Grant 13/09: BCE, e-Content and Digitisation programmes: Developing Community Content
As you have probably seen, JISC has frozen its current and future funding calls for ‘capital-funded’ projects but not ‘core-funded’ projects: http://www.jisc.ac.uk/news/stories/2010/01/funding.aspx
JISC Business and Community Engagement is a core-funded programme.
However, the current BCE and e-Content Call Developing Community Content draws its funds from both capital and core funding: http://www.jisc.ac.uk/fundingopportunities/funding_calls/2009/12/1309bce.aspx
For those planning Strand I bids (Rapid user innovation), the call is still open and JISC will still be expecting proposals by 8th February.
For those planning Strand II bids (Co-development of content), the call is currently frozen. JISC is expecting the funding situation, for this and other calls, to become clearer by the end of January or the start of February. Applicants within affected strands are advised to put their proposals on ice for the moment, and await further information. There will be greater clarity at the start of February.
If you have further queries, please address them to funding@jisc.ac.uk.
JISC has also prepared some questions and answers.
Genetics of Entrepreneurship
Are the key qualities of entrepreneurs genetic? That was the question behind a seminar by international expert in entrepreneurship, Prof Scott Shane of Case Western University, visiting professor at Newcastle University.
The answer seemed to be a qualified yes, according to a number of rigorous academic studies comparing identical and fraternal twins. Of course it’s not quite as simple as that, as I will attempt to explain.
There is a lot of interest in entrepreneurship recently, not least the idea that innovation and enterprise can help stimulate the economy, but also that Universities and Colleges can help support and develop entrepreneurship. It’s not all about making money either, as illustrated by the recent presentation at AURIL conference by HEFCE, UnLtd and Bristol University, on Social Enterprise.
Entrepreneurship plays a part in the JISC Business and Community Engagement (BCE) agenda in several ways including enterprise education for student employability skills, graduate startups, spinouts and support for commercialisation, innovation, and social enterprise.
I’d also like to stretch this slightly and drop in creativity as well as I believe there are strong links between creativity, enterprise and innovation. Anyone who has listened to Ken Robinson on creativity in education may have a view on whether “schools kill creativity” but it’s certainly something worth thinking about when we look to stimulate entrepreneurship and innovation at higher levels of education.
Scott Shane’s presentation in fact focused on some key behaviours/traits/qualities that are linked to entrepreneurship, but that we may consider also to be relevant to innovation and/or creativity.
One approach was looking at the “Big 5″ personality traits, highlighting openness to experience and extraversion as key qualities in entrepreneurs.
Another study looked at the propensity for “sensation seeking” or novelty seeking, examples including those drawn to extreme sports or exotic travel. This linked with the willingness to take risks in order to do new things.
From the 5 studies, another important factor was opportunity recognition, the ability to identify business opportunities from bits of information. Strong social networks were also an environmental factor, with perhaps a role here for JISC in Web 2.0 and social media, the benefits argued persuasively by Brian McCaul at AURIL conference recently.
A layman’s interpretation of the conclusions were that the same genetic factors influence opportunity recognition and the tendency to be entrepreneurial, and that openness to experience and extraversion correlate to a tendency to be entrepreneurial.
Anyone wishing to see a more academic and rigorous analysis (and check if they think I’ve interpreted it correctly) should look further at Scott Shane’s work
Nicolau, N., Shane, S. A., Hunkin, J., Cherkas, L., Spector, T. (2008). Is the tendancy to engage in entrepreneurship genetic? (1 ed., vol. 54, pp. 167-179). Hanover, MD: Management Science.
On a final note, the breadth of Business and Community Engagement was reflected in the attendees at the seminar. It brought together a mixture of business school staff and students, academics from genetics, medicine and bioscience, with knowledge transfer and exchange staff and two Pro Vice Chancellors including one for Engagement. Genetics and entrepreneurship proved to be an effective “boundary spanner” stimulating interest across several disciplines and organisational structures, another driver for the JISC BCE programme and innovation more generally.
JISC BCE at the Higher Education Academy Conference
The recent Higher Education Academy Conference which took place in Manchester included a session on the JISC Business and Community Engagement Programme. The workshop, ‘JISC Business and Community Engagement: Supporting a professionalised approach to managing partnerships and engaging employers’ provided an opportunity for delegates to gain an overview of the BCE programme, and to learn more about the work of three projects within the BCE programme with a focus on employer engagement. The programme includes a dedicated Employer Engagement work-package, within the ’Enhancing Knowledge Management’ stream, as well as other work-packages, for example in CRM and online collaborative tools, designed to support and enhance institutional management of collaborations and relationships with employers and other external parties.
