Sumários
RMPP #7: Research communities
11 Março 2026, 18:00 • Ana Moutinho
Dear All,
Many thanks for attending our
class yesterday.
Please find attached the presentation.
Regarding Ethics guidelines, please find attached an Ethics Self-Assessment Guide, so that you become more familiar with the kind of issues we should be aware of when designing research proposals. This is the guide available in the FCT Projects open call.
Also, on gender equality, it has been just
published the OECD entry Women in research: Progress in
education, persistent gaps in careers.
Next session, we will be finishing the debate on research communities, and dive into the big topic of funding.
As recommended reading, I suggest browsing the sample pages in Handbook of Public Funding of Research, namely the Introduction.
My favourite benchmarks are Post notes, the short format policy briefs produced by the Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology in the UK Parliament, which specializes in the analysis of emerging and complex research areas. You might browse POSTbriefs and POSTnotes.
The RMPP evaluation askes you to choose any give topic in research and innovation, as long as it is timely and relevant, and produce a policy brief aimed to help decision makers to get quality information. Imagine you are an aide to a parliamentarian and the topic is on the legislative agenda. What would be the basics on which to have an informed opinion?
The assignment has 3 phases:
- You choose the topic
and send me an exec summary until the 26th April;
- You will be asked to
pitch it during the last session of the semester (29th April).
It is a moment to shortly present its relevance and angle, collect
feedback and fine tune your approach. You can use a couple of slides.
- You hand in the
final version, in pdf format, by email, until the exam date/hour = 1st
Season: 07th May 2024, 18:00 – 20:00.
Please respect the following
structure:
Title
Executive Summary
Intro + Problem Statement
Benchmark + Analysis
Recommendations
References
For reference, please find attached an AI-prompted factsheet about Policy Briefs, edited and revised by me.
Best,
Ana
RMPP #5: Evaluation Frameworks fos Responsible Research and Innovation. The rise of Impact.
4 Março 2026, 18:00 • Ana Moutinho
Dear All,
Many thanks for attending our class yesterday.
Please find attached the presentation.
Next session, we will be finishing the debate and best
practices in Open Science, and start our discussion about the people in
research.
Please bring your best thought on equity, diversity, and …meritocracy.
In case you are interested, there is a very
interesting long read from The Guardian, that still resonates a lot:
(Michael Young is the founder of The Young Foundation, a not-for-profit organisation, working with communities, organisations and policymakers in the area of social innovation.)
Best,
Ana
RMPP #4: Research and innovation services
25 Fevereiro 2026, 18:00 • Ana Moutinho
Dear All,
Many thanks for attending our
class yesterday. We have covered research offices, the project life cycle, and the potential use of AI in research management.
Please find attached the presentation.
Next session, we will be discussing evaluation
frameworks, impact and open science.
As prep I strongly recommend that you go through the
manifesto that has since become a classic:
The
Leiden Manifesto – http://www.leidenmanifesto.org/
Please check the video – https://vimeo.com/133683418
On impact, I suggest you browse through Taylor and Francis Research impact ebook,
Best,
Ana
RMPP #3. Research systems and Actors. Univs, Gov
11 Fevereiro 2026, 18:00 • Ana Moutinho
Dear All,
Many thanks for attending our class yesterday.
Please find attached the presentation.
I am also attaching the FT Weekend piece on Michael Sandel.
In case you’re curious, here is the official Harvard
webpage for this popular political philosopher: https://sandel.scholars.harvard.edu/
Next session, we will be discussing research
management as a service and a profession.
As reading, please find attached or
online:
Special report: Research Offices of
the Future, RPN_2023
Also, do not forget about:
The
Emerald Handbook of Research Management and Administration Around the World
Enjoy your Carnival break, see you back on the 25th.
Ana
RMPP #2: Historical perspective and benchmarks. Research systems.
4 Fevereiro 2026, 18:00 • Ana Moutinho
Dear All,
Many thanks for attending online yesterday.
Please find attached the presentation.
We took an historical perspective and analysed some relevant benchmarks.
For those of you who are into history and/or
reflective about the way this are/were, I leave down further suggestions that I
quite like.
I am a big fan of Tony Judt, a British/American historian, dead in 2010. One of his major works is Postwar. Also, he wrote a piece for younger people on the way we live(d) that I feel still applies as food for thought, regardless of everything that happened in the last 15 years: Tony Judt, Ill fares the land, NYRB 2010 (pdf attached) + critique by Chris Patten (The Guardian, 2010).
The
Education of an Idealist, by Samantha Power (SP is a former US Ambassador to
the UN and former Administrator of USAID; fun fact: the main character in
Netflix Series “The Diplomat” is modelled after her).
Next week, it will be all about universities and
research performing organisations, with a spice of funders as well.
For the official Voice of Europe’s Universities, there is a lot of info at EUA website – European University Association: https://eua.eu/
As introductory reading, I suggest:
Lorenzo
Compagnucci, Francesca Spigarelli (2020). The Third
Mission of the university: A systematic literature review on potentials and
constraints, Technological Forecasting and Social Change,
Volume 161. [pdf attached]
Again, long. Suit yourself to AI digestions or jump into the Conclusions:
Despite the fact that there is widespread recognition, in universities, governments, industries and in society, that the TM is becoming increasingly important, the concept of TM remains nebulous and ambiguous. Indeed, it has been defined in many diverse ways and encompasses a wide array of models, dimensions, functions and activities, all of which fuel wideranging debates between scholars and policy makers. In other words, the TM is currently both the most crucial mission and that which most requires innovation in the organization of universities. This fragmentation can be misleading when it is addressed with a narrow perspective, one which ignores some fundamental aspects, such as: the wide array of rationales driving the shift towards the TM; the synergies between the various functions of the TM; the incorporation of the TM within the traditional university missions of teaching and research; and the perceived legitimacy and contribution of all three missions by both university staff and external stakeholders.
(…)
The growing body of research and increased attention paid to the TM are, no doubt, reflected in the increasing pressure governments are putting on universities to add a TM, labelled as a “contribution to society”, into their programme Syllabi, even while public funding for education is steadily being cut. At the same time, academia is facing demands for transparency, efficiency and accountability regarding the socio-economic impact of its activities. Furthermore, universities are now being required to demonstrate their legitimacy to external stakeholders, including industry and society at large. This means that the university and the production and dissemination of knowledge are currently perceived as being at a crossroad.
Stay
safe,
Ana