Policy for quality assurance of research now in place

The purpose of the Policy for quality enhancement and quality assurance of research at Umeå University is to be guiding in the quality enhancing work at all levels of research at Umeå University. The policy describes the guiding principles and who is responsible for what parts of the quality assurance procedures.

“This is a first step in maintaining high quality, but also to improve the quality of research conducted at Umeå University. We now have clear ambitions and a framework to build upon,” says Pro-Vice-Chancellor Katrine Riklund.

During the drafting process, the project group took inspiration from legislation and the framework that higher education institutions have agreed upon through the Association of Swedish Higher Education Institutions. Beside the regular status meetings between the steering committee, the University Management and the strategic councils, a number of thematic workshops have also been carried out with research representatives. The project also had an external reference group. The project steering committee included Pro-Vice-Chancellor Katrine Riklund, Deputy Vice-Chancellor Dieter Müller and University Director Hans Wiklund.

Next step: pilot reviews

The policy includes reviewing research and research environments from a national and international perspective with the support of external peer review. The aim is to reach in-depth awareness of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and challenges to further advance research quality. An important part of that process is self-evaluation, expert adviser reports, and, first and foremost, using results to aid quality enhancement and to make strategic decisions.

On the agenda now is to find formats for making such reviews that can balance quality enhancement with workload. Deputy Vice-Chancellor Dieter Müller is tasked with coordinating the work of preparing these pilot reviews and has a university-wide team to help him:

“Peer review of research happens all the time and it can be internal or external. It will be interesting to take a closer look at how we can use peer review at an overarching level as a supplement to our quality assurance procedures for research,” says Dieter Müller.

If you have previous experience of working with these types of reviews, you are welcome to share your thoughts for the pilot project. Please do so by filling out the survey.The survey is available between 12 June at 12.00, and 4 September.

Do you have any questions?
Please contact Anders Sturk Steinwall.