| Overall Rating | Gold |
|---|---|
| Overall Score | 83.66 |
| Liaison | Philippe Lemarchand |
| Submission Date | Dec. 2, 2024 |
Technological University Dublin
AC-8: Responsible Research and Innovation
| Status | Score | Responsible Party |
|---|---|---|
|
7.00 / 7.00 |
8.1 Published ethical code of conduct for research
Online location of the institution’s ethical code of conduct for research:
Copy of the institution’s ethical code of conduct for research:
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8.2 Recognition of integrated, community-based, and extra-academic research
Description or text of the promotion/tenure guidelines or policies that explicitly recognize integrated research:
The promotion of interdisciplinary, transdisciplinary, and/or multidisciplinary research is recognised in TU Dublin Performance Agreement 2024-2028, a fundamental pan-University document approved by the Higher Education Authority (Ref 1). The Sponsor for Performance Objective 3 (Growth of research activity) is the Vice President for Research & Innovation; the Leads are the Head of Research Support (for Research Active Staff) and the Head of the Graduate Research School (for PGRs). To ensure delivery, a number of actions are planned, including: “The launch of five TU Dublin Research Hubs that will support development of crossdisciplinary teams and manage a range of research infrastructures. Academic and operational Leads will carry out horizon scanning for research opportunities, help create interdisciplinary teams for proposal development and form strategic research partnerships (notably through participation in the “European Research Institutes” being created as part of the EUt+ alliance to foster research collaboration between alliance member universities)”. “In addition to the creation of the five Research Hubs, Faculty Heads of Research work to help identify and facilitate multidisciplinary research across the University.” “The University has secured resources under the TU RISE programme that will provide complementary supports. It will fund five R&I enterprise support teams, each comprising one Business Development Manager and 15 post-doctoral researchers (in total), to broker and develop relationships between university experts and regionally based enterprises. The programme will support embedding an ethos of enterprise support across our R&I community, leveraging university–industry collaboration in R&I activity to address societal challenges and generate societal impact”
TU Dublin also “developed a Researcher Career Development Framework that will contribute to more ground-breaking research contributions, fostering interdisciplinary collaboration and focusing on cutting-edge research” (Ref 1).
TU Dublin Commitment to Postgraduate Research include the provision and access to a “Broad range of individual and multidisciplinary research degree programmes from Masters to Doctoral levels” (Ref 2). When multidisciplinary research groups are formed, “a specific domain-committee may co-opt members of another Reviewing Research Ethics Committee (RREC) to ensure that the relevant expertise is available” (Ref 3). TU Dublin includes a wide range of interdisciplinary, transdisciplinary, and/or multidisciplinary research groups and centres (Ref 4). For examples, (i) the Digital Marketing Research Group (DMRG) “provides an inclusive and outward looking environment for research development, fostering interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary research to achieve maximum impact in real-world applications” (Ref 5); (ii) the Bio and Circular Economies Research Group (Bio-CERG) is a multi-disciplinary group overlapping areas in Engineering, Science, Construction, Food Science, Environmental Health, Education, Financing, Management and Materials (Ref 6); (iii) Dublin Energy Lab is an “interdisciplinary group of researchers who research sustainable solutions for energy generation, transport, and end-use” (Ref 7); (iv) the Human Factors in Safety & Sustainability (HFISS) recently received the Multidisciplinary Research Team Award for “the development of adaptive systems that predict and mitigate human errors and safety risks, for high-risk industries like aviation, healthcare, and nuclear energy, where both technical and human failures can lead to severe societal, economic, and environmental consequences” (Ref 8); (v) The Built Environment Research and Innovation Centre (BERIC) is “a multidisciplinary research centre working across the whole life of built environment, including planning, design, construction, operation, and asset management” (Ref 9).
