Experiences of Leadership of Cross-Disciplinary Research

Home , Leadership studies

Experiences of leadership of

cross-disciplinary research

Louise Fleck

A thesis in fulfilment of the requirements of the degree of Master of Philosophy (Higher Education)

School of Education

Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences

March 2015

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Acknowledgements

My sincere thanks go to my supervisors, Professor Stephen Marshall and Professor Colin Evers, who have been encouraging and supportive throughout. Professor Marshall began discussing this project with me more years ago than either of us is keen to remember; his enthusiasm whenever my own flagged, and his encouragement and enduring patience, have been greatly appreciated.

Thanks also to those who participated in this research: your openness and generosity have been remarkable and have reaffirmed my decision many years ago to follow a career in research management.

I am enormously grateful for the love, support and patience of my husband, Richard, and my daughter, Laura, who have spent many evenings and weekends entertaining one another while Mum read or thought or wrote.

Table of contents

Acknowledgements ...... i

Table of Contents ...... ii

Abbreviations and Symbols ...... vii

List of Tables ...... viii

Chapter 1 – Introduction ...... 1

1.1 Cross-disciplinary research ...... 2 1.1.1 The importance of cross-disciplinary research ...... 2 1.1.2 Defining cross-disciplinary research ...... 3 Definition of a discipline ...... 3 Distinguishing disciplines from one another ...... 5 Degrees of integration in cross-disciplinary research ...... 5 1.1.3 Cross-disciplinary research as a team-based activity ...... 7 The nature of cross-disciplinary research teams ...... 7 Challenges of cross-disciplinary research teams ...... 8 Success of cross-disciplinary research teams ...... 10 1.2 Leadership ...... 11 1.2.1 Theories of leadership ...... 11 1.2.2 Leadership in the context of universities ...... 13 The nature of academic leadership ...... 14 Research leadership ...... 14 1.3 This research ...... 16 1.3.1 Research question ...... 16 1.3.2 Approach ...... 16 1.3.3 Scope and delimitations ...... 17 1.3.4 Contribution and significance of research ...... 17 1.3.5 Thesis structure ...... 18 Chapter 2 – Literature Review ...... 20

2.1 Cross-disciplinary research ...... 20 2.1.1 Experiences of cross-disciplinary research ...... 21

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2.1.2 Barriers to successful cross-disciplinary research and how to overcome them . 27 2.2 Leadership ...... 28 2.2.1 Theories of leadership ...... 28 2.2.2 Academic leadership ...... 32 Approaches to academic leadership ...... 32 Purposes of academic leadership research ...... 36 2.2.3 Leadership of researchers ...... 38 2.2.4 Leadership approach ...... 39 2.3 Organisations and teams ...... 39 2.3.1 Organisations ...... 40 2.3.2 Teams ...... 41 2.4 Conclusion ...... 42 Chapter 3 – Approach and Methodology ...... 44

3.1 Applied Thematic Analysis ...... 44 3.2 Trustworthiness of data and findings ...... 45 3.2.1 Credibility ...... 45 3.2.2 Transferability ...... 46 3.2.3 Dependability ...... 46 3.2.4 Confirmablity...... 46 3.3 The role of the researcher ...... 47 3.3.1 Positionality ...... 47 3.3.2 Disclosure of my perspective ...... 49 3.4 Conduct of this research ...... 51 3.4.1 Selection of CRCs for this research ...... 51 3.4.2 Identification of participants and collection of data ...... 52 3.4.3 Process of analysing data ...... 53 3.5 Summary of approach and methodology ...... 55 Chapter 4 – The Cooperative Research Centre Program ...... 56

4.1 History, purpose and reviews ...... 57 4.1.1 The CRC program since 1990 ...... 57 4.1.2 Reviews of the CRC program ...... 58 4.2 Structure of CRCs ...... 60 4.2.1 Participants ...... 60

4.2.2 CRC activities ...... 60 4.2.3 Decisions about CRCs ...... 61 4.2.4 Funding of CRCs ...... 61 4.2.5 Governance ...... 62 4.3 Application and selection ...... 62 4.4 Award and agreements ...... 63 4.5 Review of CRCs ...... 64 Chapter 5 – The Realities of CRCs and Universities ...... 66

5.1 Universities ...... 66 5.1.1 How do universities get involved in CRCs? ...... 66 5.1.2 What commitments do universities make to CRCs? ...... 67 5.1.3 What concerns do universities have about involvement in CRCs? ...... 68 5.2 Researchers ...... 70 5.3 Research end-user participants — industry, government and not-for-profits ...... 72 5.4 Research managers ...... 73 5.5 The CRC ...... 75 5.6 Intellectual property ...... 76 5.7 Summary ...... 77 Chapter 6 – CRCs involved in this Research ...... 79

6.1 CRCA ...... 79 6.2 CRCB ...... 84 Chapter 7 – Understandings of Leadership in a CRC ...... 87

7.1 Conceptions of leadership of CRC Participants ...... 87 7.1.1 General ...... 87 7.1.2 Structural...... 88 Making decisions and accepting blame ...... 88 Management — arranges meetings etc...... 90 Provides a structure that people feel comfortable/secure working within ...... 91 7.1.3 Human Resource ...... 92 Communication and empathy, people focussed ...... 92 Provides vision, motivation and energy ...... 94 7.1.4 Political ...... 96

Separation of the CRC from the constituent organisations’ particular interests...... 96 7.1.5 Cultural ...... 96 Not too great a focus on ‘successful’ research ...... 96 Capacity to step outside one’s own work, to think about other people’s issues ...... 98 Openness, willingness to explore different ideas/opportunities ...... 99 7.2 Conceptions of leadership of Directors of Research Offices ...... 100 7.2.1 General ...... 100 7.2.2 Human Resource ...... 102 Good communication and listening ...... 102 Inspiring, sharing a vision ...... 104 7.2.3 Political ...... 105 Tenacity and drive, energy and commitment ...... 105 7.2.4 Cultural ...... 106 Tolerance of failure / learning from mistakes ...... 106 Openness to contributions and recognition of others’ expertise, not ego driven ...... 107 7.3 CRC Participants and Research Office Directors compared ...... 109 7.3.1 Common understandings ...... 109 Human resource understandings of leadership ...... 109 Political understandings of leadership ...... 110 Cultural understandings of leadership ...... 111 7.3.2 Understandings of leadership unique to CRC Participants ...... 112 7.3.3 Understandings unique to Research Office Directors...... 113 7.3.4 Summary of CRC leadership understandings ...... 113 Chapter 8 – Backward mapping and the focus of leadership ...... 115

