Formulating Quality Assurance Benchmarks & Performance Indicators for Assessing University International Collaboration

PREREQUISITES FOR QA SYSTEM BEFORE developing any QA system to assess the performance of any sector of an organisation the following prerequisites are required: Vision Mission Policy Goals (Objectives)

PREREQUISITES FOR QA SYSTEM As regards the EU these may be summarised: Vision To establish a Union of European States sharing a common home in harmony, peace, security and prosperity Mission (Lisbon Strategy) To make the EU the strongest economy in the world by 2010 through a knowledge-based society, sustainable development and social cohesion

POLICIES National and Institutional policies are important but in the field of international collaboration, for EU/EEA universities, the pertinent EU policies cannot be ignored when formulating a QA System, since they play a major role and have a substantive influence.

POLICIES The pertinent EU policies, based on the surveys, that need to be considered for a QA system are: Effective participation in the European Higher Education Area, EHEA Effective participation in the European Research Area, ERA Contribution to the realisation of National Goals Realisation of Institutional Goals

BREAKDOWN OF INDIVIDUAL POLICIES Effective participation in the EHEA Achieving EC mobility goals and compliance with EUC Realising Bologna process actions Effective participation in the new Integrated Programme on Life Long Learning, IPLLL ERASMUS MUNDUS Policy actions

BREAKDOWN OF INDIVIDUAL POLICIES Effective participation in the ERA [considering research actions that have an international dimension] Participation in the mobility of researchers (Marie Curie) Effective participation in FP6/FP7 Thematic priorities and third country programmes Utilising and enhancing European Research Infrastructures Contributing to European Basic Research Bilateral Research Collaboration

BREAKDOWN OF INDIVIDUAL POLICIES Contribution to the realisation of National Goals Participation in state/state Science & Technology (S&T) Agreements Developing Country Technical Aid programmes Transnational Collaboration Schemes Contribution to cultural and social activities with third (target) countries

BREAKDOWN OF INDIVIDUAL POLICIES Realising Institutional International Collaboration policies at: Global Transnational Regional Bilateral Developing country levels

FROM POLICY TO BENCHMARKS AND PI´s Benchmarks and Performance Indicators (PI´s) cannot be meaningfully formulated unless there is a direct connection between them and the related policies and goals. Hence we have: Policy Goal Benchmarks PI´s

Example: Mobility B + PI EC Policy on mobility of students:To reach 3 million mobile students by 2010 (by million, thus an increase of 2 million students in 6 years). Benchmarks give the goals to be achieved within a certain date (time horizon)

Example : Mobility B + PI 3 million mobile students = 30 million European studts Performance Indicators give decrease that has to be attained 10% of total student population the annual rate of increase or

Example : Mobility B + PI Specific application [UCY]: % = 450 studts by 2010 In reality not all depts are involved in ERASMUS and hence the effective availability of students is 2500, hence 10% = 250 mobile students by 2010 Hence Benchmark = 250 students by 2010

Example : Mobility B + PI Determination of Performance Indicator. For 2004/2005 outgoing students = 70 (Baseline) Hence we have 250 – 70 = 180/5= 36 students per year. 250 [Benchmark] 36 studts/ year [Baseline] 70 [Rate of increase]

Example : Mobility B + PI The question that each institution will need to ask itself is, does the “Mobility Office” have the Capacity to attain the PI and hence the final Benchmark. Corrective action: In the UCy case if more mobile students are desired then policies have to be enacted where ALL the depts are engaged in ERASMUS mobility. The same principles apply to B & PI´s for incoming students and TS

BOLOGNA PROCESS Benchmark: Implementation of ECTS in ALL depts by 2005/2008. PI : to implement ECTS in 35% of depts each academic year Proof of attainment of the required management quality management Successfully apply for ECTS/DS Labels by 2008/2009

Effective Participation in IPLLL

Determining Extent of International Collaboration Geographic distribution= No. of partners per geographic area, EU, EEA, NIS, Asia, Mediterranean, North America, Australia, Latin America, Japan, Africa etc. Extent of this may be covered by institution´s Mission statement, ie best in the Med. Extent of coll/tion= Total No. of partners Value of collaboration: Total Project Funding=3M Euro [A] Incoming funds to Institution= Euro 465,000 [B]

Determining Extent of International Collaboration Incoming Funds [A] = Euro 465,100 = 15,5% Total Value [B] Euro 3,000,000 May set a Benchmark to increase incoming funding to Euro 1,000,000 by 2010.ie to 15,5% of Total Funding {Euro 6,450,000 by 2010}. Hence PI = 1,000,000 –465,000=535,000/5= Euro 107,000 Incoming funds per year for 5 years.

Determining Extent of International Collaboration Co-funding (actual cash) invested in externally funded projects {ie by EC}. Percentage Value of co-funding: value of co-funding = C = 10,000 = 2.15% Tot incoming funds B 465,000 Hence if Euro 1,000,000 incoming funds is to be realised then University should foresee for a corresponding increase of co-funding of Euro 4,300/ 5 years, ie in 2010 Euro 21,500

TYPICAL BENCHMARKS AND PI´s The following criteria may form useful Benchmarks and PI´s for determining performance and Quality of International Collaboration [A full list given in report]: Annual increase(decrease) of IPLLL total funding Annual increase(decrease) of IPLLL institutional funding Annual increase(decrease) of co- funding % extention (contraction) of geographical coverage % increase(decrease) of projects coordinated % increase(decrease) of project partnerships % increase(decrease) of number of partners

EFFECTIVE PARTICIPATION IN THE ERA Contributing to the 3% GDP Goal by 2010 [1% public and 2% private contribution] Contribute to the increase of Researchers to 8/1000 population (at /1000) Participate in researcher mobility (Marie Curie) Effective participation in FP6/FP7 thematic priorities and INternational COllaboration (INCO) Enhance participation in European Research Infrastructures Contributing to the strengthening of European Basic Research

INCREASE RESEARCH EXPENDITURE Increase co-funding in international research, based on the analysis for IPLLL Increase researcher posts through int. coll. projects Increase number of PhD´s, particularly through int. coll. Projects Increase mobility of Researchers:  No of incoming researchers  No of outgoing researchers  No. of returning researchers

INCREASE RESEARCH EXPENDITURE No of Research Training Networks No of projects in FP6/FP7 Thematic Priorities (same analysis as for IPLLL) No of European Infrastructure projects No of Basic research projects

CONTRIBUTION TO THE REALISATION OF NATIONAL GOALS No of state/state S&T Agreements No of partners No of countries involved No of international patents No of spin off companies No of commercial products on an international basis

REALISATION OF INSTITUTIONAL GOALS This is restricted to funding from internal university budget funds (Non EC or other external funding): No of transnational projects No of developing Country projects No of bilateral projects No of third country projects Degree of geographic distribution Value of such projects

WHAT NEXT? A Glossary of Benchmarks and PI´s is given in the text, to be tested at the Workshops. Need to identify the steps required to produce an Action Plan for implementing QA system for International Collaboration.

WHAT NEXT? The Questions arising are: What are the prerequisites for establishing a QA system? Are there any institutional policies that should be adopted? What are the staff and infrastructure requirements needed as well as funding? What monitoring and statistics and IT would be required after implementation