Research operations programme of the Faculty of Law

Transcription

1 Research operations programme of the Faculty of Law 1. Introduction This research operations programme proposes a research development plan for the faculty for the years The research operations programme does not address the guidance of doctoral students or doctoral training in general, because these have been comprehensively developed by the University of Turku Graduate School and the doctoral programme of the faculty. Instead, the research operations programme focuses on improving the preconditions for research in the Faculty of Law in general. The purpose of the operations programme is to raise the quality and volume of the research conducted by the faculty. Another goal is to continue the internationalisation of the faculty's research and to increase the share of external research funding. The idea is not to eliminate research traditions in the field of law, where the emphasis has been on Finnish-language publications addressing domestic issues. Instead, the aim is to create new focus areas and take account of the varying needs of different branches of law, while taking account of the versatile and increasingly international nature of research in the discipline. 2. Current status In 2013, the Faculty of Law of the University of Turku published 173 publications. Some 23% of these were peer-reviewed (categories A1 to A4), while 10% were published through level 2 channels in accordance with the criteria of the Publication Forum. The faculty did not yet publish anything in level 3 publication channels. During the period under review, the Publication Forum has not yet had the time to steer the faculty's publication activities in any significant way. The share of international publications of the faculty's total number of publications is rather small (19% in 2013). More than half of the faculty's publications fall into publication categories B1 and B2 (non-peer-reviewed academic articles). The publications of the Faculty of Law of the University of Turku by publication type (Source: the statistics service Vipunen of the Finnish National Board of Education) Total International Publication type Peer-reviewed academic articles (A1 A4) Non-peer reviewed academic articles (B1 B3) Academic books (monographs) (C1 C2) Publications for professional audiences (D1 D5) Publications for the general public (E1 E2) Total The publications of the Faculty of Law of the University of Turku by Publication Forum categories (Source: the statistics service Vipunen of the Finnish National Board of Education) Total International Level Unknown

2 Publications of Finnish Faculties of Law by publication type in 2013 (Source: the statistics service Vipunen of the Finnish National Board of Education) Publication type University of Helsinki Peer-reviewed academic articles (A1 A4) Non-peer reviewed academic articles (B1 B3) Academic books (monographs) (C1 C2) Publications for professional audiences (D1 D5) Publications for the general public (E1 E2) Total In , external research funding constituted approximately 13 25% of the faculty's total funding. The amount of external research funding from various sources has ranged from around EUR 551,000 to EUR 943,000 per year. Total Uni- University ver- of sity Eastern of Lap- Finlanland University of Turku University of Helsinki International Uni- Universitsitver- of of East Lapland ern Finland University of Turku The research funding of the Faculty of Law of the University of Turku in (Source: University of Turku) Research funding, EUR Basic funding Academy of Finland Tekes Ministries Other domestic funding Foreign funding Total external research funding A more detailed picture of the current status of the faculty's research will be available when the research assessment (autumn 2015) and bibliometric data (spring 2016) become available. In this case, it would to justifiable to reassess the research operations programme and amend it if necessary. Even after this, the programme and its realisation should be re-evaluated each year. The need to redefine goals should also be reassessed every few years. Either the university or the faculty should regularly assess the research carried out. 3. Objectives The objectives of the faculty's research are divided between long-term and immediate aims. In all fields of research, the faculty should become a national leader. Our long-term (> 5 years) objectives are to significantly increase the overall level and volume of the faculty's research compared to its current level; to improve our quality to a level close to that of international forerunners in at least some areas; to become a Centre of Excellence; and to continue to have an Academy Professor in the faculty. We should significantly increase research cooperation and networking. The realisation of these objectives will demonstrate the faculty's international orientation and high quality of research. Our immediate aims support the realisation of our long-term goals. They are practical and measurable goals that reflect our active and target-oriented research activities. 2

