Research & Research Study

Report from the meeting held Tuesday 24 October

Grants update

Senior Grants Officer Karyn Knowles provided the following news and information about grants matters:

• ARC Discovery Grant round letters to successful and unsuccessful applicants are currently being distributed through the internal mail system.
• The Notification of Intent to apply for an ARC Discovery Grant has been placed on the Research Office website, with a change of name to "Request for Research Office Services". Resnet members are asked to encourage their researchers to complete the service request form as soon as possible. The main objectives of introducing the form are to ensure that research administrators are in the best position possible to support grants applications, and to provide researchers with the opportunity to nominate the level of service they would like to receive (from full service to 'post office box only')
• The former Major Equipment Fund has now been remodelled as the MQ Strategic Infrastructure Scheme, with a deadline of 8 December for all submissions other than discretionary funding submissions. See MQ Strategic Infrastructure Scheme on the Research Office website.

Following discussion, it was agreed to change the Service Request Form to include a field that identifies the lead institution for the application, so that we can pick up applications progressing through other institutions.

The Acting Chair of the Research Policy & Management Committee, Professor John Hooper, reported as follows:

• It was noted that MQRES PhD scholarships will not be automatically available to MQ researchers successfully applying as part of a team for ARC Discovery and Linkage grants administered by other Universities in 2007. A minimum of $40,000 income for Macquarie via a signed inter-institutional agreement will be required for MQRES eligibility.
• Data on MQ's research performance over the last few years is progressively being added to the website at Research Performance Reports.

Higher Degree Research Update

Manager, Higher Degree Research Office, provided the following information:

• The new name for the Office (formerly referred to as a Unit) has been approved by the DVC Research and formal adoption is expected soon. ResNet members will start to see the new name flowing through to all documentation.
•  A new, integrated scholarship and candidature application recommendation form was tabled and members were asked to provide feedback. It is currently being trialled in three Divisions and will be implemented more widely following feedback from these divisions.
• The new Annual Report process (via EStudent) has been implemented with divisions and HDRO reporting some difficulties for HDR candidates inexperienced in using eStudent. The IRIS project team has undertaken to develop and implement an on-line process for next year’s Annual Report.

A request was made that there be only one submission date for Annual Reports, rather than the two current dates (one for the student and the other for supervisors). It was noted that the process is being redefined and that this suggestion can be taken into account for next year's reports cycle. For HDR candidates who did not receive the email about the Annual Report process, divisions were encouraged to make their own arrangements for a revised submission date.

Form of ResNet Meetings

The notion of having separate meetings for Higher Degree Research and Research matters was discussed. In the end, it was agreed that there is value for all research administrators to meet monthly so that an overview is maintained and research matters are progressed in an integrated fashion. It was further agreed that there may be value in having specific Higher Degree Research workshops on a regular basis in addition to the monthly RESNET meetings.

Members are asked to note that meeting dates for 2007 will be set at the final meeting for 2006. Please have your ideas ready for that meeting.

IRIS Update

IRIS Project Manager Mark Ellis reported on progress towards implementation of the new integrated research information system as follows:

• Despite some delays in IT and Supplier support, publications will be web-accessible by all stakeholders by the end of November. The staff portal, which enables this to occur and which provides all users with a unique identifier and password, will be operational in mid-November
• Access to the grants historical data will follow in December and Higher Degree Research processes will start to come on line in the New Year.
• The substantiation and audit of publications could now be done progressively (as researchers either entered their publications directly or passed them through to the Divisional research administrators to enter on their behalf) or it could wait until the audit cycle is in full swing, from March to May 2007. Hard copy verification of all publications would again be required in 2007.
• An Endnote Library of publications entered would be added to IRIS and a report of entered publications would be generated monthly.

It was noted that the differential treatment of E1 publications (whereby only some would count towards recognition as 'research active') in the IRIS system is still to be resolved.

Next Meeting: Tuesday 21 November in E4A, room 623.