8.1 Backward mapping ...... 115 8.2 Structural frame ...... 116 8.2.1 Cross-disciplinary research and the structural frame ...... 116 8.2.2 Leadership as experienced in CRCs ...... 117 8.3 Human Resource ...... 119 8.3.1 Cross-disciplinary research and the human resource frame ...... 119 8.3.2 Leadership as experienced in CRCs ...... 120 8.4 Political frame ...... 120 8.4.1 Cross-disciplinary research and the political frame ...... 120 8.4.2 Leadership as experienced in CRCs ...... 122

8.5 Cultural ...... 123 8.5.1 Cross-disciplinary research and the cultural frame ...... 123 8.6 Leadership as experienced in CRCs ...... 125 Chapter 9 – Conclusion ...... 126

9.1 Understandings of leadership particularly relevant to cross-disciplinary research . 126 9.2 Understandings of leadership relevant to all types of research ...... 127 9.3 Conclusions ...... 129 9.4 Further research ...... 130 Postscript ...... 132

References ...... 133

Appendix 1 — Interview questions ...... 144

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Abbreviations

ARC – Australian Research Council

CEO – Chief Executive Officer

CI – Chief Investigator

CRC – Cooperative Research Centre

NHMRC – National Health and Medical Research Council

PI – Principal Investigator

R&D – Research and development

SME – Small and medium enterprises employing up to 200 staff

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List of Tables

Table 1: Map of understandings of leadership of CRC Participants and Research Office Directors in Bolman and Deal’s (2008) four frames. 115

Chapter 1 – Introduction

Cross disciplinary research has been recognised as important in solving problems in many areas: for example, it has been found useful in developing a better understanding of, and more effective ways of improving, adolescent health (Bindler et al., 2012); in developing and understanding how effectively to implement adaptive water management (Dewulf et al.,

2007); and in understanding the dynamics of language change (Blythe and Croft, 2010).

Although cross-disciplinary research is clearly a useful way of approaching research problems, it is not straightforward. A range of barriers to cross-disciplinary research has been identified, some being institutional, structural matters, while others are more fundamental problems, for example, disciplinary differences between basic research values and epistemological approaches (Aagaard-Hansen, 2007; Blythe and Croft, 2010; Behague et al., 2008; Dewulf et al., 2007; Muehrer et al., 2002; Bindler et al., 2012).

Many examples of the literature about research involving more than one discipline expend some effort locating the particular case described within the taxonomy of cross-disciplinary research (e.g. Behague et al., 2008), and detail the barriers to cross-disciplinary research (e.g.

Bindler et al., 2012). However, there is relatively little information about how cross-disciplinary research actually works (Dewulf et al., 2007) or is carried out (Klein, 2003).

Research in other contexts has examined the factors that influence the effectiveness of many types of teams (Bailey and Cohen, 1997). The purpose of this study is to explore one aspect of the context of cross-disciplinary research, that is, how leadership is understood and constructed within teams or groups that set out to undertake cross-disciplinary research.

For the purposes of this study, two Cooperative Research Centres (CRCs) have been selected as case studies of cross-disciplinary research. CRCs are large collaborative ventures, part-funded by the Australian Commonwealth Government (and, by extension, the Australian public) and

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part by research end-users of various types. The CRCs selected are from different industry sectors, research very different subject matters and have different objectives, one being focussed on commercial outcomes and the other on benefiting the public more generally. Each uses researchers from several different disciplinary backgrounds to formulate and investigate problems, developing solutions that meet the needs of relevant research end-users.

1.1 Cross-disciplinary research

1.1.1 The importance of cross-disciplinary research

A very clear description of the benefits of cross-disciplinary research is given in the US report

Facilitating Interdisciplinary Research:

“Interdisciplinary research (IDR) can be one of the most productive and inspiring of

human pursuits—one that provides a format for conversations and connections that

lead to new knowledge. As a mode of discovery and education, it has delivered much

already and promises more— a sustainable environment, healthier and more

prosperous lives, new discoveries and technologies to inspire young minds, and a

deeper understanding of our place in space and time.” (National Academy of Sciences,

2004, p 1)

The perspective from the humanities is similar:

“Solving many of our big problems—water conservation, security, climate change and

Indigenous health— requires flexible and meaningful cross-sectoral collaboration that

draws on the best resources available.” (Council for Humanities, Arts and Social

Sciences, 2006, p 10)

To give the relevance and importance of cross-disciplinary research more immediacy, consider a significant global issue, such as climate change: entering the search term ‘climate change’ into the Scopus publications database produces almost 170,000 results, with Scopus-defined

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subject areas ranging from the obvious such as ‘Earth and Planetary Sciences’ and

‘Environmental Science’, to the apparently less likely, such as ‘Arts and Humanities’ and

‘Dentistry’. Almost 7,000 items are listed as ‘Multidisciplinary’. Many different disciplines are relevant to climate change and while the contributions to be made by mono-disciplinary research should not be underestimated, the potential impact of cross-disciplinary research is clearly very significant.

1.1.2 Defining cross-disciplinary research

As is apparent from the above, the terminology used in this area is complex. At the most basic level, cross-disciplinary research is research that involves more than one discipline. This statement, however, begs several questions:

• what is a discipline?

• how does one distinguish one discipline from another?

• what degree of integration is required for research to be regarded as cross-

disciplinary?

Definition of a discipline

Repko (2008, p 3) defined the term ‘discipline’ in the context of universities and the world of research generally, as body of knowledge or a branch of learning. However, this definition does not help to identify a body of knowledge as a discipline, or to distinguish one discipline from another. Darden and Maull (1977, p 45) refer to Toulmin (1972) as identifying the characteristics of a discipline as “a body of concepts, methods and fundamental aims”, “a communal tradition of procedures and techniques for dealing with theoretical or practical problems” and “(i) the current explanatory goals of the science, (ii) its current repertory of concepts and explanatory procedures, and (iii) the accumulated experience of the scientists working in this particular discipline.”

