MANAGING RESEARCH OR MANAGING KNOWLEDGE? A DEVICE TOOL FOR QUALITY ASSURANCE

Abstract

Research management promotes an integrated approach to identifying, capturing, evaluating, retrieving, and sharing all of a higher education institutions’ research information assets. These assets may include databases, documents, policies and procedures. Conceptually linked, knowledge and research assume critical relevance as an essential tool to insuring Higher Education institutions quality. Institutions are challenged to develop robust (internal) quality assurance systems in which information about scientific production, research projects, staff curricula are considered as relevant indicators. This commitment with science and research is also visible by the opportunities promoted by institutions for the academic development of their staff. Accordingly, the assessment of research and science indicators becomes an essential step for the definition of research development programmes in HE institutions. Based on this framework, it was developed an online questionnaire to be answered by academic staff, trying to assess some science and research indicators. Trying to measure the research potential of all faculty staff, this assessment tool is organized in distinctive four dimensions, namely researcher’s (i) biographic data, (ii) scientific identification, scientific outputs (books, Books’ chapters, scientific paper indexed and proceedings), (iii) research project with competitive funding and (iv) suggestions to improve research production. In what concerns to the application, all faculty staff members (teachers and researchers) were invited to contribute. The results were presented and discussed personally and collectively with all academic community. These results also provide relevant Key Performance Indicators, also known as KPIs or Key Success Indicators (KSIs), that could help managers and researchers gauge the effectiveness of various functions and processes important to achieving organizational goals. If scientific research is a strategic priority to higher education institutions, this kind of KPIs could be used to help academic managers to assess whether they or their faculty/research staff are on or off target towards those goals.