ARMS Winter School 2020

7 Electives On Offer

The ARMS Winter School is a popular feature in the Society's annual professional development calendar. This year’s program offers seven (7) new and or enhanced electives for research management professionals who wish to develop a deeper understanding of a particular topic and its application to research management.

To enable easier accessibility, electives will be delivered in a flexible format via the online Zoom platform. This delivery approach will involve structured, shorter meetings with the presenter(s), and breakout rooms for participants to collaborate. The sum of the shorter online meetings will equate to a full day workshop. During the workshops, participants will develop knowledge and skills in a specialised, relevant area, network with other participants and have an enjoyable time!

Interested participants can enrol in one, two or more electives as stand-alone professional development programs. The electives can count as credit towards future participation in the ARMS Advanced Level Accreditation Program (conditions apply) or as CPD for ARMFs and ARMAs.

REGISTER YOUR INTEREST TODAY!

EXPRESSIONS OF INTEREST CLOSE COB MONDAY 04 MAY 2020

Pre-requisites

The Winter School has no formal pre-requisites for the electives featured in the 2020 program. The electives are intended for:

Mid-senior level research management staff interested in developing a deep, practical understanding of the topics; and
ARMFs - ARMS Accredited Research Managers (Foundation) or ARMAs - Accredited Research Managers (Advanced) seeking to broaden their practical understanding of the topics - Note: ARMFs and ARMAs can claim CPD hours if completing an elective.

2020 Winter School Program

ADVANCED CLINICAL RESEARCH MANAGEMENT
Presenter: Associate Professor Tam C. Nguyen

This elective will cover the challenges of managing multi-sites, multi-institutional projects including navigating research ethics, research governance, improving community and consumer engagement and building relationships with external funding bodies. This workshop will cover key processes and strategies in business development and project and team management in the clinical research setting. You will learn practical and essential skills for effective and active business development and clinical research management.

ASSESSING THE SOCIETAL BENEFITS OF RESEARCH
Presenter: Dr Mark Hochman

i.e., research impact – An understanding of international trends in identifying and assessing research impact, identification of institutional impact, tracking and assessing impact and communicating the benefits of publicly funded research.

BUSINESS PROCESS IMPROVEMENT IN RESEARCH MANAGEMENT
Presenter: Dr Bryony Wakefield

Supporting research activity is a complex task involving project management, financial management, human resource considerations, data and reporting and of course, communication with a wide variety of internal and external stakeholders. As such, business processes to support the management of research need to be constantly evolving to ensure researchers and other stakeholder expectations are being met.

Business process improvement is a management exercise in which leaders use various methodologies to analyze their procedures to identify areas where they can improve accuracy, effectiveness and/or efficiency and then redesign those processes to realize process improvements. These may include specific methodologies such as the well know Plan, Do, Check Act (PDCA) cycle; Balanced Scorecards, Lean/Six Sigma and many more.

Such business process improvement tools have frequently been used in many parts of research institutions such as Human Resources, Finance Offices, HR etc. In contrast, Research Offices have tended not to use such methodologies and have frequently relied on “peer review” by external research managers to review internal business processes, often with variable results.

This elective should introduce participants to common business improvement tools and use case studies and examples to show their use in improving research management processes.

DATA DRIVEN RESEARCH IMPROVEMENT
Presenter: Professor Cameron Neylon

Research activity generates much data – research income, grant outcomes, publications, citation rates, graduate student load and completions being common. Research managers are frequently called upon to provide analyses of this data to committees, senior managers and other internal stakeholders. Many tools exist to provide the high-quality presentation of such data, e.g. BI and dashboard tools, yet the discussion of such data can often be cursory compared to its presentation.

This elective will outline a data driven approach to improving organisational research performance looking beyond the provision of data to its interpretation and suggested usage. It should include items such as obtaining “buy in” from organisational stakeholders, use of trend data and benchmarking to accurately reflect organisational research performance, how to calculate return on investment for internal funding programs and the role of research managers in monitoring performance against research targets and evaluating outcomes.

