Cross-campus collaboration in research support: Insights from an RLP leadership roundtable

The following post is part of a series that documents findings from the RLP leadership roundtable discussions.

Over the past several years, research libraries have become increasingly engaged in the university research enterprise through an expanding array of research support services, assuming new responsibilities in areas such as research data management, institutional reputation management through research information management, and support for bibliometrics and research impact services. These activities are often closely aligned with institutional priorities, and require cross-campus collaboration to implement and sustain.

These topics all connect to a concept we recently introduced called the “library beyond the library” – the idea that academic and research libraries ever increasingly partner with other units on campus to address a range of emerging institutional priorities and expectations in research support. However, a significant challenge for libraries in these partnerships is that their role, contributions, and value proposition may not be clearly defined or recognized by other campus stakeholders.

To learn more about about the opportunities and challenges of cross-campus collaboration, as well as their connection to the Library Beyond the Library concept, the OCLC Research Library Partnership convened four 90 minute roundtable discussions with library leaders from RLP institutions in many different time zones during the week of June 17. These discussions focused on how library offerings were evolving in response to university priorities, and what role cross-campus partnerships played in advancing institutional and library goals.

Overall, 48 individuals from 26 RLP institutions in four countries participated, including representation from:

Boston College	Northeastern University	University of Hong Kong
Carnegie Mellon University	Ohio State University	University of Miami
Clemson University	Penn State University	University of Michigan
Colorado State University	Syracuse University	University of Pittsburgh
George Washington University	Temple University	University of Sydney
Getty Library	Tufts University	University of Tennessee, Knoxville
London School of Economics and Political Science	University of Chicago	University of Toronto
Monash University	University of Edinburgh	University of Utah
Montana State University	University of Glasgow

RLP leadership roundtable discussions generally follow Chatham House Rules, in order to support open, trusted conversations. This blog post offers a high level synthesis of our recent discussions, without naming individual speakers or their institutional affiliations.

Growing demand for research support

Many roundtable participants described a growing demand for research support services, driven not only by ambitious research productivity goals but also often by the growing size of large public institutions. Local conditions vary broadly, but activities include:

• Research data management (and data storage solutions), which frequently involves library collaboration with campus IT. In particular, there is significant interest from researchers in data mining, and libraries are working with partners to manage the costs of data acquisition.
• Evidence synthesis support is a rapidly growing offering in many RLP libraries, which more than one roundtable participant described as a “campus priority.” While many libraries reported new hires to support systematic reviews, there is significant uncertainty about how to offer services at scale.
• Tracking the institutional scholarly record, frequently through a RIMS/CRIS system, to support institutional reporting, reputation management, and expertise discovery. Libraries are frequent leaders, in collaboration with the research office and academic affairs units.
• Closely related to this is research impact support, the focus of a previous RLP roundtable discussion. One US institution described how its research impact librarian is working with other campus stakeholders on the implementation of an institutional faculty information system (Interfolio), in addition to their routine support for faculty preparing tenure dossiers. Another participant in the UK described how their library is expanding its research metrics service offering, including support for academic reviews and advocacy for responsible metrics.
• Campus ORCID adoption was mentioned as a priority for many institutions, such as a pilot project recently announced by the University of Waterloo, with support from the library, office of research, and other campus stakeholders. These efforts seek to integrate ORCID into a broader array of campus workflows, to enhance functionality for researchers and the broader research ecosystem.
• Data security and research integrity issues, while primarily the purview of the research office, have offered several libraries an opportunity for closer collaboration with that unit on RDM topics, as well as in the deployment of electronic lab notebooks.

Research support drives cross-campus collaboration

Growing demand for research support services goes hand in hand with library collaboration with other campus stakeholders. In particular, roundtable participants described several factors that were driving collaboration with other campus stakeholders:

Library alignment with institutional goals

Several RLP affiliates described ambitious research productivity goals at their institutions, including one university where the goal is to double research productivity by 2025. Notably, several RLP member institutions have recently joined the prestigious Association of American Universities, comprised of 71 leading North American research universities. Institutional efforts to increase research productivity, prestige, and rankings have significant implications for libraries, as well as other units like research administration, campus IT, and academic affairs units, motivating service development for data management, research information management, and more.

Mandates

Open science mandates

Many roundtable participants described how the shift toward open science and public access mandates are catalyzing cross-campus conversations. This was most evident among US institutions, where institutions are beginning to organize in response to the recent OSTP public access memo, which requires the free, immediate access to federally-funded research, with each federal funding agency enacting their own policies by the end of 2025.

Librarians at three public land grant institutions described how their institutions were responding with cross-campus task forces or committees comprised of stakeholders from the library, research office, and other institutional stakeholder groups, in order to address the complex institutional implications and ensure compliance (and continued eligibility for grant monies). Other US libraries described low awareness of upcoming policies by non-library stakeholders at this time, a condition likely to change as policy implications become clearer.