URL References:
Ref 1: https://hea.ie/assets/uploads/2024/11/TU-Dublin-Performance-Agreement-2024–2028.pdf
Ref 2: https://www.tudublin.ie/media/website/explore/about-the-university/academic-affairs/quality-framework/tallaght-qa/BOOK3_Research_Degree_Programme_Quality_Manual.pdf
Ref 3: https://www.tudublin.ie/media/website/explore/policies-and-forms/research-and-innovation/TU-Dublin-Research-Ethics-Policy-REP03-Approved.pdf
Ref 4: https://www.tudublin.ie/research-innovation/research/discover-our-research/
Ref 5: https://www.tudublin.ie/explore/faculties-and-schools/business/marketing-and-entrepreneurship/research/
Ref 6: https://www.tudublin.ie/research-innovation/research/discover-our-research/research-groups/bio-cerg/
Ref 7: https://www.tudublin.ie/research-innovation/research/discover-our-research/research-groups/del/
Ref 8: https://www.tudublin.ie/research-innovation/research/discover-our-research/research-groups/hfiss/news/the-hfiss-won-the-multidisciplinary-research-team-award-in-tu-dublin.php
Ref 9: https://www.tudublin.ie/research-innovation/research/discover-our-research/research-centres/beric/about/
Do the promotion/tenure guidelines or policies that recognize integrated research cover all of the institution’s research-producing academic divisions?:
Does the institution have published promotion or tenure guidelines or policies that give explicit positive recognition to community-based research?:
Description or text of the promotion/tenure guidelines or policies that explicitly recognize community-based research:
The research integrity policy (Ref1) covers community-based research. The policy recognises that "staff and students of TU Dublin engage in a wide variety of different research and innovation endeavours, both internally and in collaboration with external academic, community, society and industrial partners. Ensuring that all such activities are carried out in line with good research practice is critical to support continued trust in the University’s research capabilities and outputs, including commercial outputs which are based on research."
Moreover, community-based research projects are recognised in our Community Engaged Research and Learning (CERL) projects as described here: Ref2. TU Dublin aslo has the Engaged Research Network (Ref3) that is open to staff and PhD students interested in engaged research. Engaged Research describes a wide range of rigorous research approaches and methodologies that share a common interest in collaborative engagement with the community. It aims to improve, understand, or investigate an issue of public interest or concern, including societal challenges. Engaged research is advanced with community partners rather than for them.
URL References:
Ref1: https://www.tudublin.ie/media/website/explore/policies-and-forms/research-and-innovation/TU-Dublin-Research-Integrity-Policy-REP04-Approved.pdf
Ref2: https://www.tudublin.ie/connect/communities/slwc/community-engaged-research-and-learning/
Ref3: https://www.tudublin.ie/research-innovation/research/engagement-impact/engaged-research-network/
Do the promotion/tenure guidelines or policies that recognize community-based research cover all of the institution’s research-producing academic divisions?:
Does the institution have published promotion or tenure guidelines or policies that give explicit positive recognition to research impact or reach outside of academic journals?:
Description or text of the promotion/tenure guidelines or policies that explicitly recognize research impact or reach outside of academic journals:
TU Dublin Research and Innovation Services provide guidance, expert advices, and access to specialist infrastructural platforms and training (Ref1). TU Dublin Research Engagement and Impact (Ref2, Ref3) provide university-wide support and guidance to, among many things, (i) develop research engagement, (ii) plan for impact, (iii) realising impact across the lifecycle of your research project. The "Research Impact Framework", file "AC 8.2 Research Impact Framework.pdf" uploaded thereafter, was designed to guide researchers through every stage of achieving meaningful impact (Ref3). Technological University Dublin (TU Dublin) recently released its Coalition for Advancing Research Assessment (CoARA) Action Plan, published in September 2024 (Ref4). By joining CoARA, TU Dublin has formalised its commitment to developing a research assessment framework to recognise the diverse outputs, practices and activities that maximise the quality and impact of our research.
TU Dublin Library Services and its "Research Impact Framework" provide a detailed list of research communication pathways (Ref5), how to publish (Ref5), how to create impacts (Ref6) and the means to assess research impacts (Ref7) through all research outputs, going way beyond dissemination via academic journals.
TU Dublin also promote open access publishing (Ref8). Suitable LibGuides (educational tools developed by the library) based on current advisory: Ref9, Ref10.
