THE UNIVERSITY OF THE WEST INDIES School for Graduate Studies and Research STRATEGIES TO ENHANCE RESEARCH PRODUCTIVITY
Measuring Research Productivity at The UWI There are two significant challenges in measuring and assessing research productivity at The UWI. The first is that the indicators of research productivity differ significantly among research categories. The second is that any measure of research productivity must consider both quantity and quality of research output. Measuring quantity of research is more straightforward than quality, but a unifying approach relevant to all three categories is to use impact of the research as a quality index. In the case of Research for Disciplinary Advancement and International Recognition , the traditional quantity measures are number of articles in refereed journals, number of refereed books and book chapters, number of presentations in Conference Proceedings, and the value of research grants won. For this research category, there are standard internationally used measures of research impact and hence quality. These include quantitative methods such as citation counts or journal impact factors, and researcher-specific metrics based on citation counts which include the h-index, the m-quotient, and the more recently derived ε -index which purports to allow comparisons of research productivity more appropriately across disciplines. None of these measures are perfect in isolation and no single measure should be used exclusively to rank researcher productivity, but taken together, they give a useful internationally accepted indication of researcher productivity. In the case of Research for Regional Development , indicative measures could include the number of technical reports produced (as consultancies or invited authorships) at the request of regional Development Banks, Caribbean Governments, Regional Development Organisations, or the Private Sector; number of policy papers, including White Papers and Green Papers, drafted for Caribbean Governments or Regional Organisations; number of articles published in development-oriented journals, whether international or regional; number of development-oriented articles invited by and produced in reputable news outlets; number of documentaries, films, plays or other works of art contributing to socio-cultural development; number of presentations made at regional or international development-oriented Conferences and the value of project grants won from international or regional development-oriented donor agencies. Assessing quality of research in this category is challenging. The onus must therefore be on the researcher to demonstrate that the research has impacted the regional developmental dialogue, development decisions and/or the development process itself but this may often be difficult to demonstrate. One approach used at the Mona Campus, that could facilitate this assessment in many cases, is to invite the recipient of the research output to comment on its value. The UWI may wish to give further thought, and perhaps develop guidelines on how the quality of Research for Regional Development can be objectively assessed. In the case of Research for Innovation and Commercialisation , quantity and quality of output are closely integrated. For example, in the case of patents and plant breeders’ rights, the number awarded is both a quantity and quality metric, and therefore a measure of research productivity, since successful protection requires passage through a rigorous quality assessment process. Moreover, successful commercialisation of IP protected by any means is a second tier of both quantity and quality of the research output and therefore a good measure of research productivity. Measures of research productivity in this category could therefore include number of industry partnerships, number of patents, number of licensing agreements, start-up funding received (venture funding, grants, investments) or spin off companies formed.
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