3 One such goal is to increase the number of international and Publication Forum publications, particularly on the levels 2 and 3 of the latter, and even on level 1 in some branches of law. A key means of achieving this would be to target our research results at publications that are classified as high level in the Publication Forum. We also need to take account of the possibilities presented by the monograph-format publication of research in the field of law. We could significantly increase our number of publications from the current level. Since the publication activities of faculties and individual researchers are typically assessed in comparison to the field's international frontrunners (for example in Research Assessment Exercises and academy applications) and key scholarly debate in most branches of law now takes place in international forums, the faculty's objectives emphasise the need for more publications in international forums. Publication channels offer a means of increasing the faculty's research funding, because the university's internal allocation of funds has begun to closely follow the funding model of the Ministry of Education and Culture, which lays an emphasis on the Publication Forum's classification. When funding is being calculated, much weight is given to publications in channels on levels 2 and 3 according to the Publication Forum classification. Another immediate goal is to increase external, supplementary research funding. Until now, external funding has accounted for a modest share of the faculty's research funding. The faculty runs a few research projects on external research funding on an ongoing basis. The number of postdoctoral researchers has been particularly low in such projects. This leads to a vicious circle in which only few applications for external funding are made in comparison to research communities that consistently have several postdoctoral researchers working on externally funded projects. Furthermore, the amount of external research funding is often an indicator of a unit's academic vitality and level. For these reasons, the amount of external research funding should be multiplied compared to the current situation. 4. Measures The faculty will employ the measures discussed below to reach the above-mentioned objectives. As several measures pertain to several objectives, they have been listed by type. The connections between each measure and its various objectives are described together with each measure. The measures are categorised according to type as follows: A. Stronger research culture, B. Securing time and resources for research and C. Practices and definitions concerning employment relationships and duties Measures taken to build a stronger research culture provide the working community with an atmosphere and mindset in which everyone feels that research is the natural key task of the entire unit. Measures of the first and second type both contribute to this goal. However, softer measures can also be employed to increase the visibility and esteem enjoyed by research, such as introductions to completed and ongoing research projects in faculty events and the better integration of students currently in the advanced studies stage into research teams. Measures of the second type enable high-quality and active research by freeing time for it elsewhere and by ensuring the preconditions of research, such as sufficient information resources, research training and language revision services. Practices and definitions concerning employment relationships and duties entail practical decision-making, for example on matters such as the following: the faculty's recruitment criteria for 3

4 researchers and teachers; the definition of research goals and the means of ensuring employee commitment to them in each case; potential incentives the faculty could adopt to increase the number of high-quality international publications and the proportion of external funding; and means of rewarding successful or promising research teams via decision-making in the faculty. The underlying idea is to create incentives for international, high-quality research, secure the time needed to focus on research and ensure the basic preconditions of research as well as the necessary research services, such as research databases, the training required to use them, language revision services and administrative support for research teams. Researchrelated expectations for professors and postdoctoral researchers should also be defined in greater detail. If we wish to raise the level and volume of research, we need to articulate our expectations in a sufficiently clear and goal-oriented manner. In other words, there would be little point in creating expectations and incentives for researchers without ensuring that they have the time, information and material resources necessary to carrying out their research. The realisation of expectations must be monitored. A. Stronger research culture We can strengthen our research culture by employing various practices and traditions to increase the visibility and appreciation of research and to develop cooperation methods that sustain active, high-quality research and increase research cooperation and networking. The faculty will be developed into a community that strives towards a common goal high-quality and versatile research in an atmosphere of mutual collaboration and respect. The faculty will hold monthly Work in Progress seminars that showcase ongoing research projects. The faculty will organise regular workshops on empirical research methods in support of multidisciplinary research. The faculty will support greater participation in international conferences and create structures enabling cross-faculty activities, for example by organising brainstorming seminars to identify shared research interests. Brainstorming workshops for the faculty's researchers will be held well in advance of major calls for funding applications. Another important focus will be on benefiting more from tacit, experience-based knowledge. Inexperienced funding applicants can be mentored by their more experienced peers. In support of future applications, the faculty could systematically summarise the feedback provided on funding applications. Research and researchers will be given a higher profile. More efficient use will be made of existing and new communications channels (social media included). The faculty's website will be brushed up to make ongoing research projects easier to find in both Finnish and English. Particular attention will be paid to communicating the faculty's research in English, for example on the faculty website, since foreign research partners often form an impression of a faculty based on its website. Continuously updated publication statistics will be created on the Intranet. Extensive research projects (e.g. Academy of Finland projects) will have their own websites. Information on the faculty's seminars (including public examinations of dissertations) will be disseminated on a wider basis than before, particularly to other faculties. Information on research projects will be disseminated throughout their life cycle, not only after the project concludes. The faculty will allocate resources for communications, either by adjusting the job descriptions of its administrative staff or by outsourcing. The faculty will employ various measures and traditions to raise the regard in which research is held internally. New publications and research projects will be publicised at all-faculty events. The development of publication activities will be monitored, and active theme areas and re- 4

