The Research Development Centre (RDC): Advancing Carleton’s Reputation as a Research-Intensive University
Research is a critical component of the mission of Canadian comprehensive universities. Despite Carleton’s excellent reputation as a teaching university, it has never achieved a similar reputation in research. As the new Strategic Mandate Agreement (SMA) is placing significant emphasis on our research metrics, there is an urgent need to address Carleton’s relative weakness in this regard. As such, our Strategic Impact Group focused on ways to enhance Carleton’s research intensiveness and reputation.
Through discussions with key personnel and an audit of services, both here and at other institutions, we found that although various units at Carleton provide a broad range of research support, the university lacks the coherent, holistic institutional research support structure that would fully engage faculty and foster a stronger research culture on campus..
Our recommendation for addressing these issues is the formation of a Research Development Centre (RDC), a university center for the development, advancement, dissemination and promotion of research. It is manifested through a simple reorganization and modest investment of resources that will bring together a few key research support elements. The goal is to create a proactive culture of enabling research, supporting faculty at various career stages, and helping struggling researchers or returning administrators to re-develop research programs, in addition to acting as a centralized “one stop shop” from which researchers can be directed to other, pre-existing, research support resources on campus.
- Kamari Clarke, Professor Public Affairs/ BGInS
- Corrie Hobin, Director of Major Gifts, Advancement
- Ikram Jama, Director, Equity Services
- Amber Lannon, Associate University Librarian, Library
- Ron Miller, Chair, Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
- Blair Rutherford, Professor, Sociology and Anthropology
- Patrice Smith, Associate Dean (Academic), Science
- Trevor Stewart, Director, Capital Renewal and Construction, FMP