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Pooling Resources for Excellence and Relevance: An Evolution of Universities as Multi-Scalar Network Organisations

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Abstract

There are a number of different forms of inter-organisational collaborative arrangements between universities at international, national and sub-national levels. This paper focuses on a particular form of inter-university collaboration mechanisms, which represents one of the key recent policy developments in Scotland. Research pooling initiatives are a regional response to create international research excellence and regional relevance by ‘pooling’ specific areas of research excellences that are seen to be of strategic importance to Scotland universities across the region. Research pooling initiatives as networks can be seen as strategic processes. Universities share resources and research facilities among selective partners and recruit professors and research students internationally by branding their subject areas together. This multi-scalar institutional development is set against the background of devolution and globalisation of science, technology and innovation policy on the one hand, and changing national higher education policies in the UK on the other.

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Notes

  1. Four key programmes supported this mission: Integrated Research; Undergraduate Student Education; Professional Practice Programme and the National Competitiveness Network (NCN). In another national context, Singapore-MIT Alliance (SMA) was set up by the strong support of the central government of Singapore. Founded in 1998, the Singapore-MIT Alliance is an innovative engineering and life science educational and research collaboration among the National University of Singapore (NUS), the Nanyang Technological University (NTU), and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). A similar development has been noted in Portugal (Horta 2010).

  2. The RAE is the principal means by which institutions assure themselves of the quality of the research undertaken in the HE sector in the UK. The outcomes also inform how the Funding Council’s main Quality Research grant is allocated to institutions. Previous RAEs were conducted in 2001 and 2008, and substantial changes are planned beyond 2008, and the new scheme will be called Research Evaluation Framework (REF).

  3. Vice-principal for research and enterprise at Glasgow University also said pooling initiatives had helped to boost the university's performance in chemistry. Source: Scots universities pool research to join world leaders (Scott 2008).

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Acknowledgments

This work is partly supported by the ESRC-funded LLAKES Research Centre—grant reference RES-594-28-0001.

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Correspondence to Fumi Kitagawa.

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Kitagawa, F. Pooling Resources for Excellence and Relevance: An Evolution of Universities as Multi-Scalar Network Organisations. Minerva 48, 169–187 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11024-010-9147-x

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