5 search teams will be highlighted. The physical environment also affects the preconditions for a healthy community spirit and research. When Calonia is renovated, new architectural solutions should be considered that enhance research and interaction between teachers and researchers. Doctoral candidates will be encouraged to prepare article-based dissertations. The faculty will publish more co-written articles than before. As co-written articles have not traditionally been common in the field of law, the faculty will organise training events on themes such as process writing. The internationalisation and networking of researchers will be supported by means such as granting travel subsidies and allowances for language revision. Research-related periods abroad and research visits are recommended and will be supported. B. Securing time and resources for research High-quality research requires sufficient time and resources. Unless the research itself can be completed faster, the only way to ensure more and better research is to free up time for it elsewhere. In this section, we will begin by examining those of the faculty's internal operations that take time away from research activities. Secondly, we will discuss certain key resources required for successful research. For example, we must ensure the acquisition of sufficient research databases, sufficient training in their use, language revision services and administrative resources for research projects. The faculty's internal practices that take too much time away from high-quality research Beside research, the faculty has other tasks, of which high-quality teaching is the most important. When the practices involved in these other tasks are being assessed, a critical evaluation should be performed of whether the time spent is in proportion to the benefits. Such an evaluation will also have an impact on the prerequisites for research, since time spent on other tasks is time taken away from research. Examples of activities that may consume unnecessary amounts of research time include teacher tutoring which has become burdensome, entrance examination practices, numerous and large committees and inefficient, poorly prepared and chaired meetings. Such practices should be subjected to a systematic and continuous impact assessment: the effect on research of each (planned) activity and its practical organisation should be assessed. If the amount and quality of research is to be improved, it is evident that the time for conducting research and researcher training must come from somewhere. The work of teacher tutors could be amended to better suit the faculty's special characteristics. For example, individual study plan discussions with new students consume too much time among teacher tutors in relation to the benefits gained. Extensive use of teacher tutors during the early stages of studies is a recent phenomenon that has been criticised by several doctoral candidates. The tasks of teacher tutors should be redefined and they should be relieved of unnecessary or excess duties. Their teaching and administrative tasks should be taken into account when other tasks are distributed. This would prevent an excessive annual workload consisting of teaching and administrative tasks. In a similar fashion, the editing and writing of entrance examination books takes time away from academic research and earns the faculty no research points. Nor does it contribute in 5

6 general to international research of a high standard. The preparation and grading of entrance examinations also takes time away from research. Efforts have been made to reduce the workload caused by student admission procedures, for example through more efficient entrance examination collaboration and exploring ways of reforming entrance examination and student admission processes. Committees are numerous, fairly large in size, and committee memberships tend to accumulate among a few individuals who are often active researchers. Committee meetings often take hours. The faculty's meeting practices should be streamlined. The faculty will organise training on good meeting practices and these should be discussed among the staff. Another area calling for attention is the type of research encouraged by the faculty. For example, entrance examination books, the Oikeustieto journal and other publications do not earn the faculty any publication points or profile it as an internationally high-standard research community. The faculty has committed itself to publishing entrance examination books and Oikeustieto, but has not defined goals for scientific publications or officially adopted any practices that would support such goals. The faculty should encourage its staff to shift its focus international publications through level 2 and 3 channels. The faculty should investigate how to generate publications in a way that would better contribute to its academic publication activities. The organisation of teaching has a significant impact on research. The faculty's research culture could be strengthened by increasingly integrating research with teaching and involving students more closely with research projects. Undergraduate degree students interested in research would be better equipped for research and attracted to research careers from an early stage (e.g. advanced studies could be linked to a research project and students' methodological preparedness could be developed). The way in which teaching is organised has a substantial effect on the time left for research. If students prepared better before lectures, less time would be needed for contact lectures on basic knowledge. Studies could also be conducted as online courses without traditional lectures. When teaching methods like this were employed, teaching would not suffer due to research while more time might still be available for research. For example, foreign researchers could be invited to give lectures, freeing up the faculty's own researchers to conduct research, while increasing the diversity and internationality of teaching and enabling research cooperation with the lecturer in question. The faculty's examination practices should also be re-examined. The requirement to arrange at least four opportunities to take an exam places a strain on the faculty's research activities and often leads to less exam preparation by students. In general, teaching practices should be examined in the light of their importance to teaching and research. Additionally, more account should be taken of an overall approach combining research and teaching interests in the planning, preparation and realisation of teaching and studies. Research resources The faculty's research results are a key factor in successful research activities. Research projects and individual researchers alike must have access to sufficient, high-quality support services and material resources. In the best-case scenario, researchers would focus on their specialisms, i.e. conducting, publishing and steering research and planning research projects. Meanwhile, other professionals within the university and faculty administration will support projects and researchers, handling matters such as budgeting and the projects' financial administration. The faculty will also secure the preconditions for research, such as research databases. 6