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These characteristics don’t fully acknowledge the social aspects of a discipline implied by Kuhn

(1996) when he described the preparation of a student “for membership in the particular scientific community with which [s/]he will later practice” (1996, p 11). The cultural aspects of disciplines were the focus of Becher and Trowler’s Academic Tribes and Territories: intellectual enquiry and the cultures of disciplines (2001), which described community life, communication, academic careers and status and power of disciplinary communities. Becher and Trowler

(2001, p 41) suggest that some of the indicators that a body of knowledge is sufficiently distinguished from related fields to be called a discipline relate to:

• whether the area is recognised by academic institutions in their structure

• the emergence of a ‘freestanding international community’ (as indicated by journals

and professional associations) and

• ideas of ‘academic credibility, intellectual substance and appropriateness of subject

matter’.

Not everyone agrees on the importance of disciplines as a way of structuring understandings of knowledge: for example Brew (2008) argues that changing knowledge forms, increasing interdisciplinary research and an increasing problem-focus in research projects have transformed higher education structures and researchers’ identification with particular disciplines. Brew recognises that the concept of disciplines remains relevant but notes that:

“the tendency to reify [disciplinary classifications] exists in tension with the constantly

changing dynamic disciplinary and interdisciplinary areas in the contemporary

university.” (Brew, 2008, p 426)

In spite of the difficulties of defining disciplines and questions regarding the worth of the exercise

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“people with any interest and involvement in academic affairs seem to have little

difficulty in understanding what a discipline is, or in taking a confident part in

discussions about borderline or dubious cases.” (Becher and Trowler 2001, p 41)

Distinguishing disciplines from one another

Research that involves more than one discipline provides an opportunity to identify the dimensions of difference between disciplines, since it is in that environment that disciplines are contrasted with one another. Differences in epistemology and consequently methodologies, institutional structures, and cultures lead to different taxonomies of disciplines.

Aagaard-Hansen (2007, pp 426–432) provides a comprehensive list of the principal areas of difference between disciplines and includes categories of difference such as: qualitative versus quantitative methodologies; objectivism versus subjectivism; the role of theory; and power balance.

The categories of difference listed by Aagaard-Hansen are not, of course, mutually exclusive and may be encountered in different aspects or stages of a cross-disciplinary research project.

Some of these dimensions of difference can be related to epistemology, some to structure and some to cultural differences between the disciplines.

Degrees of integration in cross-disciplinary research

The most commonly used taxonomy of research involving more than one discipline involves multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research, and although there is some degree of disagreement about the details of the definitions of each category, the terms commonly have the same basic definitions:

• multidisciplinary research in which researchers from different disciplinary

backgrounds work on a particular problem either in parallel or sequentially. Neither

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researcher alters their normal approach to the problem and there is no integration of

methods. Any integration of results is provided by the interpretation of the audience.

(Rosenfield, 1992; Aagaard-Hansen, 2007; Council of the Humanities, Arts and Social

Sciences, 2006)

• interdisciplinary research in which researchers from different disciplines work

together on a common problem, generally in the spaces (Repko, 2008, p 6) or overlaps

between (Council of the Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences, 2006, p 14) the

disciplines. It is generally accepted that this involves more integration than

multidisciplinary research, and sometimes leads to the creation of new fields or

disciplines (Aagaard-Hansen, 2007). Huutoniemi et al. argue that interdisciplinarity is

“best understood not as one thing but as a variety of different ways of bridging and

confronting the prevailing disciplinary approaches” (2010, p 80).

• transdisciplinary research in which researchers work together on a common problem

using a shared conceptual framework, integrating approaches and concepts

(Rosenfield, 1992; Aagaard-Hansen, 2007; Council of the Humanities, Arts and Social

Sciences, 2006). Gray (2008, p S124) suggests that transdisciplinarity “requires that

researchers invent new science together by exploring research questions at the

intersection of their respective fields”.

The ways in which interdisciplinary research has been analysed and categorized are set out in much more detail by Huutoniemi et al. (2010), where the various focuses of interest — degrees of disciplinary integration, interdisciplinary practices, and rationales for interdisciplinarity — are used to provide a framework for the many possible categorisations of interdisciplinary research. These authors argue that the various categorisations and typologies that have been proposed have not been used in the empirical analyses of cross-disciplinary research, and an alternative typology of interdisciplinary research is proposed based on:

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“(1) the scope of interdisciplinarity, i.e. what is integrated; (2) the type of

interdisciplinary interaction, i.e. how is it done; and (3) the type of goals, i.e. why

interdisciplinarity takes place.” (Huutoniemi et al., 2010, p 82)

Whichever form of categorisation is preferred, the categories are ideal types, blending into one another rather than forming sharply distinct entities. Several commentators have used the term ‘cross-disciplinary’ to refer to all research involving more than one discipline, as a sort of catch-all term for the categories, for example Aagaard-Hansen (2007) and Council of the

Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences (2006). However, according to Huutoniemi et al. (2010, p

80):

“While ‘interdisciplinarity’ has [a] specific meaning, it also remains ‘the general, all-

encompassing concept and includes all activities which juxtapose, apply, combine,

synthesize, integrate or transcend parts of two or more disciplines’” (Miller, 1982).

For the purposes of this research, I shall follow the practice of Aagaard-Hansen and use ‘cross- disciplinary’ as a generic term to refer to all types of research involving more than one discipline, and specifying the terms multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary where it is necessary to refer to one or other of the subtypes.

1.1.3 Cross-disciplinary research as a team-based activity

The nature of cross-disciplinary research teams

Cross-disciplinary research is commonly a collaborative activity ─ very few researchers have a sufficiently thorough command of more than one discipline to be able to carry out a cross- disciplinary project. Thus researchers with different disciplinary backgrounds must work together to discover solutions to research problems.

