City’s Emerging Research and Enterprise Strategy Senate Presentation, 7th December 2016

City’s Research & Enterprise journey City’s Strategic Plan 2012 to 2016 committed us to double the proportion of our total academic staff producing world-leading (4*) or internationally excellent (3*) research and we achieved this in REF 2014. This moved us to a position where 40% of our total academic staff produced 4*/3* research, up from 20% in 2010. This supported our successful application to join the University of London on 1st September 2016 and signals clearly our new and stronger standing in the sector. Vision and Strategy 2026 sets out new commitment to increase to at least 60% of total academic staff producing 4*/3* research by REF2021 The emerging Research and Enterprise Strategy focuses on this key performance indicator, & draws on three pillars of quality, growth & partnership

REF 2014 – Research intensity Proportion of eligible academic staff producing 3*/4* research outputs City is reasonably placed within the colleges of UoL on the intensity measure. However, the emerging Research & Enterprise goes beyond research intensity and focuses on other aspects such as research environment.

Emerging Research & Enterprise Strategy Building on the ‘quality’ (‘better’) by: maintaining City’s current upwards trajectory in research quality; moving from 40% to over 60% of total academic staff producing 3*/4* research outputs; increasing RGC (Research Grants & Contracts) income, reaching £15M by 2021; strengthening our reputation for internationally-excellent research in current areas; and fostering new world-leading and internationally-excellent areas of strength with an interdisciplinary focus (centres or institutes and interdisciplinary appointments).

Emerging Research & Enterprise Strategy Building on the ‘quality’ (‘better’) by: strengthening academic performance management, and providing training and development opportunities to support academic staff in achieving their academic ambitions; developing a culture that values, encourages and rewards academic curiosity and success; and maximising the impact of our research through effective dissemination within a range of knowledge transfer routes: public engagement, policy engagement, industry collaboration and commercialisation.

Emerging Research & Enterprise Strategy Achieve growth (‘bigger’) in: a way which maintains or increases quality; increasing intensity where existing research areas have momentum and growing our Units of Assessment horizontally where City’s existing strengths can be leveraged; developing new disciplinary research areas to increase both the volume and capacity of City to undertake research; grouping research strengths and establishing at least four key interdisciplinary themes that use our business / professions distinctiveness to address global contemporary challenges and align with governmental priorities.

Emerging Research & Enterprise Strategy Achieve growth (‘bigger’) in: proactively seek private funding & philanthropic donations to fund research activity that does not fit within the current priorities of UKRI; attracting joint research grants and hosting cross-institutional collaborations, including targeted overseas university partnerships.

Emerging Research & Enterprise Strategy Leverage research and enterprise partnerships by: working with institutions, research centres, impact partners and other organisations nationally and internationally; continuing to leverage our unique location as a bridge between the City of London, Tech City and the Knowledge Quarter; developing partnerships with commercial and non-commercial organisations to translate our research outputs into new products, policies or professional practice; and, tripling the number of Knowledge Exchange Partnerships City enters into.

Emerging Research & Enterprise Strategy City will achieve these goals in: supporting, retaining and attracting world leading academic research staff in new and existing disciplines; increasing volume, quality and breadth of research activity in an increasingly competitive funding environment; developing existing partnerships and forging new relationships to increase its global reputation for research and impact; responding with agility to rules of REF2021 in light of the review by Lord Stern and, to significant changes to research funding as a consequence of UK Research Councils restructuring and the impact on European funding in light of the EU referendum result.

Questions & Discussion