The capacity to generate new knowledge is nowadays widely recognized as an engine for economic growth and social development (OECD 1996, World Bank 2002). This recognition has put universities under great pressure and public scrutiny. Universities are one of the main institutions where new knowledge is produced and governments have therefore become significantly more involved in monitoring and steering university research in almost all advanced economies. Various government level mechanisms aim to encourage and support university research.
In the last two decades the Australian government became considerably more involved in steering university research. Research funding to universities is now based on research performance, a higher share of research funds is distributed via competitive grants, universities must present their research strategies to the government, and university research is regularly evaluated at the institutional and discipline level (Harman 1998, Wood and Meek 2002 and Chapter 1 above). Universities now face a more competitive research environment and stronger incentives to excel in research. The impact of these changes on research performance, however, depends on the extent to which universities actually respond to the new incentives, revise their internal procedures and organizational structures, and consequently change their research behavior. Burke and Minassians (2002), for example, conducted thorough research on performance-based (teaching) funding in the United States and concluded that, first of all, the policy had only a marginal effect on performance because the incentives were not reflected in organizational policies, and secondly, that most people in the organization were not even aware of
such incentives and consequently the policies had no effect on performance. Internal policies in a university are thus a necessary link between the governmental research policy and actual research performance in the university.
While research policies at the government level have received much attention in the academic literature, research management policies at the university level have not received equally thorough examination. Taylor (2006) discovered that university administrators in the US
and UK often reject the notion that they ‘manage’ research, but nevertheless they have developed policies to steer research performance, either passively through market mechanisms or actively through direct control and support. A recent OECD study conducted a thorough case study analysis on research management policies in eight selected universities from eight different countries (Connell 2004). The study found several common trends in research management practices. According to this study, universities establish research priorities and develop strategic plans, evaluate research performance both internally and externally, and have developed principles for ethical conduct of research. The case studies also revealed that research
management has become more ‘professional’; i.e. universities appoint high-level academic and administrative staff responsible only for research, and universities nurture research careers in the institutions. All these trends are characteristic of Australia as well. Universities in Australia created research leadership positions, developed strategic plans, and established ethical codes and intellectual property regulations. Universities have also adopted other managerial tools, such as organizational benchmarking, performance-based funding, and internal performance assessment.
While knowledge of general trends in research management practices is accumulating, evidence about the actual impact of these practices on research performance is still lacking.
When universities are indeed “seeking ways to best manage research” (Connell 2004) it is the
information on the effective practices, not merely the possible practices, that is crucial. There is a lot of evidence from other sectors, both private and public, that management practices are often overenthusiastically adopted due to fad and fashion, or to ideology and belief (Staw and Epstein
2000). In the light of recent calls for “evidence-based management” and “evidence-based policy”
(Pfeffer and Sutton 2006; Heinrich 2007), empirical evidence on the effect of research management practices on performance is much needed. This knowledge would be helpful not only in universities when designing appropriate management tools, but also for guiding national research policy. Implementation of the national research policy goals at the university level is an important link in the chain from the national research policy to research performance. How research incentive structures and related policies influence or impact university-level research management practices can be an important contributor to policy outcomes. As Weimer and Vining (1999) point out, implementation research can make a significant contribution to policy design.
This study aims to test the hypothesis that specific university level research management practices, adopted following the previously described Australian research policy reforms, contribute to better research performance in universities. The effect of the practices on performance will be studied over the period of 1992-2003. The paper makes several contributions to the literature on academic research management. First, it analyses the interrelationship of research management practices in universities and develops a systematic index of research management practices. Secondly it provides empirical evidence on the extent to which research management practices, jointly and individually, contribute to research performance.
The study is structured as follows. The next section will discuss the research management practices in Australian universities and the reasons for adopting the practices. Section 3 sketches theoretical arguments as to why we might expect such practices to improve research performance. The following two sections discuss data and measurement issues and develop estimation models. Section 6 presents the empirical results of the estimations and is followed by a discussion on the implications of the results and limitations of the study.