PURPOSE
This policy outlines Leaders Institute’s (LI) commitment to ensuring academic staff are effective, relevant, and current in their disciplines and in the field of higher education learning and teaching. LI adheres to the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency (TEQSA) definitions of research and scholarship.
SCOPE
All staff, Higher Degree Research (HDR) students, and Masters capstone students
PRINCIPLES
LI’s priorities are informed by the Strategic Plan and Research and Scholarship Plan. LI ensures that:
- Research and Scholarship Committee carries out its responsibilities as listed in the Academic Board Terms of Reference Policy;
- all LI permanent and sessional academic staff engage in scholarship to maintain currency in their disciplines, as well as higher education learning and teaching in those disciplines;
- relevant internal professional development workshops are provided for all academic staff;
- appropriate resourcing is allocated to research and scholarship;
- all research and scholarship activities and impact are systematically collected, collated, and analysed. This data is reported to Academic Board annually, including how knowledge has been disseminated outside academia;
- all research at LI complies with the Research Ethics Policy;
- research adheres to the Code of Conduct Policy and First Nations Peoples Education Policy;
- academic staff and HDR students are encouraged to obtain ORCID registration for external identifiers;
- academic staff and HDR students are encouraged to apply for competitive external research grants;
- all research raw data is stored securely by LI for at least five (5) years in line with the Record Management Policy.
DEFINITIONS
Academic staff member: All persons appointed to the academic staff of LI, whether they hold full-time, part-time or sessional basis.
Career interruption: in accordance with the Australian Research Council Eligibility and Career Interruptions Statement, a career interruption may include, but are not limited to: carer’s responsibility; relocation for international postdoctoral studies not exceeding more than three (3) months; illness; maternity or parental leave; and/or unemployment or non-research employment where the work is predominantly non-research, not exceeding three (3) years.
Early career researcher: academic staff member who has been awarded a doctorate in the last five (5) years or commensurate with a period of significant career interruption has been awarded a doctorate within the last eight (8) years.
Human research: research about people, including surveys, interviews, observations, testing, accessing personal data or collecting human tissue.
Research: investigations to gain original knowledge, validate previous research, or use existing knowledge in a new and creative way to generate new concepts, methodologies and understandings.
Research output: products (including traditional and non-traditional research outputs), services or results (e.g. report) produced because of undertaking research.
Scholarship: analysis and interpretation of new or existing knowledge which directly informs learning, teaching, and discipline expertise.
SCHOLARSHIP ENGAGEMENT
All permanent and sessional academic staff at LI must maintain scholarship currency through activities such as:
- peer reviewed research publications and conference presentations;
- course developments and reviews;
- synthesising and communicating evidence-based practice in areas such as discipline knowledge, teaching innovation, popular media, feature articles;
- pedagogy, curriculum or policy development;
- communities of practice (e.g. development of resources, codes, or standards; leadership in academic societies;
- editorial roles, peer reviews or external moderation;
- undertaking a Higher Degree Research (HDR) course or supervising HDR students;
- professional development informing higher education learning and teaching in a relevant discipline;
- undertaking advanced specialist practice or scholarly secondments.
RESEARCH ACTIVE STATUS
A full-time, experienced academic staff member who achieves at least five (5) weighted research points in the past five years may be listed on the LI Academic Staff Register as “research active”. This includes:
- peer-reviewed monograph (5);
- editing a peer-reviewed collection of essays in a book or journal (2);
- peer-reviewed journal article, book chapter, or conference paper (1);
- research or professional industry grant (1 point per $10,000 up to a maximum of 2 points);
- external peer reviewer or examiner e.g. HDR examination, competitive research grants, peer review of research articles, manuscripts, or book reviews (0.25 to a maximum of 1);
- Plant Breeder’s Right (1);
- Patent (1).
A publication, grant, or patent with multiple authors counts as one point for each author.