7 Administrative support for research projects is a significant research resource within the university and faculty. The faculty's support services, which act as go-betweens between university-level research services and research projects, are viewed by the faculty's researchers as the most concrete and important form of support. The faculty should therefore provide administrative services for applications for external funding, for example. There would be good reason to develop services in a more proactive direction so that researchers and research teams are guided towards applying for funding from sources about which they may have been unaware, at least in detail. They should also be provided with help in preparing applications for external funding. Focusing on matters such as financial administration during a research project is not a key competence of the project's academic director. The faculty's research and financial management should actively monitor projects and ensure that they remain within budget and be provided with timely information in plain language on their finances and the sufficiency of their resources. To guarantee sufficient expertise and resources, the faculty should create the position of research director or research coordinator. The faculty should pay particular attention to the acquisition and maintenance of sufficient research databases. Databases and sufficient epublications resources are an absolute prerequisite for international top-level research in today's world. The faculty should sharpen up this aspect of its information services. The tasks of information services (in cooperation with the library) should include greater effort to train themselves in database use and epublications in the field of law, to become familiar with new databases and systems and disseminating information on them, to propose, prepare and implement new acquisitions, to train the faculty's researchers on the use of information resources and to support research. The current problem lies in the fact that due to a lack of training among other reasons electronic information sources are little used. The faculty should also ensure that its researchers have the necessary ICT tools and are competent users of reference management and document creation software. The faculty should continue to maintain resources for language revision, translation and proofreading services and other publication costs, and expand these resources if necessary. C. Practices and definitions concerning employment relationships and duties Practices and definitions relating to employment relationships and duties are an important tool for promoting international top-level research. The related measures can include redefining the task structure within the faculty, increasing the proportion of external funding in the faculty budget, recruitment practices, career advancement, salary and other material incentives, the allocation of resources to successful or promising research teams on the basis of researchrelated indicators, and ensuring and normalising postgraduate education as one of the tasks of researchers of different levels. Task structure Most researchers in the faculty are doctoral candidates preparing a doctoral dissertation (29). In addition to doctoral candidates in an employment relationship, around a hundred candidates have registered themselves as being active within the faculty, with approximately half of them actively working on their doctoral dissertations. The second-largest group are the professors (19). Second-level and third-level researchers form the smallest group (5). In recent years, the increase in the number of doctoral students has mainly increased the supervisory tasks of professors. At the same time, efforts have been made to reduce the non-research tasks of doctor- 7

