Abstract:

Effective leadership at Institutions of Higher Education requires visible and appropriate support services to advance: faculty-, department-, and college-level research activity aspirations. Research enterprise growth and the attendant individual professional development are associated with externally funded scholarly programs and significantly depend on an individual’s intrinsic motivation. However, an institution’s research enterprise success can be substantially accelerated by appropriate and targeted institutional assistance.
The proposed article presents observational findings on the intersection of intentionally designed scholar-support services housed in the Research Advancement unit of the Division of Research and Innovation at San Diego State University (SDSU), the flagship research institution of the 23-campus California State University system; and the policies and practices related to retention and promotion of faculty. The context for this observational study is characterizing lessons learned and exploring the potential for translating to other educational systems, such as those in the country of Georgia.
For this study, we adopt the National Organization of Research Development Professionals' definition of Research Development – “a set of strategic, proactive, catalytic, and capacity-building activities designed to facilitate individual faculty members, teams of researchers, and central research administrations in attracting extramural research funding, creating relationships, and developing and implementing strategies that increase institutional competitiveness.”
At SDSU, this function is housed within the Research Advancement (RA) unit (although we acknowledge it resides in units with various names at other institutions). In general, RA activities should be valued as a source of support and assistance, however, gaps persist in faculty knowledge regarding what the role and capabilities of RA are, and this exerts negative pressure on faculty help-seeking behavior. Initiatives that promote communication among colleagues (both institution to faculty and peer-to-peer) could be effective, and optimal for service utilization.
These practices appear to lack an improved understanding of human performance, with a continued focus on quantitative metrics related to grant-getting (e.g., submissions, success, and dollars won) and scholarly output (e.g., publications, H-scores, impact factors). Constant adherence to these demonstrably flawed measures of excellence has led to the dissatisfaction of faculty, especially those historically accustomed to other forms of scholarship and creative activities. Policies and practices of post-COVID experiences seem to mirror those of pre-COVID with little professional credit offered for highly impactful forms of scholarship such as Team Science programs and/or community-engaged research (both of which have different profiles for publication and funding).
In this context, normative expectations for publication and grant success should be matched with commensurate assistance, training, and ongoing infrastructure support to limit the institutional and administrative burden for faculty to meet promotion criteria.
The article discusses the administrative services and resources provided to foster factors influencing educational leadership & research advancement.

Keywords:

Research Advancement, Faculty Advancement, Administrative solutions, Higher Education Faculty Assistance services.