Revised webpage for University’s Research Centres
Professor Anil Seth
A revised, externally facing webpage showcasing the University’s Research Centres went live today (Wednesday 15 January).
The University's research groupings provide a focus for thematic research that often transcends school structures and facilitates interdisciplinary approaches to important issues.
Previously, a single list of 86 research centres and groups presented an image of diluted rather than concentrated research foci.
The Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Research), Professor Michael Davies, says: “As a research-intensive university, Sussex should have a strong set of categorised research centres which reflect our major strengths.”
In order to rationalise the presentation of the Universtiy's current portfolio of centres and groups, Professor Davies wrote to Directors of all Research Centres and Groups in summer 2013 asking them to self-select from three new categories: University Research Centre, Research Centre and Research Group/Network.
By and large the new categories reflect this self-selection. All undertake world-leading research, but at different scales of membership, disciplinary breadth and research-income generation.
These groupings require commitment by their members to develop a long-term programme of research activity, providing researchers with the means of achieving visibility and raising the profile of their work in a particular area of expertise.
Research Groups/Networks
Research Groups provide a focus for a collection of academics, normally based within a single department, in an emerging or established area of expertise. Research Networks are areas of thematic concentration for a collection of academics distributed across more than one department in an emerging or established area of expertise.
Research Centres
A more formal grouping than a Research Group or Network, Research Centres are interdisciplinary groupings undertaking research that is internationally excellent in terms of originality, significance and rigour and that has very considerable impacts.
University Research Centres
A University Research Centre is distinguished from a Research Centre by greater scale according to three main characteristics: (i) size, (ii) disciplinary inclusiveness and (iii) income generation.
A University Research Centre is a large-scale interdisciplinary grouping of academics undertaking research that is publicly recognised as world-leading in an established area of expertise, addressing significant international challenges and problems and redefining the parameters of one or more disciplines.
The self-selections were reviewed by Professor Davies and Professor Alan Lester, Director of Interdisciplinary Research, and were approved by the Research and Knowledge Exchange Committee in November 2013.
As a result of this recategorisation process, the Policy and Guidelines for establishment and management of Research Centres has also been revised and is available on the Sussex Research web pages.