Doing better knowledge exchange

16 Dec 2015 As outlined on HEFCE’s blog, Research Consulting has been appointed by HEFCE to consider the availability of good/effective practice materials in university knowledge exchange. Working with representatives from Universities UK, PraxisUnico and AURIL, our role will be to undertake a broad-ranging review of the  materials collected from HEFCE’s recent consultation in this area, supplementing these with other guidance …

Tales from the far North

8 Dec 2015 Last week I had the privilege of attending the 10th Munin Conference on Scholarly Publishing at the University of Tromsø.  When first invited I confess I had to check the map to find out exactly where Tromsø is – some 200 miles inside the Arctic circle, it turns out, in the far north of Norway. Indeed the …

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Research Consulting announces national survey of KEC professionals for PraxisUnico

28 Oct 2015 On Friday 23 October 2015, PraxisUnico launched two surveys on Knowledge Exchange and Commercialisation (KEC), prepared by Research Consulting. The surveys will collect data currently not available from thousands of KEC professionals and institutions in order to shape sector-wide recommendations and campaigns on behalf of the KEC profession. PraxisUnico’s main goals are: raise the profile of knowledge …

Are learned societies an endangered species?

Dr Mattia Fosci, Consultant, 16 Oct 2015 Earlier this year, Research Consulting carried out an analysis on the financial health of UK learned societies, and of their reliance on publishing revenues. The analysis was part of a broader study commissioned by Universities UK’s Open Access Co-ordination Group that collected data and generated indicators to better understand how the transition to …

Monitoring the transition to Open Access

16 Sep 2015 16 September saw the release of a major new study of the transition to Open Access (OA) in the United Kingdom and across the world. Our role at Research Consulting was to develop a set of metrics to monitor the impact of OA on learned societies, while our partners at the Research Information Network, Elsevier and the University …

Research Innovate Grow: a taster of the research environment in the UK

By Mattia Fosci, Consultant, 6 Jul 2015 Last Thursday, for the first time, I attended an event as the sole representative of Research Consulting. Hosted by Research Councils UK (RCUK) and Innovate UK, Research Innovate Grow was an interactive showcase that explored whether, to what extent and how the UK research environment stimulates innovation and drives economic growth in the country. …

Developing a sustainable infrastructure to support open access

5 Jun 2015 With the rapid growth in open-access policies and mandates across Europe and worldwide, shared infrastructure and services are now critical to the efficiency and effectiveness of open access publication. These services include software, platforms, information and data services, and support and advice, without which it would be difficult or impossible for open-access publication at the scale now …

ORCID – An idea whose time has come?

28 May 2015 Information Power and Research Consulting recently completed a review of the Jisc-ARMA ORCID pilots, where 8 UK universities implemented the ORCID unique researcher identifier in their systems. The final report and an implementation checklist for institutions can now be found here. These show that momentum behind ORCID is now building rapidly, both in the UK and across the …

SHERPA/REF stakeholder consultation – Final Report

4 May 2015 Following the SHERPA/REF Stakeholder Consultation exercise which took place in January 2015, Research Consulting and the Centre for Research Communications produced a report which was subsequently presented to HEFCE, together with the Service Specifications Report, user stories and other outputs.  The CRC has always intended to make the report available under a CC-BY licence, with the permission of HEFCE, and …