The several disciplines in a cross-disciplinary research team will bring different understandings of the research questions facing the team, and different approaches to tackling those

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questions. The disciplinary differences referred to above create discipline-based groups which have developed their own ways of understanding and being in the world. These different ways of understanding and being can be regarded as equivalent to Becher and Trowler’s conception of culture, being:

“sets of taken-for-granted values, attitudes and ways of behaving, which are

articulated through and reinforced by recurrent practices among a group of people in

a given context.” (Becher and Trowler, 2001, p 23).

The intellectual tasks undertaken by academics affect the way that they organise their lives: an academic’s “taken-for-granted values, attitudes and ways of behaving” are (at least in part) consequent upon her or his particular discipline (Becher and Trowler, 2001, p 23)

The aspects of culture examined by Becher and Trowler (2001) include: the life of the community, including peer review, power within the community, fashions, and networks; patterns of communication, including publication and citation practices, and collaboration; and academic careers, from junior to senior levels, including the relevance of gender, race and ethnicity.

Cross-disciplinary teams are, therefore, sites where cultures encounter and interact with one another in the course of their work. Cultural differences affect the effectiveness of the team and leadership of the team.

Challenges of cross-disciplinary research teams

Any research team, indeed any team, faces the challenge of combining the efforts of several different individuals to achieve the common goal. In the case of a cross-disciplinary research team, those challenges relate not only to individual differences between team members, but also to the differences between disciplinary cultures. Aagaard-Hansen’s (2007) comprehensive listing of disciplinary differences includes:

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• Qualitative versus quantitative methodologies

• Closed versus open approach

• Objectivism versus subjectivism

• Causality versus description

• Text versus context

• Absolute versus relative perspective

• Representativity and validity

• Role of theory

• Research ethics

• Terminology, and

• Power balance.

The binary nature of many of these disciplinary differences makes clear the potential for conflict between proponents of the different disciplines. Many of these issues, for example, objectivism versus subjectivism, go to the heart of the way that a researcher constructs a problem and a way of researching the problem. Cross-disciplinary research, therefore, can emphasise fundamental differences in researchers’ deeply held beliefs about knowledge.

These differences have been illustrated by research collaborations across disciplines described involving collaboration between physicists/modellers (Blythe and colleagues) and a linguist

(Croft) in undertaking a research project on the dynamics of language change. The authors note that the closed approach taken by the physicists contrasted sharply with the open approach used by the linguist. A further example is the case study of collaboration between anthropologists and epidemiologists described in Behague et al. (2008) who noted that the epidemiologists found the anthropologists’ work "subjective and un-scientific”, while the anthropologists were frustrated “with epidemiology’s biological bias, reductionism, tendency

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to homogenize and simplify reality, lack of theoretical sophistication, and black-boxing of the culture concept” (Behague et al., 2008, p 1702).

Success of cross-disciplinary research teams

Most of the case studies of cross-disciplinary research teams discuss not only the difficulties encountered but also those factors that contribute to successful cross-disciplinary collaboration. The factors that have been identified as significant in making a cross-disciplinary research project successful are of a different nature.

Some factors relate to items which can be provided from ‘outside’ the research such as adequate time, support for cross-disciplinary research from the institutions involved, and supply of those resources necessary to facilitate the particular needs of cross-disciplinary research, for example, information technology and information management methods. Other

‘internal’ factors are those influencing researchers’ preparedness, ability and training to develop an understanding of and sympathy with one another’s disciplinary epistemologies and cultures.

In delineating these internal factors, Blythe and Croft (2010) point out that collaboration is more successful if the researchers involved have collaborated before. That is, experience is important. Several methodologies are proposed in the literature to assist in the development of the internal factors: Dewulf et al. (2007) suggest workshops, facilitators, group model- building and discussion of concrete case examples; Bindler et al. (2010) propose team structures created with an understanding of teamwork theory and good communication.

A team is a group of individuals who commit “to a common purpose, set of performance goals, and approach for which they hold themselves mutually accountable” (Katzenbach and Smith

1993, p 112). Effective leadership and management is one of the ways that a cross-disciplinary research team can be supported to make the commitment necessary to overcome disciplinary differences of the sort listed by Aagaard-Hansen (2007).

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Section 1.2 below will briefly examine theories of leadership, particularly in academic and research contexts, and its role in team creation and success.

1.2 Leadership

1.2.1 Theories of leadership

Leadership is a complex phenomenon that has been interpreted and theorised in many different ways, ranging from trait and behavioural theories through contingency theories to

‘no-leadership’ theories. Different approaches to leadership are appropriate for use in different contexts.

Trait theories of leadership focus on the innate capacities of individual leaders, making

‘leadership’ a quality or personality type that one has or does not have. Beginning with the

‘great man’ (or great woman ─ Cleopatra, Hildegard von Bingen, Elizabeth I, Ellen Johnson

Sirleaf, Aung San Suu Kyi, Hilary Clinton) approach taken by, for example, Galton (1869), trait theories have developed in sophistication, recognising that some consistent patterns of emotions, thoughts and behaviour — traits — tend to produce stable leadership behaviours

(Hernandez et al., 2011). Behavioural theories of leadership connect particular behaviours or behavioural dimensions with effective or ineffective leadership: for example, Stogdill and

Coons (1957) explored the distinction between ‘consideration’ (relationship focussed behaviour) and ‘initiating structure’ (behaviour that is task or goal focussed).

Contingency theories of leadership, as proposed by Feidler (1967, 1971, 1978), House (1971,

1973, 1984), Hersey and Blanchard (1969, 1977), and Vroom and Yetton (1973), recognise leadership effectiveness is contingent on leadership context. That is, the circumstances in which a team finds itself — the external factors, including the physical environment and funding situation, and internal factors, including the particular individuals involved in the

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research and the relationships between them — are key influences on what leadership actions and style are appropriate at a given time.

