

“…The data analysis usually focuses on the curriculum vitae of protégés and tallies the number of manuscripts submitted and published, grants proposed and awarded, presentations, and other scholarly activities after participation in the mentoring program (Bertram et al, 2015;Browning et al, 2014;Cofrancesco et al, 2018;Huenneke et al, 2017;Marcellino, 2011;Mayer et al, 2014;Minnick et al, 2018;Varkey et al, 2012;Weaver et al, 2013). Three studies analyze tenure and promotion data to determine years to promotion (Morrison et al, 2014), number of successful tenure applications (Bertram et al, 2015;Huenneke et al, 2017), and retention of the protégés (Huenneke et al, 2017). Data analysis is not an assessment method among the LIS articles identified by Lorenzetti and Powelson (2015) or the current authors, but three studies did administer surveys asking librarians to self-report scholarly outcomes from the mentoring program (Farmer et al, 2009;Miller & Benefiel, 1998;Sullivan et al, 2013).…”

“…The emphasis on data analysis of tenure and promotion records in the higher education literature, absent in the LIS literature, is not surprising considering the higher scholarly output usually expected of teaching faculty compared to library faculty. Additionally, some faculty programs are accountable to a funding body with external stakeholders and need to provide evidence of scholarly outcomes (Huenneke et al, 2017;Cofrancesco, 2018), a situation not found in the LIS literature. This assessment approach, with modifications, may be a useful tool for mentoring programs in academic libraries that need to demonstrate long-term outcomes.…”

Research Approach towards Formulating Research and Innovation Capacity Development Framework for Disaster Resilience in Higher Education Institutions

“…In line with the suggested lenses, Huenneke [16] This paper presented a discussion on the 'barriers' and 'enablers' of R&I in the HEIs, which leads to the formulation of the proposed capacity development framework. The framework provides suggestions that might be applied to develop the research and innovation capacity of researchers and institutions, both at institutional and national levels and would collectively have an impact on the regional level.…”