8 al candidates. This and more efficient supervision have been necessary steps towards ensuring that candidates are able to complete their doctoral dissertations with sufficiently high grades within the existing target times. A higher number of doctoral candidates in need of supervision and the reduction of their nonresearch tasks have created pressure to increase the teaching and administrative workload of professors and the few postdoctoral researchers, correspondingly reducing the time they can devote to research. However, due to their ongoing doctoral training and less research experience, doctoral candidates are less equipped to conduct internationally high-standard research than postdoctoral researchers or professors in particular. Postdoctoral researchers have an incentive to advance their careers by publishing internationally high-standard research and applying for external funding. Acting as dissertation supervisors would also further qualify more experienced postdoctoral researchers for advancement in their academic careers. However, there are currently too few postdoctoral researchers to enable the realisation of this group's research potential. The faculty hosts externally funded postdoctoral researchers on a sporadic basis only. It is difficult to find postdoctoral researchers who are in a position to write applications for research projects or for employment as postdoctoral researchers based on the existing research funding. The few postdoctoral researchers in the faculty tend to accumulate too many teaching and administrative duties. This prevents them from conducting research optimally, even if their education and motivation makes them particularly suitable for this. Furthermore, their small number means that they are barely reducing the supervisory, administrative and teaching workload placed on the professors, or that only some of the professors benefit from this. The professors have rather modest incentives to engage in research of an internationally highstandard. Unlike other groups of researchers, the employment contracts of permanent professors do not terminate periodically. In practical terms, this means that professors are able to publish very little, or focus on publishing through channels not classified by the Publication Forum, without any significant impacts on their salary, career advancement within the faculty or without accumulating a higher workload in other areas (e.g. administration or teaching). Permanent professors do not usually benefit in any way from acquiring external funding, quite the opposite: the related application process and project administration constitute a major administrative workload. In sum, none of the researcher groups have optimal conditions and incentives for conducting research of an internationally high-standard and applying for external funding. When the faculty's internal task structure is being developed, the primary focus should therefore be on increasing the number of postdoctoral researcher positions. As described above, this would have a positive effect on the research conducted by postdoctoral researchers and professors alike. Postdoctoral researchers whose work is funded from the faculty's basic funding could be encouraged to apply for external funding if the acquisition of external research funding were used as grounds for reducing teaching duties, thus enabling a greater focus on research. The faculty should ensure that research-oriented postdoctoral researcher positions are also open to international top-level researchers with no Finnish-language skills. Means of achieving this include the appropriate job descriptions, efficient communications, internationalisation of the faculty's internal operations (for example the better integration of non-finnish-speaking researchers into faculty operations and administration), and the dissemination of information to non-finnish-speaking applicants about the faculty's operational practices and integration services, such as housing-related matters. 8

9 The objective should be to reinforce the faculty's research administration by means such as creating a research coordinator/director position. This would enable targeted support for funding applications, for example. At the latest, the creation of such a position will be necessary when the university's general research services are being reorganised. Increasing the proportion of external funding The proportion of external funding and the number of postdoctoral researchers working on externally funded research projects should be significantly increased, since this is a way of increasing the ratio of postdoctoral researchers in the faculty and thereby contributing to the achievement of the above objectives. Foreign research institutes often have many times the number of externally funded postdoctoral researchers compared to the number located in the Faculty of Law of the University of Turku. Although external funding applicants view the application process as risky in relation to the amount of work involved, the faculty should encourage such risk-taking and make its expectations clear in this regard. The only way to receive external funding is to apply for it. It is therefore necessary to increase the annual number of applications. The faculty's researchers should submit 3 to 5 applications for domestic funding a year (most importantly from the Academy of Finland) and 1 to 2 applications for international funding (particularly from the EU). Professors' tasks should include making regular research funding applications for research projects. Furthermore, researchers should apply whose careers are at a stage suitable for Postdoctoral Research Fellow applications, Academy Research Fellow applications and TIAS applications. The faculty needs to take active measures to increase the number of applications and the resulting amounts of external funding. It could, for example, define the tasks of and expectations set for professors and postdoctoral researchers in closer detail, follow up on funding applications and create the necessary incentives to encourage applications for external funding. Previous and planned applications should be addressed in development discussions, for instance. In addition, professors and postdoctoral researchers should be convened in a meeting by the Vice-Dean responsible for research and the research administration prior to important calls for funding applications (e.g. EU and Academy of Finland applications), to ensure that sufficient effort is being devoted to making applications. The faculty has applied for strategy funding and has allocated this to increasing its external funding. The faculty has opened its strategy funding out to internal applications, enabling researchers to apply for funding enabling applications for external research funding and project preparation. This practice should continue. The faculty will invest in long-term visits by prominent foreign researchers. Several sources of external funding are available for this purpose (e.g. Fullbright, FiDiPro and Erasmus funding), although the faculty has so far used them very little and reactively. Visits from high-level foreign researchers would internationalise the faculty's activities, improve its international networks and those of its researchers and potentially benefit the research conducted in the faculty, for example by providing the faculty and its researchers with access to expertise in a certain field or methodology. Recruitment International, high-standard research will be used as a recruitment criterion for researchers at various stages of their careers. International high-standard research does not necessarily 9