Another set of leadership theories can be grouped as ‘power and influence’ theories: social power theories explore the way that leaders use power to influence followers, while social exchange theories view the relationship between leader and follower as a reciprocal one, based on exchange of leadership services for compliance or approval (Bensimon et al., 1989;

Middlehurst, 1993). Similar to social exchange theories, a transactional approach to leadership has leaders providing benefits or rewards in return for compliance with the leader’s requirements. Transactional leadership is contrasted with transformational leadership, in which a leader identifies for followers a purpose outside themselves in achieving a desired outcome, and both leader and followers inspire one another to achieve a common goal (Burns,

1978).

Cultural approaches to leadership (promoted by Bensimon, Neumann and Birnbaum, 1989;

Deal and Kennedy, 1982; Schein, 2010) take the view that leadership is not an independent entity to be discovered by researchers, but

“is part of the interactive process of sense-making and creation of meaning that is

continuously engaged in by organisational members; leadership can therefore only be

understood in relation to these shared, invented meanings or ‘cultures’.” (Middlehurst

1993, p 36)

It has been argued that leadership is likely to be provided by different members of a team at any one time and over time (distributed leadership) as a result of different skills and expertise among team members and in response to different circumstances (Gronn, 2002). This approach to leadership also recognises that leadership practice is generated by the interactions of leaders and followers (Spillane 2006; Day, Gronn and Salas, 2004).

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Another way of conceiving team or distributed leadership is relational leadership, which recognises leadership as a dynamic system created by the interactions of group members as formal and informal leaders (Hunt and Dodge, 2000). The philosophy underpinning relational leadership, and relational research more generally, is that reality emerges from the context of events and people: both the interpreter of a subject and the subject of interpretation together create meaning, and thus meanings are interdependent and interrelated.

1.2.2 Leadership in the context of universities

It has been questioned whether the concept of leadership is ‘appropriate and useful’ to universities given their traditional structures and decision making processes (Middlehurst

1993, p 1). This question has to a large degree been overtaken by the changing context of higher education including the ‘massification’ and commodification of higher education, and decreasing levels of public funding support of universities. These changes, however, have not resulted in complete convergence of leadership of universities and other organisations.

Leadership in the context of universities has its own special challenges: while the evolving context has changed many participants in higher education, not all academics have relinquished the expectation of consensus decision-making. The individual autonomy of academics, though often publicly challenged and sometimes restricted by the institutions themselves, is a prized attribute of academic employment (Bentley et al., p 32), and one that gives universities an unusual and valued (by some) role as independent sources of information.

Academics generally have a poor view of university management, regarding administration as cumbersome, decision making as lacking collegiality, and communication as inadequate

(Goedegebuure and van der Lee, 2008).

It must also be recognised that leadership in universities is neither of, nor by, exclusively academic staff. More than half of the employees of academic institutions are classified as

‘other’, that is, not academic staff (Commonwealth of Australia, 2015). These ‘general’ or

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‘professional’ staff undertake operational roles, managing human resources, financial services, research management, property, marketing and so on. Leadership of these units is generally performed by experienced professional staff, but it should be noted that applicants for senior professional roles increasingly are expected to have a research qualification. At the executive level of universities, academic leadership dominates: Vice Chancellors, for example, are expected to have had successful academic teaching and research careers. Leadership of research centres within institutions is almost always provided by academic leaders.

The nature of academic leadership

Some mooted characteristics of academics also create leadership challenges. Academics are trained to question every decision — critical thinking is an important skill for any academic to nurture and develop — which can result in complex problems for leaders. While in many organisations transactional leadership, trading salary and security for compliance with the leader’s requirements, results in some degree of loyalty to the organisation, many academic staff maintain a strong belief in their autonomy from the organisation and demonstrate far greater loyalty to their discipline than to the organisation that pays them.

A variety of approaches has been taken to researching academic leadership, ranging from the testing of existing leadership models in an academic context (e.g. Vilkinas and Ladyshewsky,

2012), to explorations of how leadership at different levels is understood (e.g. Marshall et al.,

2011), to descriptions of the particular experiences of various types of academic leaders (e.g.

Bosetti et al., 2010).

Research leadership

The term ‘research leader’ is ambiguous and refers, depending on the context, to being among the most advanced or innovative researchers in a particular field, or to leading another researcher, or a group of researchers in a university department or school, or a group working on a research project. Often these two types of leadership exist in a single individual, since the

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authority flowing from being at the leading edge of a research field, having a ‘black-belt’ in a particular discipline, is often a necessary precondition for the granting of respect that recognises research leadership of the other variety (Ball, 2007).

Evans’ definition of research leadership is:

“the influence of one or more persons on the research-related behaviour, attitudes or

intellectuality of another/others.” (Evans, 2014, p 48)

Evans goes on to note that this definition implies that positional research leaders might not, in fact, exercise research leadership and it

“[i]ncorporates recognition that the influence on others that constitutes research

leadership may occur accidentally or deliberately and may be provided unconsciously

or consciously, with what may be considered beneficial or unbeneficial [sic]

outcomes.” (Evans, 2014, p 48)

There has been very little exploration of research leadership (Evans, 2014, p 47) though the importance of leadership to the success of research is well recognised (Lee, Gambling and

Hogg, 2004; Ball, 2007; Greenfield et al., 2009; Evans, 2012).

Cross-disciplinary research teams face particular challenges as identified in section 1.1.3 above, and thus provide a particular context for research leadership. In what appears to be the only literature expressly addressing leadership of cross-disciplinary research, Gray (2008, p

S125) notes that in transdisciplinary teams “management of differences is critical for tapping the team’s full potential”. Gray’s discussion of the cognitive, structural and processual tasks undertaken by leaders of transdisciplinary teams discusses the challenges faced by positional leaders and links types of collaboration with the characteristics of effective leadership of those teams.

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Research leadership is recognised as important (e.g. Ball, 2007); it has been defined for some purposes (e.g. Evans, 2012); and the tasks of a leader of cross-disciplinary research have been analysed and listed in a limited way (e.g. Gray, 2008). However, the question of how leadership is understood by the participants in cross-disciplinary research teams — what it is that is recognised as leadership and who provides that leadership — has not been directly addressed.

