Faculty Research Strategy Plan

Faculty Research Strategy Plan

1. Mission

The Faculty’s research “Mission” is to create a vibrant research ecosystem and nurture excellence in academic research across the humanities and social science disciplines to support UIC’s development as a leading university in the Greater Bay Area.

2. Vision

Our research “Vision” is to create an effective mechanism that supports every academic staff member’s research endeavors and output, nurtures a vibrant research ecosystem characterized by integrated features and trans-disciplinary collaboration, and enhances the Faculty’s research performance as a whole.

2.1 The aims between 2020-2025 include:

· Create an internal funding mechanism

· Nurture a positive research ecosystem

· Increase the number of active, research-oriented faculty members

· Increase the number of quality research outputs and projects, including those funded by external research grants

· Increase the number of quality postgraduate researchers

· Embed a research-teaching nexus and extend the visibility of the Faculty’s scholarship.

2.2 Faculty-based Resources for Research Funding. This is the first priority in our strategic plan. We set up a faculty-based financial account with resources that can support all our research initiatives and endeavors. The funds and account will be sought not only from UIC central budget but, in addition, from the income of the CRSHSS (Centre for Research and Services in Humanities and Social Sciences) and our other research centres.

2.3 Research Ecosystem. A positive research ecosystem is where respectful relationships between colleagues maximise the efficiency of resource use and lead to the total being greater than the sum of the individual parts, creating a culture of improvement that inspires further innovation and success. Different colleagues have various and specialised roles, skills, and expertise in regard to research and this diversity is invaluable. Positive research ecosystems benefit from non-material resources also, including respect for diversity, free information flow, a culture of risk taking and collective risk managing, and marketing and dissemination of research outputs. Material investments include hiring research-focused faculty, funds for new ideas and collaborations, and coordinating research from various programs. We would create common points of access and 31 opportunities, including research mentorship, translation support for grant applications, an informal research seminar series, and “critical friend” external reviews for grant applications.

2.4 Disseminating our trans-disciplinary and trans-cultural research. Our staff expertise suggests we can make strong contributions in collaboration with researchers, community members, and stakeholders near and far on trans-disciplinary and trans-cultural aspects. Marketing and outreach should carefully and positively reflect the distinctiveness of these contributions to stakeholders. It is important to ensure that all interdisciplinary publications are fully appreciated for their academic merit and fully considered in assessment and staff review exercises.

3.1 The Ways to Promote Staff’s Research Output and Faculty’s Research Ecosystem

1) To facilitate newer members ranked at Assistant Professor and above for high quality research, with possible mini-financial support, such as hiring student RAs with the Student Research Assistant Grant/Scholarship;

2) To set up a vibrant Working Group for Research Consultation, formed by this committee and experienced faculty members, to help our teachers to draft their grant proposals for applying for national/provincial/local grants, particularly for how to write Mainland Chinese proposals;

3) To set up regular and vigorous Faculty Research Seminar Series. Currently our faculty has already been holding a college-wide multi-disciplinary seminar series, called the UIC Lunch-time Research Sharing/Community, with small funding support from RDKTO. We particularly cherish this kind of multi-disciplinary research exchanges, and we will upgrade and rename it as the UIC Lunchtime Research Sharing cum FHSS Research Seminar Series. With the new format of the series, we will conduct more vibrant and rigorous scholarly research exchange, such as trying to equip discussants and commentators for each talk with an aim to exchange information on how to publish the work and enlighten others. We will continue to seek joint efforts and support from different divisions/offices/centres as well as financial support from RDKTO.

4) To develop robust TPG and RPG postgraduate programs that are essential for any research-oriented university and our Faculty will actively proceed in this direction. Currently UIC uses JIRS system to recruit and supervise RPGs and we will encourage our teachers to actively use this system and successfully recruit high quality RPGs. However, we believe this system is imperfect as it is too reliant on faculty’s professional and personal relationships with HKBU faculty; UIC faculty are handicapped in the pursuit of postgraduate supervision opportunities. We hope UIC can build an independent system of RPG studies, and as many barriers as possible should be removed to stimulate a more streamlined, student-based approach for recruiting research students, especially PhDs.