10 mean publications in academic lingua francas (such as English, German and French). Publications can be also written in Finland's national languages, depending on the area of law and research topic in question. Internationally high research standards and active research demonstrated by the applicant will serve as the key criteria when assessing the level of the applicant's research activities. When new research personnel are recruited, the faculty's expectations for research and the applicant's personal plans will be discussed in greater detail than now. Their development and realisation will also be monitored in sufficient detail in the future, for example in development discussions. Career advancement and salaries Demonstrated research accomplishments will be among the criteria for career advancement and salaries. For example, the assessment of tenure track associate professors should be based on confirmed research accomplishments and external research funding. Substantial attention will be paid to research accomplishments when setting the salaries of research positions. The dependence of salaries on confirmed research accomplishments will be discussed in detail in personal development discussions at least. For example, if a doctoral student publishes an article in a level 3 channel or two articles in an international level 2 publication, his or her salary should be raised. This practice would do much to encourage publications through international level 2 and 3 channels. Corresponding salary and reward practices should also be adopted for other research positions. This would not only motivate high-quality international research, but such salary system would also attract the most skilled researchers to the faculty and prevent a brain drain of its most skilled and productive researchers. Publications through level 2 and 3 channels and the acquisition of external research funding should be more clearly connected to evaluations of job requirements and of personal performance. Another possibility would be to grant scholarships for the authors of level 2 and 3 publications. The faculty should investigate how various funds could be used for such a reward scheme and take the necessary actions. Support for successful and promising research teams The operational preconditions of successful and promising research teams should be improved. The faculty's resources will be allocated to research teams that have demonstrated sufficient research accomplishments. Research teams operating on the basis of external funding will be repaid a significant share of their general costs. Through its strategy and other corresponding funds, the faculty will allocate resources to research teams based on their research accomplishments and research plans deemed to be of high quality. The responsible members and academic directors of research teams should also benefit in some way from, say, significant external funding granted to the team. The current situation is such that persons responsible for research tasks are given an additional administrative workload if external funding is granted, thus hindering their ability to focus on their research. This problem could be mitigated by reducing the teaching and administrative responsibilities of those running externally funded research projects. Focus areas in the supervision of work and the research leave system 10

11 The benefits of external research funding could be channelled towards the persons responsible for research projects by temporarily making the tasks of professors (and postdoctoral researchers, where applicable) either research-, teaching- or administration-oriented. Demonstrations of internationally high-standard research, such as international publications through level 2 and 3 channels and successful applications for external research funding, would result in fewer teaching and/or administrative duties for the professor or postdoctoral researcher. The research leave system should also be connected to internationally prominent research accomplishments and/or the acquisition of competitive external research funding. Professors with the most active research output could also use research assistants or trainees hired by the faculty. Other matters to consider Almost all of the above measures require the compilation and monitoring of statistics on research indicators. The faculty can only be awarded research points if all of its research is reported and entered in the research information system. Consequently, there are grounds for deciding that only publications entered in the system will be taken into account in salary negotiations, for example, or when resources are being allocated to research teams or productive researchers. The faculty administration should also monitor the research conducted in the faculty in real time and compile statistics on key research indicators, in order to enable the definition and monitoring of objectives. The faculty will guarantee that researchers have access to regular research training during different stages of their careers. Such training forms part of their job description. There is a continuous need for training on matters such as international publications, EU and Academy of Finland applications, foreign languages and the use of information resources. In every case, research training should be addressed during the recruitment of new researchers and in development discussions, for example. In the future, the planning of research training should be the responsibility of the Vice-Dean responsible for research or the Research Manager together with the central research administration, the faculty's researchers and other administrative personnel in charge of research. Faculty personnel should not have secondary occupations that may interfere with research. In most cases, the current annual working time and Employment Contracts Act do not require that research personnel report possible secondary occupations. However, the faculty has strong grounds for ensuring that permanent or regular secondary engagements among research personnel do not interfere with their full-time research. This is yet another reason why the faculty should voice its research-related expectations to research staff more clearly in the future. If necessary and within the boundaries of the Employment Contracts Act, the faculty could also intervene in the case of secondary occupations if they interfere with research. The theme of the academic year is research. Research will be assessed by an international panel and the faculty will pay special attention to improving the preconditions for research. 11