1.3 This research

1.3.1 Research question

The purpose of this research is to explore the ways in which research leadership is understood in the specific context of cross-disciplinary research. Through examination of how participants in cross-disciplinary research collaborations experience, understand and construct research leadership in that context, I intend to identify and develop descriptions of the variety of ways in which leadership is perceived and understood. Further, I intend to identify those aspects of leadership that contribute to overcoming the challenges of cross-disciplinary research.

1.3.2 Approach

This study is exploratory in nature. Leadership is understood to be mutually constructed and contingent; thus to explore how leadership is perceived and understood in the context of cross-disciplinary research, it is necessary to discover the day-to-day experiences of participants in that context. Semi-structured interviews with research participants have been thematically analysed to develop and describe the variety of understandings of research leadership in cross-disciplinary research, as set out in Sections 7.1 and 7.2.

The Cooperative Research Centre (CRC) program, funded by the Commonwealth and established in 1990, supports research programs that are research end-user driven, large-scale and long-term. Although the CRC Program does not require that funded centres be cross- disciplinary, the nature of end-user driven research, focused on solving real world problems rather than answering discipline focused questions, means that often CRCs are cross- Chapter 1 17

disciplinary. Thus CRCs were selected as appropriate subjects for this study, with one of the subject CRCs having commercial objectives and the other focussing on achieving public benefits.

This research also provides another perspective on cross-disciplinary research leadership through interviews with experienced research managers who hold positions as Directors of

Research Offices in universities that are participants in the particular CRCs selected. The semi- structured interviews have again been thematically analysed, and the results set out in

Sections 7.1 and 7.2.

1.3.3 Scope and delimitations

This research provides an exploratory study of leadership in a particular form of cross- disciplinary research, the CRC. Following interviews with participants with different roles and levels of experience involved with two very different CRCs, and Directors of Research Offices at several very different institutions, various ways of experiencing and constructing leadership in the context of a CRC have been identified. These conceptions of leadership should not be thought of as exclusive or exhaustive: analysis of data gathered from different individuals or a different CRC or Research Offices is quite likely to reveal additional conceptions of leadership.

And data gathering and analysis by someone who has different experiences and a different relationship with participants might also reveal different conceptions. Nonetheless, the conceptions of leadership described here can be regarded as useful in contemplating leadership of research in other CRCs and other cross-disciplinary collaborations. Thus they are likely to be transferable to new contexts.

1.3.4 Contribution and significance of research

Many significant problems facing humanity are not limited by traditional disciplinary boundaries and cannot be solved by any single discipline independently. Effective and successful cross-disciplinary research will be an important contributor to the health and well-

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being of both people and planet. Leadership has been identified as a factor that affects the likely success of research, including cross-disciplinary research, but very little is known about how leadership is experienced and understood in that context, and thus how research success might be promoted by good leadership. This research is designed to uncover and analyse the experiences of those who participate in and manage cross-disciplinary research in order to provide a useful description of the way that leadership is understood and by whom it is exercised. This research will inform leaders of cross-disciplinary research teams about those aspects of leadership that are regarded by participants in cross-disciplinary teams, and those who work with those teams, as most helpful and best calculated to overcome the acknowledged barriers to cross-disciplinary research. Thus the findings will facilitate the better leadership of teams tackling many of the key research questions facing humanity.

1.3.5 Thesis structure

I have begun with a brief explanation of the topic of my research and my motivation for examining it. In the second chapter, I discuss the literature relevant to this study, reflecting on the existing reports of cross-disciplinary research experiences and on analyses of the challenges of cross-disciplinary research. Other relevant literature, about leadership generally, and academic and research leadership more particularly, and about different ways of understanding organisations, is also discussed.

Chapter 3 describes my approach to the exploration of research leadership in the context of cross-disciplinary research. I reflect on the pre-existing knowledge and influences that I bring to this research topic and the expectations of some of the participants in the research based on who I am. I describe the selection of the sites and participants in this research and the process of collecting and analysing the data, as well as the trustworthiness of this study.

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Chapters 4, 5 and 6 discuss the CRC program, the relationship between CRCs and universities and the particular CRCs involved in this study, thus providing a detailed description of the study context, with increasing levels of detail and specificity.

Chapter 7 maps the understandings of leadership drawn from the two different groups of participants in my research, CRC Participants and Research Office Directors. I explain those differences and particularities that distinguish the understandings from one another, and use

Bolman and Deal’s (2008) four organisational frames, the structural, human resource, political and cultural frames, to provide a structure to these understandings. The understandings of the two groups of research participants are then compared and contrasted.

Chapter 8 compares the identified understandings of leadership with the literature about the challenges of cross-disciplinary research and the means of overcoming those challenges that have been discussed in the literature. This ‘backward mapping’ exercise makes it possible to isolate those conceptions of leadership that are particularly important to cross-disciplinary research.

Chapter 9 summarises the conclusions that can be drawn from this study in relation to leadership of cross-disciplinary research and makes some suggestions about further exploration of the topic of research leadership generally and leadership of cross-disciplinary research in particular.

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Chapter 2 – Literature Review

The discussion below will consider the literature relating to cross-disciplinary research, to leadership, particularly academic leadership, and to organisations. There are numerous accounts of cross-disciplinary research, discussing the positive and negative experiences of the participants, barriers to the execution of such research, and the ways of overcoming those barriers that have been identified. Consideration of this literature will allow me to locate this study within the existing research and clearly to identify the contribution it makes to knowledge of cross-disciplinary research.

Leadership is a very broad and much discussed field, and different researchers take very different approaches to the questions ‘what is leadership?’ and ‘how do we identify leadership?’ Through reviewing the different approaches, and discussing the literature relating to academic leadership and the as-yet under-researched area of research leadership, I identify an approach to leadership that is appropriate in the context of this study.

The cross-disciplinary research teams that I have studied operate in a complex organisational context: Cooperative Research Centres are organisations made up of universities and other research institutions, government departments, commercial companies, and not-for-profit organisations. I provide a brief background to organisational theory in order to explain how I have structured my discussion of the experiences of participants in CRCs.

2.1 Cross-disciplinary research

In considering what leadership is most effective in facilitating cross-disciplinary research, it is important to reflect on the challenges of cross-disciplinary research and how these challenges have been dealt with in the past. It is then possible to consider the leadership practices that best assist in meeting and overcoming the challenges.