The elective should contain case studies and working examples which enable participants to implement a data driven approach to improving research outcomes in their organisations.

DEVELOPMENT OF INSTITUTIONAL RESEARCH TALENT
Presenter: Professor Moira Clay

How can research organisations best develop researchers from Higher Degree Research (HDR) students through to Early Career Researchers (ECR), Mid-Career Researchers (MCR) and senior researchers while managing resource and other institutional constraints? This module aims to answer this question. It will not look at the specific content of individual workshops, but rather will explore the ‘top down’ implementation of entire programs of support. This includes how they can be effective and sustainable in the face of considerable challenges (i.e. resource, staffing, etc.), and also the theoretical models that underpin best practice in their implementation in higher education literature internationally.

From this module participants will have practical knowledge, skills and capabilities to recognise how best to develop and implement bespoke institutional researcher development and training programs that fit their research organisation. Topics covered will include:

The Vitae Researcher Development Framework – its pros and cons;
Talent identification and training, using data to focus support where it matters most;
Building a sustainable culture of support: researcher support programs that inculcate a culture of reflection and strategic development at all levels;
Building a multi-faceted approach: Mentoring programs, researcher clubs, seminar series, institutional conferences and inductions; and
Frameworks that fit your context – how can you make the ideal researcher support/training program for the specific challenges at and benefits at your research organisation?

MANAGING COMPLEX STRATEGIC PARTNERSHIPS
Presenter: Mark Berlage

The benefits of highly collaborative research are widely accepted, and the involvement of a wide range of partners along with the globalisation of research is now commonplace. However, these complex partnerships need to be approached strategically, and managed carefully to ensure outcomes are achieved and risks minimised. This module will look at a range of potential strategic research partners including:

International researchers and research institutions;
Industry partners, with a focus on those with a vested interest;
Indigenous and other culturally sensitive partners;
At risk groups or communities; and
Philanthropic partners, with a focus on tied investment.

This elective will help participants to identify and evaluate partnerships for both opportunities and risks, and provide insights on how these might be managed and communicated. Where relevant, current guidelines and legislation will be provided and discussed, and the political environment considered. Upon completion, participants will have an appreciation of a range of complex research partnerships in the organisation and how to manage these to support high quality research outcomes.

SECURING INTERNATIONAL RESEARCH FUNDING
Presenter: Dr Rado Faletič & Dr Martin Grabert

Programs (Horizon 2020, National Institutes of Health, System for Award Management (SAM), Innovate UK, etc.) and management of international programs. This should include an overview of international funding programs available to ARMS membership institutions, current priorities of international funding Councils and essential information including:

Portal Management Processes allowing Researcher/Administrator Access;
Practical advice on elements; pricing; managing risk’s in dealing with international
Funding Organisations/Law;
Knowing what are admissible charges that can be claimed and discussing F and A Rates; and
Conditions of award or sub-contracts. This elective aims at providing shared knowledge for the benefit of ARMS membership applicants.

Special Discounted Elective Rates for 2020

ARMS Members: $550 per elective (GST inclusive)
Non-Members: $650 per elective (GST inclusive)

The cost for each elective includes participation in the workshop, workshop notes and an assessment. Participants will be required to cover any other incidental costs.

At a minimum, participants will be required to log into Zoom using a laptop or computer and not a phone.

Continuing Professional Developmental (CPD)

ARMFs and ARMAs can claim 8 CPD hours per elective.

Expressions of Interest

To ascertain the level of interest for these electives, ARMS will be initially calling for "Expressions of Interest". You are asked to email your preferred electives to the ARMS Accreditation Program Administrator, Dana Watts by no later than 4 May 2020.

The Winter School registration portal is expected to open officially the week ending 22nd May 2020.

Further enquiries?

Contact: Dana Watts, ARMS Accreditation Program Administrator at arms.adminofficer@flinders.edu.au or +61 8 8201 5592

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