During the 2017-2018 academic year, we at the University of Westminster took a long, hard look at ourselves. The distinctive boundaries of the university were quite blurred. We were trying to do too many things instead of focusing on what we were really good at. We needed to be louder and prouder about our academic achievements and tell the story of Westminster more clearly.
Recognizing this, we have reorganized our five faculties and 26 departments into three universities and approximately 12 schools. Sure, there were other, less intellectual drivers to our reinvention, but coming to terms and living the best and truest version of our academic selves is truly inspiring. It was a process of giving.
Know our strengths
One of the University of Westminster’s strengths is the quality of our research, evidenced by subsequent iterations of the Research Excellence Framework (REF), but we are not and will not be equally great at everything. I’m looking forward to it. In rewriting some of the blurred lines, we reviewed research performance indicators and consulted widely.
What was really impressive was that everyone agreed on the areas of research excellence at the University of Westminster, and these were easily explained. Art, communication, and culture. Health innovation and happiness. Sustainable cities and urban environments. We take great pride in our commitment to diversity and inclusion as a community and agree that diversity and inclusion should be more than just a hallmark of Westminster. It has to be the core business. And now there are four.
How can you leverage the strengths of these four research areas?Other universities talk about research themes, interdisciplinary areas, grand challenges, or centers of excellence. Human resources are important to us. It brings people together from inside and outside the university to share passions, come up with solutions together and develop new projects. Therefore, we established four research communities.
Communities do not have fixed members, but people come together around specific issues or opportunities. Each has an academic leader and receives intensive support and internal funding from the Research and KE offices. Although they exist in an environment that includes research centers, groups, and a variety of other research activities, they have unique roles to play.
Find a community
If our research center is the hub, the community is the spoke, creating connections between groups of researchers and creating a kind of town square where researchers gather. The community actively pursues interdisciplinary project development, driven by real-world current funding opportunities and future fundable partnerships. These are clear commitments in our 2022-2029 research and KE strategy (Making a Difference), so unlike our research themes, we do not intend to keep reinventing them. In fact, the first bullet point on the first page of the strategy states: “By 2029, we will be at the forefront of global research and KE in four community spaces.”
While the unique role of the community may be very clear to those of us who lead research efforts, its purpose may be difficult to understand for others. How are they different from research centers and schools? Why don’t they offer more grants? Granted, they aren’t equally valuable to everyone, and that’s perfectly fine, but for some the community offers something that other research or KE architectures don’t. The community is the matchmaker.
For mid-career researchers in particular who need stimulation, new inspiration, the opportunity to collaborate with new collaborators, or make connections across disciplines, communities provide those connections. .
For those who want space for more reflective discussion, are looking for potential partners for influence, or want to raise the profile of their work beyond their alma mater, the community is a special provide something. Due to the specificity of their research, some of our colleagues, including PGRs, do not inherently belong to one research center but find a home in one of the more fluid and diverse communities. There are people who feel that there are. And we’ve brought people together to support research in other ways, including through grant application workshops, writing retreats, and external visits.
Our community has been running for 6 years and we have 6 more years until the end of our current strategy period. All four communities now have new leads (permanently or to compensate for a colleague’s leave) and are taking the opportunity for a soft restart to re-fix any ambiguities, but the obvious is that the research community has served us well. , I’m sure they will continue to do so.
Andrew Lin is Vice-Chancellor for Research and Knowledge Exchange at the University of Westminster.
If you’d like advice and insight from academics and university staff delivered straight to your inbox each week, sign up to our campus newsletter.