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2.1.1 Experiences of cross-disciplinary research

Much of the literature about cross-disciplinary research consists of case studies of particular collaborations written by the participants in those collaborations reflecting on their experiences. It is this literature that provides the most direct evidence of the challenges of cross-disciplinary research and of effective means of overcoming those challenges.

In his case study of interdisciplinary collaboration between plant breeders and biotechnologists, Haribabu (2000) explores the social processes of knowledge production, focussing on the questions:

• how do disciplinary cultures affect perceptions about the object of the research?

• how do cultures affect construction of the problem and possible interventions to solve

the problem?

• how do individuals’ organisational cultures, motivations and anxieties affect inter-

disciplinary collaboration?

Using data collected through a survey, interviews and observation of many meetings,

Haribabu’s research identified many barriers to cross-disciplinary research collaboration including:

• different conceptions of the scale and scope of the problem;

• anxiety of individual researchers regarding interdisciplinary research, particularly with

respect to power differentials between the disciplines; and

• organisations’ support or otherwise for interdisciplinary research.

Cognitive empathy — “understanding phenomena from the point of view of the other by one’s imaginative identification with the other or simply by putting oneself in the shoes of the other”

— is identified as the “first step in transcending one’s disciplinary boundaries” (Haribabu,

2000, p 326).

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In another study, Muehrer et al. (2002) discuss research on mental health disorders, noting that although the disciplines of basic behavioural science and public health science both have long traditions of encouraging research focussed on the prevention of physical and mental disorders, there has been very little collaboration between the two groups. Their article reports on a workshop organised by the US National Institute of Mental Health intended to identify the reasons for this lack of collaboration and to propose methods of facilitating such research. They suggest two reasons for the lack of collaboration: first that the two groups rely on “different theories, methodological traditions, and dissemination strategies” (Muehrer et al., 2002, p 253); and second, that structural hindrances to collaboration are presented by the organisation of universities and other institutions involved in health research. The authors invest considerable effort in identifying appropriate subject matter for collaborative research between the two groups, and then proceed to discuss examples of institutions that have succeeded in building collaborations between behavioural scientists and public health scientists. The examples highlight the importance of:

• training in relevant research methods from the ‘other’ discipline.

• institutional support for collaboration from senior leaders and managers in the

institution.

• mutual advantage in the collaborative activity, demonstrated by the ability to access

research funding sources and to publish in a wider range of research outlets

• providing cross-disciplinary opportunities for research students.

In considering a cross-disciplinary project in adaptive water management, Dewulf et al. (2007) use a framing approach, recognising that when people from different backgrounds work together, they frame questions differently. In a cross-disciplinary project the multiple disciplines tend to give rise to multiple frames, or ways of understanding the issues, and therefore to ambiguity.

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The researchers used interviews, discourse analysis and observations in which the researchers were participant/observers to collect data about the central questions:

“1. How do researchers differ in framing a central concept?

2. What challenges do framing differences pose for the project?

3. How useful are the interventions undertaken from a social-learning approach for

dealing with these differences in framing?" (Dewulf et al., 2007, p 4)

This research identified that a major problem in cross-disciplinary research is the issue of problem definition:

"who defines the nature of the problem, the scale of analysis (genetic, landscape,

ecosystem), or the level of complexity (deterministic, stochastic, or chaotic)?" (Dewulf

et al., 2007, p 3).

In response, interventions were trialled to enable the connection of different areas of knowledge through facilitated workshops that incorporated group model building and the use of concrete examples to illustrate theoretical perspectives.

A series of steps was proposed to deal with the difference in understanding resulting from different disciplinary perspectives:

“1. Get to know each other’s frames

…

2. Acknowledge differences.

…

3. Incorporate other concepts into your own framing.

…

4. Explore and work with the differences.

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…

5. Forge new frames.” (Dewulf et al., pp 13–14)

The multiple frames encountered in cross-disciplinary research lead, almost inevitably, to ambiguity and to overcome that ambiguity it is important to use rich communication forms, such as meetings and face to face discussions, in preference to poor communication forms, such as information systems and written special reports.

In examining cross-disciplinary environmental research involving both social and biophysical sciences, MacMynowski (2007) considers the power differential between the different disciplines and how that affects the collaboration and its development towards the integration required of true interdisciplinarity. In particular, MacMynowski focuses on the power attributed by the disciplines to different types of knowledge claims and the value placed on objectivity over subjectivity. It is proposed that in order for an interdisciplinary research project to move forward, recombining ideas and making the power differential associated with knowledge claims explicit, a process of differentiation, clarification and synthesis must take place. Differentiation, that is, identifying differences in epistemologies and cultures, and clarification, that is, developing a real understanding of the effect and rationale of those differences, are essentially intertwined. Synthesis, the recombination of ideas, or the development of new ideas to meet the needs of the cross-disciplinary research, is the goal and final stage of the process.

The case study of collaboration between anthropologists and epidemiologists described in

Behague et al., (2008) acknowledges that:

"Fundamental and insurmountable epistemological differences between the two

disciplines have rarely been acknowledged outside academic settings, to the extent

that collaboration between the two disciplines has occurred in a parallel, rather than

cross-fertilizing, fashion." (Behague et al., 2008, p 1702)

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The epidemiologists found the anthropologists’ work "subjective and un-scientific”.

Anthropological works were regarded as

“verbose, excessively anecdotal, inappropriately based on small sample sizes selected

according to convenience rather than random allocation” (Behague et al., 2008, p

1702).

The applied nature of this research facilitated epistemological convergence. First, the problem solving nature of the work required an explicit theoretical orientation towards developing understandings of causality and the mechanisms of change. The modifications to epistemology and methodology could be contributed to both by epidemiology and anthropology. Second, the mutual interests of the collaborators led to a focus on challenges in data interpretation and analysis rather than the refinement of methodology. Third, the standard dichotomies between the disciplines, often central to discussions of interdisciplinary research, can be unhelpful, and so the focus on data interpretation and analysis helped to move attention from the methodological and epistemological differences between the disciplines (Behague et al.,

2008, pp 1706–07).