URL References:
Ref1: https://www.tudublin.ie/research-innovation/research/research-journey/
Ref2: https://www.tudublin.ie/research-innovation/research/engagement-impact/
Ref3: https://www.tudublin.ie/research-innovation/research/engagement-impact/impact-resources/
Ref4: https://zenodo.org/records/13684066
Ref5: https://tudublin.libguides.com/c.php?g=670487&p=4760305 (Available only on TU Dublin intranet)
Ref6: https://tudublin.libguides.com/c.php?g=670487&p=4760328 (Available only on TU Dublin intranet)
Ref7: https://tudublin.libguides.com/c.php?g=670487&p=4760402 (Available only on TU Dublin intranet)
Ref8: https://www.tudublin.ie/research-innovation/research/open-research/open-access-publishing/
Ref9: https://tudublin.libguides.com/c.php?g=716878 (Available only on TU Dublin intranet)
Ref10: https://tudublin.libguides.com/c.php?g=721668&p=5240351&preview=a703237177989afe309fb79377caefdf (Available only on TU Dublin intranet)
Do the promotion/tenure guidelines or policies that recognize research impact or reach outside of academic journals cover all of the institution’s research-producing academic divisions?:
If Yes to any of the above, provide at least one form of evidence (website URL or document). If reporting on multiple guidelines or policies, provide the best available example and/or a website that provides an overview of promotion/tenure for academic employees.
Copy of the institution’s promotion/tenure guidelines or policies:
The Reporting Tool will automatically calculate the following figure:
8.3 Inter-campus collaboration for responsible research and innovation
Description of the institution’s inter-campus collaborations for responsible research and innovation:
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8.4 Support for open access publishing
Narrative and/or website URL providing an overview of the open access repository:
Does the institution have one or more published policies that require its employees to publish scholarly works open access or archive final post-peer reviewed versions of scholarly works in an open access repository?:
Do the open access policies cover all of the institution’s research-producing academic divisions?:
Text or online location of the institution’s open access policies:
Copy of the institution’s open access policies:
Does the institution provide an open access article processing charge (APC) fund for employees?:
Narrative and/or website URL providing an overview of the open access APC fund:
APC can be funded via research funding and/or through the IReL consortium. TU Dublin is a member of IReL (Irish Research eLibrary; https://tudublin.libguides.com/IReL-APCs), and through this membership, we have publication agreements with many of the larger publishers.
Does the institution negotiate or participate in transformative open access agreements that are consistent with ESAC guidelines?:
Narrative and/or website URL providing an overview of the institution’s transformative open access agreements with publishers:
Elsevier and IReL are members of the ESAC Transformative Agreement Registry (Ref1). TU Dublin is a member of IReL since 2021 (Ref2; Ref3) and also work with Elsevier on transformative agreements (Ref4)
URL References:
Ref1: https://esac-initiative.org/about/transformative-agreements/agreement-registry/
Ref2: https://www.tudublin.ie/research-innovation/news/transforming-irelands-open-access-publishing.html
Ref3: https://www.tudublin.ie/research-innovation/research/open-research/open-access-publishing/
Ref4: https://www.tudublin.ie/library/about/news-events/irish-higher-education-institutions-and-elsevier-sign-a-new-transformative-agreement-to-continue-to-support-open-access-for-research-in-ireland.html
The Reporting Tool will automatically calculate the following figure:
Optional documentation
Research Ethic & Integrity: https://www.tudublin.ie/research-innovation/research/ethics-integrity/
Code of Conduct for Ensuring Excellence in Research Integrity: https://www.tudublin.ie/media/website/research/postgraduate-research/graduate-research-school/documents/TU-Dublin-Code-of-Conduct-for-Research-Integrity.pdf
Research Ethics Policy: https://www.tudublin.ie/media/website/explore/policies-and-forms/research-and-innovation/TU-Dublin-Research-Ethics-Policy-REP03-Approved.pdf
Research Integrity Policy: https://www.tudublin.ie/media/website/explore/policies-and-forms/research-and-innovation/TU-Dublin-Research-Integrity-Policy-REP04-Approved.pdf
Additional documentation for this credit:
The information presented here is self-reported. While AASHE staff review portions of all STARS reports and institutions are welcome to seek additional forms of review, the data in STARS reports are not verified by AASHE. If you believe any of this information is erroneous or inconsistent with credit criteria, please review the process for inquiring about the information reported by an institution or simply email your inquiry to stars@aashe.org.