Research and Scholarship
Issues: Ensuring the sustainability of our research culture
Compared to most post-1992 universities, as benchmarked by external research income, RAE outcomes and numbers of research-active staff, the University has a healthy and rapidly growing research culture. We regard research both as an end in itself and as a means of providing the necessary intellectual infrastructure for high quality teaching, knowledge transfer and the generation of economic benefit. To maintain and build on our success significant further work needs to be done to ensure these benefits are realised consistently across the University.
All academic staff are expected to engage in research1 and scholarship2 that supports and underpins LJMU’s other core activities. Specifically, we should not lose sight of the importance of research and scholarship in enabling a research informed curriculum, as defined in the LTA Strategy.
The current strategy aims to continue to build on the success already achieved in order to ensure the sustainability of our research culture so that we may continue to recruit, develop and retain high quality staff and ensure that these benefits are realised consistently across the University. Specific issues are:
- the need to increase further the numbers of research-active staff
- the scope for increasing external (non-HEFCE) research grant income
- maintaining and developing the physical and administrative infrastructure for research
- targeting of resources to ensure researchactive staff have sufficient time and opportunity to undertake research
- supporting and further developing research of international quality
- resourcing research of national quality and strategic importance
- the need for research to be strategically driven
- the need to underpin the planned expansion of postgraduate programmes with research and scholarship
- The need to support post graduate research (PGR) students to ensure high completion rates
1. Research is defined as: original investigation undertaken in order to gain knowledge and understanding. It includes work of direct relevance to the needs of commerce, industry, and to the public and voluntary sectors; the invention and generation of ideas, images, performances, artefacts, including design, where these lead to new or substantially improved insights; and the use of existing knowledge in experimental development to produce new or substantially improved materials, devices, products and processes, including design and construction. (Source RAE 01/2005)
2. Scholarship is defined as: the creation, development and maintenance of the intellectual infrastructure of subjects and disciplines.