Nye Nduche and Nick Holt presented the CRM4UNI project led by Birkbeck College. Their CRM Analytics Tool supports centralised employer engagement and strategic decision-making in the provision of personalised training/CPD to strategic business partners.
Stephen O’Regan from Roehampton University introduced the the FutureSkills pilot, a joint project by two West London Universities, Roehampton University and Thames Valley University, together with Ealing Hammersmith and West London College, focussed on defining how collaborative provision to the vibrant Creative Industries sector of West London will work in the post Leitch Review environment of employee-led demand.
Finally, Jacquie Kelly from JISC infoNet presented one of the projects led by JISC Services, Trialling of Online Collaborative Tools for BCE. Jacquie gave an overview of the eight trials of collaborative tools which are taking place across a variety of institutions and collaboration contexts. The aim of the trials is to enhance and empower BCE collaboration among practitioners, between institutions and between institutions and external partners.
JISC is also funding a portfolio of projects, managed by Ruth Drysdale in e-Learning, which are designed to enhance institution-wide innovation in support of employer engagement, lifelong learning and workforce development
Impact, Charities and Staff Skills at ARMA
Around 350 people attended hot and sunny Southampton DeVere Grand Harbour Hotel for the annual conference of the association of research managers and administrators (ARMA).
Bill Wakeham, (Southampton) spoke about the challenges facing university research – what a university needs and expects from its professional services in being able to deliver complex research. He raised the idea of professional project management staff external to the researchers but also talked about the disparity of reward and career progression structures when compared with academics, and the lack of incentives for academics to move “the other way” to work in research management.
Impact became a recurring theme, with discussions around the new REF having a more explicit account of impact including economic, social, cultural and quality of life benefits. Time lags of the evidence of impact were recognised, and engagement activities were thought to fall either with impact or the “research environment” measure.
Of relevance to our BCE CPD project was work at Sheffield University, driven by the Roberts agenda for developing post doctoral researchers in engagement and collaboration with industry. Skills provided through a development programme included networking and addressing industry challenges. Researcher development was becoming more embedded into the departmental culture and non academic career mentoring was used through an industrial employment advisory board. Other skills covered included pubic communication and working as science ambassadors.
Other parallel sessions included presentations about electronic research support systems, and how to measure and assess their success. Examples included more accurate costing, integrating multiple data sources (for example in collating information for the RAE), more flexible management reporting and greater visibility.
Phil Clare (Oxford, UNICO) highlighted the challenges faced by institutions with the removal of the presumption that educational activity is charitable. This impacts on how universities manage their collaborative/contract research and consultancy activity to separate their “primary purpose” from private benefit (e.g. to business). The charity commission has since published new guidance on this:
http://http://www.charitycommission.gov.uk/supportingcharities/higherres.asp
Oisin MacNamara (AURIL, Northumbria) spoke about integrating research and innovation, asking “Is there a gap between policy and implementation, and can our information systems cope?” His comments resonate with the Embedding BCE through business process improvement project, in particular when he raised the question of whether support for research knowledge transfer and employer engagement is coherent and integrated. He also noted that most information systems were driven by the major needs of university – teaching and research - and also asked can we measure metrics in real time for social and economic impact? Staff development was raised again as a key issue, the BCE Awareness and Education project will be interested to hear that understanding the breadth of “knowledge transfer” and how it fits together was a key theme.
Neil Jacobs from JISC’s Information Environment programme talked about research dissemination, use and exploitation, and JISC’s work in this area. Topics included digital repositories and archives, open access, and an overview of the Business and Community Engagement programme, of which research knowledge transfer is one part.
Neil Bradshaw (Bristol) gave an interesting overview of good practice in knowledge exchange, highlighting the importance of people as the best way to exchange knowledge. In answer to the last question, he gave a comprehensive coverage of the breadth of knowledge exchange, putting into context spin out companies as quite low down on the list in comparison with the impact of the graduate, publications, collaborative research, seminars, performance and collection, and policy engagement. He gave the example of US companies having an academic on the board of many technology companies as a sounding board and described how knowledge exchange revolves around people as carriers, co-creators, initiators, and communicators of embodied knowledge.
Following a detailed background of key reports and studies, he asked the question: what does the user want? His answers included skilled people, access to new thinking and innovation, authentication and verification. For the future, he highlighted strategic relationships, people mobility and exchange and open innovation as the way forward.
What does BCE mean to me? Brian McCaul explains…..
Brian McCaul, University of Leeds, explains what BCE means to him in this short video.