Managing the University Community The case of University Louis Pasteur Professor Annie Cheminat EUA Workshop 1st - 2nd December 2006 Strasbourg
About ULP: organisation 12 faculties Medicine Dental Surgery Pharmacy Mathematics and Computer Science Physical Sciences Chemistry Life Sciences Professional Institute of Science and Technology
About ULP: organisation 12 faculties Psychology and Education Sciences Geography and Development Economic and Management Sciences Astronomical Observatory
About ULP: organisation 4 Engineering Schools European Chemistry, Polymers and Materials School National Physics Engineering School Earth Sciences Engineering School and Observatory Biotechnology Engineering School 2 University Institutes of Technology (IUT)
About ULP Programme subjects Mathematics Computer Sciences Physics - Engineering Chemistry Health Care Life Sciences Earth, Universe, Environment Geography, Development Economics, Management Psychology Education Sciences
About ULP Curricula 12 Bachelor degrees 19 vocational Bachelor degrees 55 research Master degrees 6 Doctoral Schools 50 vocational Master degrees 3 doctor s diplomas: Medicine/Dental Surgery/Pharmacy 4 engineering degrees 6 University Technological Diplomas (DUT)
About ULP: Students About 18,500 students 21% foreigners 6,000 graduates (2006) Health 35% Life Sciences 15% Sciences/Engineering 25% Economics/Management 9% Humanities / Social Sc. 16%
About ULP: Students Bachelors 34% Masters 16% Doctorate 7% Health Diplomas 33% Engineering Diplomas 4.3% DUT 4.4% Others 1.3%
About ULP: Research Research fields Life and Health Chemistry Physics and Materials Mathematics, information and engineering Sciences Geosciences, universe and environment The individual and society Economics and Management Sciences
About ULP: Research 62 research laboratories or departments 2,000 scientists (1/3 CNRS/INSERM) 900 engineers, technicians, administrative staff in the laboratories 1,300 doctoral students 265 doctorates awarded in 2005 200 foreign post doctoral students
About ULP Relationship with industry (2005) 300 contracts 11.3 M 19 patents Training 6,700 trainees 1,122 companies involved Turnover: 4.2 M
About ULP: Resources 200 M 1,300 permanent teaching staff Sciences 45% Health 40% Human Sciences 8% Economics 4% 1,400 engineers, technicians, administrative staff
Why self evaluation at ULP Need for reliable and relevant information to be supplied in the context of external evaluation Development of contractual policy between the university and the Ministry of national education and research Setting up «LOLF»
Why self evaluation at ULP Information, guidance and advice to students Building the European Higher Education Area Increasing autonomy and management of the university
Data and indicators: which use? Measurement of productivity and quality of the university results Making a political decision for change and improvement Managing staff and financial resources Regular evaluation and comparison with internal or external benchmark values
Datas and indicators The university must be able to collect data to build up indicators concerning all of its missions teaching and training research and technological transfer scientific and technical culture programmes
Data and indicators The university must be able to build up indicators concerning its strategies staff management international policy students life
Data and indicators Internal Consistency collecting all data and setting up indicators at the university level running data collection at the most detailed level in order to be able to produce indicators according to the various needs and requests organising indicators centrally for the university and for each faculty or research department sharing data and indicators with them to enhance a contractual-type dialogue
Data and indicators Consistency with national indicators LOLF and Contractual Policy The required indicators are set up by the Ministry of National Education and Research University has to comply with those requirements
Data and indicators International consistency A large variety of national practices access to higher education organisation of courses institution autonomy resources Difficult to find reliable comparisons
Setting up indicators Tools and methods Software for the management of each field of activity Teaching (Apogee) Research (Graal) Staff Management (Harpege) Financial Management (Nabuco)
Setting up indicators Tools and methods The statistical service a service at the central level working with the faculties and institutes: to check the quality of the databases to extract from the databases the data necessary to build up the management indicators to produce and to organise indicators for the management team of ULP, for the faculties or for the university s partners, in relation to demands
Setting up indicators Tools and methods Difficulties to adapt the software to requirements to ensure quality and exhaustiveness of databases to convince various offices at the university level or in faculties and research departments to respect the order of procedures
Data and indicators Teaching Access indicators related to students ratio of students according to various parameters average study time that might be expected for success outcome ratio of graduates for each curriculum ratio of graduates going on to further study employment indicators..
Data and indicators Research Research production compared to the resources for each research department publications research grants and contracts number of doctorates awarded number of post doctorate supported Ratio per subject (university level, national or international scale)
Software for research management GRAAL GRAAL: an application worked out by ULP together with 4 other French universities GRAAL: a tool to describe consistently research organisation and activities a reference for the university office for research administration the source of indicators for the university board a communication interface with the Ministry of National Education and Research and other research organisations (CNRS, INSERM )
Software for research management GRAAL GRAAL: a database for the laboratories career, activities and scientific achievements of the scientific staff follow-up of the international activities follow-up of the financial resources (grants, contracts ) archiving the historical data over the last years
Software for research management GRAAL GRAAL is a research database for a single university GRAAL was set up in order to be used by a number of universities and institutional partners of the research policy, working together on a single geographical area
Conclusion In spite of improvement of data quality and setting up relevant indicators, political difficulties are still remaining to: convert the conclusions of evaluation in political decisions convince that evaluation is useful to induce improvement when several years are often necessary for significant changes to occur share such an evaluation policy with all the actors of university activity, research and teaching staff as well as technical and administrative staff
Conclusion overcome the mistrust of some academics towards performance indictors and towards the transparency of the practices and of the results convince that evaluation is necessary to set up internal quality assurance procedures and to establish mutual trust and recognition, especially in the context of the European Higher Education Area
Conclusion About external communication What should be communicated? How to avoid external communication of inconsistent data by uncontrolled sources of information? How to communicate to avoid misunderstanding of informations users?