Consideration must also be given to the circumstances and expectations of each discipline (e.g. research outputs and measures differ between citation based and peer-review based disciplines).
Research active relative to opportunity
LI applies an achievement relative to opportunity (pro rata) approach when assessing research active status. This includes early career researchers, career interruptions, or part‐time/fractional appointments e.g. research active status of a 0.6 (60%) academic staff member would be three (3) research points in the last five (5) years.
All new Level A and B academic staff members and early career academics are deemed research active for the first three (3) year period of their appointment with LI. New Level C and above academic staff must meet the research active criteria from commencement at the Institute.
FUNDING, WORKLOAD ALLOCATION, AND STIPENDS
LI funds research active permanent academic staff to present papers at academic conferences and/or receive a research workload allocation where appropriate.
DISSEMINATION OF RESEARCH
LI promotes an environment of honesty, integrity, and accuracy in the dissemination of research. This includes both refereed academic publications and non-refereed scholarly mediums by academic staff, HDR students, and postgraduate research students.
It is the responsibility of the LI academic staff member to:
- engage in and respond to internal peer review prior to dissemination;
- comply with ethical and legislative requirements, including copyright;
- adhere to the Intellectual Property Policy;
- adhere to the Record Management Policy;
- ensure all parties to the research are aware of confidentiality agreements if relevant;
- include negative results that may be contrary to a stated hypothesis;
- specify LI as an institution of affiliation;
- list sources of funding and potential conflicts of interest;
- correct any errors or misleading information in a timely manner, including misrepresentation by others;
- deposit final publications in LI’s research repository, including the Field of Research codes.
SPECIAL RESEARCH LEAVE
Subject to budgetary constraints, LI provides opportunities for LI permanent academic staff to undertake Special Research Leave (SRL) for a maximum of six (6) months. Applicants must meet the following criteria:
- have usually been employed by LI continuously for at least seven (7) years on a permanent academic contract
- have produced high quality research publications within the previous five (5) years;
- the SRL proposal demonstrates tangible benefit to the research and LI;
- the applicant has not been on probation due to unsatisfactory conduct, performance, or misconduct.
Conditions
The SRL researcher shall:
- agree to return to LI after completing SRL and remain in its service for at least one more year;
- not be permitted, while on SRL, to accept remunerative employment outside of LI (excluding external research grants).
PROCEDURES
FUNDING AND WORKLOAD ALLOCATION APPLICATIONS
Applications for research workload allocation are negotiated with the relevant supervisor. Applications for competitive conference funding may be submitted by research active staff and HDR students for approval by Research and Scholarship Committee as part of the LI annual budget cycle and within the parameters of available funds.
ACADEMIC INTEGRITY AND RESPONSIBLE RESEARCH CONDUCT
Any alleged breach of academic integrity will be addressed according to the Academic Integrity Policy. Any alleged breach of responsible research conduct will be addressed according to the Responsible Research Conduct Policy.
SPECIAL RESEARCH LEAVE APPLICATION
The applicant should submit the Special Research Leave Proposal Form, including:
- endorsement from the relevant supervisor;
- benefits to the researcher and LI;
- potential high quality publication outlets for research;
- delegation of duties arrangements while on SRL;
- any additional internal or external funding that will be allocated;
- a signed statement indicating that the applicant is aware of and agrees to all conditions of SRL.
Approval
- In line with the budgetary cycle, Research and Scholarship Committee will consider all SRL applications received for the following year;
- If recommended by Research and Scholarship Committee, the application is then tabled at Academic Board and Executive Management Team for approval;
- The awarding of SRL leave is a benefit not an entitlement and is at the discretion of Academic Board and Executive Management Team. No appeal will be considered.
- No substantial variation to the approved SRL can be made without approval by Research and Scholarship Committee, on the recommendation of the relevant supervisor.
Reporting
Within one (1) month of completion of SRL, the researcher shall submit a written SRL Report to Research and Scholarship Committee.