Research performance: How to succeed in a competitive world

Research quality is a focus for university executives, regulators and funding bodies alike. For universities, quality research is core to mission, while regulators and funders are more interested from the perspective of sector-wide and economy-wide impact and efficacy of research investments. Quality is front of mind to many across the sector, but it’s not static. What quality looks like evolves as research pushes the boundaries of knowledge.

We can see below how there is a long-term key shift underway in research quality. The graph below looks at the number of universities producing the top 1 per cent of cited research papers, and how many of these universities there are in each country. That is, it looks at the universities with the very top research papers as judged by their peers globally. 

As illustrated, the last two decades have seen a profound shift. The number of Chinese institutions in this elite group increasing eight-fold, while one third of US institutions and almost all German, French, and Japanese institutions have dropped out. Interestingly, Australia and Canada have largely remained stable, while the UK has seen a small decline. These shifts in relative share of quality are most stark in fields such as the physical sciences, engineering, and computer sciences, though in recent years Chinese universities have also made substantial headway in citations in the health sciences, biomedicine, and social sciences. 

These shifts in national performance are even more striking when considering the performance of individual universities within each country. The following graphs summarise the change in the proportion of top 10 per cent most cited research papers by universities in a selection of countries over the past decade. Each column in each graph represents an individual university – blue have increased their proportion, red have decreased. Gold columns are universities of particular note and are discussed in more detail below.

This is a useful way of understanding where universities have made progress lifting the quality of the research they undertake relative to their peers globally. It highlights some surprising differences. China has seen an extraordinary number of universities make substantial improvements in research quality. On this measure, more than 95 per cent of universities improved the quality of their research. In contrast, 75 per cent of US universities, 84 per cent of French universities, and 91 per cent of German universities declined. The UK, Canada and Japan all demonstrated mixed results, with around half of universities improving while around half fell back. Interestingly, China’s performance is not unique – countries as diverse as Australia, Italy and Saudi Arabia all saw strong improvements in research quality over this period.

It is also interesting to note that a range of universities markedly outperformed their national peers. That is, in the same funding, industry and policy context there are examples of universities that have done better, and often much better, than their local peers. Of course, achieving a major shift is easier for smaller and mid-tier institutions, with improvements of leading institutions more incremental.

Some notable examples (in gold above): in Australia, the Australian Catholic University more than tripled the proportion of papers in the top 10 per cent globally, while RMIT University and Edith Cowan University more than doubled their proportions. In the UK, a set of universities made substantial and sustained improvements, including the University of Surrey, Brunel University, and Swansea University. In Canada, the University of Waterloo, Concordia University, and Memorial University of Newfoundland all made substantial improvements. And there are clear examples in other countries too: in the United States (University of Texas at San Antonio), India (Delhi Technological University), Saudi Arabia (King Abdullah University of Science and Technology), Italy (University of Naples Federico II) and Germany (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin) to name just a few. 

This begs the question of why some universities do so much better than their local peers, and how their success can be emulated.

Our experience working with universities on their research endeavours has highlighted four key factors that impact their ability to successfully and sustainably boost research quality at a whole-of-university level: 

1. Availability of base funding
2. Ability to attract grant funds
3. How discretionary research funding is allocated
4. The existence and effectiveness of an institutional research strategy

The availability of research funding is clearly a major factor, in particular the level of base funding from government, as well as competitive grant programs, and funding from industry and philanthropy. The stand-out in terms of base funding from government is clearly China. The massive shift in both research activity and quality has been underpinned by a 16-fold increase in real terms in government investment over the last 25 years. China is not alone in seeking to boost research through investment. For example, improvements in research quality at Saudia Arabian universities have also been underpinned by a substantial and sustained shift in investment from both government and industry, while India is a more recent mover in boosting investment in university R&D as a catalyst for economic growth. 

Improving success rates in competitive grants programs, growing industry income, and boosting philanthropy are other key levers that universities can focus on, and have the advantage of being more controllable than national R&D policy settings. This usually requires focused effort and specialised capability. Improving the effectiveness of grants and proposal teams, optimising proposal development processes and support models, and assisting academics with advice and capability development can markedly improve competitive grant win rates. Industry collaborations are critically important, and supporting individual academics to develop industry relationships, in combination with university-wide industry engagement activity, can lead to impactful, long-term collaborations and impact. Philanthropy also requires specialist and patient relationship development expertise, and can result in large scale investments for research quality and impact.

Effective allocation of discretionary research funding is an area of opportunity for many universities, and, in practice, this is one of the easier, tactical options available to leaders. Often a cross-subsidy from teaching and learning income, having a pool of funds that can be allocated in ways that drive mission-aligned research has a disproportionate impact on research activity and quality. There are a variety of ways to do this, including through internal competitive funding rounds, funding of specialist institutes, support for external hires, targeted PhD scholarships and establishing postdoctoral positions. What is most important is being intentional about funding decisions. Allocation practices where “everyone wins a prize” are ineffective at best, and can actively work against a quality research agenda at worst. It’s also worth noting note that this is not about disrupting academic freedom, which is rightly a cornerstone of higher education. Rather it is about making informed decisions to further boost aspects of the research ecosystem in ways that have disproportionate impact.

In many ways, the research strategy is the most important element to get right, as it is within the university’s direct control and can inform aspects such as grant development capability, industry engagement and allocation of discretionary funds. 

A clearly defined and well considered research strategy is of fundamental importance to sustainably lifting research quality at a whole of university level. In addition to informing allocations of discretionary funding, an effective research strategy considers where and how to focus effort in ways that maximise impact, in addition to aspects such as research talent, collaborations, infrastructure and support mechanisms. A characteristic of universities that make their research strategy work is a willingness to work through trade off decisions. They also recognise that the strategy is a long term endeavour: achieving and sustaining shifts takes time, and the results are often not apparent in research outputs and impact generation for four to six years.

There are also a myriad of approaches that have, at best, mixed success. A common challenge is developing research strategies that aim to be all things to all people. One common example of this is to anchor a research strategy on the UN Sustainable Development Goals or broad research themes, avoiding the need for considering focus and making strategic trade-off decisions. Another approach that often underdelivers is to focus on recruiting a small number of highly cited academics. While this can deliver a sugar hit in targeted disciplines, it often can’t be sustained if these individuals don’t stay for the long term, if they are a poor cultural fit, or are themselves looking to slow down their research activity. Additionally, the investment in highly cited academics can limit investment in other disciplines, resulting in declining outputs and quality. One final challenge that is all too common is the tendency of universities to change their research priorities too frequently, before it is clear what is and isn’t working. Research takes time, and judging when to change tack should not be a hasty decision.

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