Research assessment mandates

For UK institutions, the nationally mandated Research Excellence Framework (REF) is a strong driver of cross-campus collaboration, as it has implications for block-grant research funding for UK institutions. The library plays a central role in the REF for most UK institutions, by managing the scholarly record for the university, which is used for outcomes reporting.

Amplification of library offerings within a broader research support hub

With research support services atomized across the campus, it can be challenging for researchers and students to connect with available resources. At least six of the institutions participating in this roundtable reported efforts to develop a web page or portal to highlight all the research support services at the institution, at various stages of maturity. One library described their library services being “fully integrated” with those of the research office, which helps to raise awareness of services, but at the risk of losing library identity–and visible value proposition. I’ve previously blogged about how Montana State University has launched a Research Alliance comprised of both library and non-library research support units, physically housed in the university library. This operational configuration positions the library as the hub of institutional research support, signaling its value proposition to the campus community.

Challenges and obstacles

Roundtable participants shared numerous examples of the challenges of developing and sustaining collaborations with other institutional partners. As we described in our 2020 Social Interoperability report, cross-campus collaboration is HARD! For example:

• Leadership churn. The high turnover in campus leadership roles adds uncertainty and complexity, particularly when it can take months or years to fill vacancies. One participant described the negative impact of leadership turnover by saying, “It’s hard to align with campus strategy when you aren’t sure what it is.”
• Decentralization. Decentralization was described as a barrier to collaboration, both across campus and within the library itself. One participant described the decentralization of the library system as creating obstacles for collaborations with other campus units because “. . . [other units] don’t want six partners, they really want one.” And to add to the complexity, efforts to centralize points of contact can also run afoul of local interests, particularly in departments and colleges/faculties.
• Existing hierarchies and financial models are often fossilized within this highly decentralized structure. Inflexible structures can create a formidable barrier to more formalized partnerships and cost sharing. One participant described how their library provides direct support for managing the institutional scholarly record for strategic campus reporting efforts, which requires numerous product licenses, including a research information management platform. To date, the library has covered costs for this effort, including labor as well as software expenses, but it would like to shift some licensing costs to the research office. However, inflexible funding structures are proving a barrier to this cost-sharing effort.
• Rigid HR policies, job categories, and union contracts can limit flexibility to change positions or revise job descriptions, as needed for operational changes–both within the library and other campus units.
• Difficulty scaling services to meet demand. Many library leaders described significant challenges with the resourcing and scaling of research support services, particularly as demand for high touch services like evidence synthesis and data curation exceed library capacities. One participant described this as as representing a “desire for a more personalized approach, [with] librarians available for specific people or specific tasks.” This is particularly challenging for both large public institutions as well as less well-resourced private institutions.
• Competition. Several participants described how opportunities to collaborate can instead turn into “turf wars” over a given topic such as research data management, frequently driven by individual ambitions and overt concerns about which individuals and units get “credit” for the effort. One participant knowingly said, “I think that the reputation of goal of [individuals] entering leadership can have both legitimately positive but also potentially devastating effects on existing and in-progress services.”
• Resource scarcity. Austerity and budget cuts make the work harder to staff, potentially amplifying competition for often already scarce resources. RLP institutions across many national environments reported resource challenges, which are particularly significant today in UK institutions.
• Cultural norms. Collaboration is set up to be hard in part because universities are “complex adaptive systems,” characterized by self-directed, independent agents with heterogenous goals operating in a federated and often chaotic environment.

Support for positive cross-campus collaboration

Register for the upcoming Social Interoperability Workshop

To help support RLP libraries in building successful cross-campus relationships, the RLP will again be offering our popular (and RLP exclusive) Social Interoperability Workshop. This concise 90-minute virtual workshop features a combination of presentations and small group breakout discussion to:

• Explore the challenges of building relationships in a complex multi-stakeholder environment
• Identify strategies and tactics to build stronger cross-campus relationships
• Learn from peers facing similar challenges

Affiliates of RLP partner institutions are invited to register for the time that fits your schedule:

• Tuesday, 8 October, 10-11:30 am EDT / 4 -5:30 pm CEST
• Tuesday, 8 October, 6-7:30 pm ET / 3-4:30 pm PDT / Wednesday, 9 October 9-10:30 am AEDT

Reflect on how your library articulates it value proposition to other stakeholders

I invite you to read our recent blog post on the Library beyond the library, which describes a current OCLC Research project examining how research libraries are engaging in new operational structures that extend the the library beyond traditional hierarchies. As libraries evolve, they must find ways to boldly articulate the library’s value proposition to key non-library stakeholders. Stay tuned for more posts about this project.

Thanks to my colleague Brian Lavoie for his input on this blog post.