The authors also emphasised the importance of institutional support for interdisciplinary collaboration, and noted that it was necessary to spend considerable time learning about one another’s disciplines.

In describing their long term (5 years) collaboration on the dynamics of language, Blythe

(physicist/modeller) and Croft (linguist) observe that the qualitative approach taken by the humanities and the quantitative approach of the hard sciences are “not entirely incompatible”

(Blythe and Croft, 2010, pp 17–18). They describe the physicist as taking a more results- oriented approach and suggest that this might reflect the importance of a “new result” in that discipline (Blythe and Croft, 2010, p 18), in contrast with the linguist’s approach which

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focussed on developing a common understanding with his collaborator and “overcoming conceptual hurdles” (Blythe and Croft, 2010, p 18).

The authors highlight the importance of having time to develop the collaboration noting that

"an element of trust between the two parties is … essential" (Blythe and Croft, 2010, pp 18–

19). One interesting observation is that since the humanities approach is that intense scholarship is undertaken to find qualitative solutions to analytical problems, the humanities scholar is likely to want to develop a theory or solution that accounts for all data. The science approach, more familiar with quantitative data, is to produce a range of models of the data which can then be evaluated as to how well they fit the given data. The humanities scholar may need to make some effort to accept the limitations of the quantitative approach — a qualitative explanation need not be found for every piece of data.

Bindler et al. (2010) describe an interdisciplinary health science research collaboration in which the interdisciplinary nature of the project was consciously managed. Some of the potential problems identified at the outset were “varying terminology, theoretical frameworks and methodological approaches” (Bindler et al., 2010, p 2). The cross-disciplinary team was assembled by a university researcher who saw the funding call and identified and made contact with the appropriate team members. There had been collaboration between many of the partners in the research prior to this project. The responsibilities of the two principal investigators were clearly defined and deliberate efforts were made to deal with such issues as the role of theory in the research. This well-planned collaboration demonstrates an unusual understanding of the importance of the team and organisational structure:

“Using teamwork theory, the PIs planned the teams that would be needed, roles and

members of each team were established, and periodic evaluation of the outputs from

the teams guided strategies for amount of meeting time needed and role revision. The

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step of team identification and construction was essential to success.” (Bindler et al.,

2010, p 4)

Other key components of success were communication and research information management. The communications strategy was built upon the team structure and involved scheduled meetings focussing on particular issues — theory, collaboration with fellows researchers, budget, leadership and communication with study participants — as well as a project website, teleconferencing access, and group emails. These communication methods were facilitated by good research information management (Bindler et al., 2010, pp 4–5).

2.1.2 Barriers to successful cross-disciplinary research and how to overcome them

The first of the difficulties encountered in cross-disciplinary research is the issue of differing epistemologies, with the consequence that researchers develop different definitions and understandings of the problem to be addressed (Haribabu, 2000; Dewulf et al., 2007; Behague et al., 2008). The experiences described above suggest that the challenge of researchers’ unfamiliarity with different methodologies, including both a lack of understanding of alternative methodologies and a lack of respect for methodologies different from one’s own, is also a significant hindrance to cross-disciplinary work (Haribabu, 2000; Muehrer et al., 2002;

MacMynowski, 2007; Blythe and Croft, 2010; Bindler et al., 2010). In addition to developing an understanding of one another’s perspectives and starting points, many writers suggest that training in methods used by others’ disciplines might be helpful (Haribabu, 2000; Muehrer et al., 2002; Dewulf et al., 2007; MacMynowski, 2007; Behague et al., 2008). Behague et al.

(2008) also note that a focus on the practical nature and implications of applied research provides a useful alternative focus from researchers’ theoretical ‘homes’.

Rich forms of communication, including face-to-face contact as well as electronic means such as emails, are recommended as methods of overcoming barriers to cross-disciplinary research

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collaboration (Dewulf et al., 2007; Blythe and Croft, 2010) as are appropriate research information management systems (Bindler et al., 2010).

Previous experience in cross-disciplinary research is identified as a contributor to future success in cross-disciplinary research by Blythe and Croft (2010) and Bindler et al. (2010). This previous experience may be related to the development of trust between participants in a collaboration which is noted as important by Blythe and Croft (2010).

The contribution that can be made by appropriate structuring and planning of a collaboration is made evident by Bindler et al. (2010).

Several authors identify institutional barriers, such as the organisational structure of universities which divides disciplines, or at the very least a lack of institutional support that might take the form of targeted cross-disciplinary recruitment policies, as another of the challenges of conducting a cross-disciplinary research project (Haribabu, 2000; Muehrer et al.,

2002; Behague et al., 2008).

2.2 Leadership

2.2.1 Theories of leadership

Who is a leader and what is it that leaders do? Theories of leadership grew in sophistication over the course of the twentieth century, supported by empirical studies ranging from large scale, longitudinal quantitative research to smaller qualitative studies exploring particular cases of leadership.

The common conception of a leader as an unusual or special person (e.g. Winston Churchill) led some to look for particular characteristics or traits that are common to individuals generally recognised as leaders. Trait theories locate leadership in the innate characteristics of the individual leader. In the terms used by Hernandez et al. (2011) in their review, the individual is the locus of leadership and the mechanism of leadership is simply to be the leader

Chapter 2 29

(Galton 1869, cited by Hernandez et al., 2011). The “stable and enduring qualities and patterns of individuals’ emotions, thoughts and behaviours” (Hernandez et al., 2011, p 1168), termed

‘traits’ (Mischel and Shoda, 1995), tend to produce stable behaviours. While some traits, for example intelligence, do appear to be necessary to leadership there is no characteristic that has been recognised as a sufficient condition for leadership (Middlehurst, 1993, p 14).

Nonetheless, Zaccaro (2007) describes something of a revival (since the 1980s) of traits as an important factor in leadership, including through the emergence of charismatic and transformational leadership theories.

Recognising that an individual’s traits are insufficient to determine leadership performance, behavioural leadership theorists based their work on the premise that particular behaviours, and/or behavioural dimensions, can be used to identify effective and ineffective leaders. Large scale projects, such as the studies conducted at Ohio State University and the University of

Michigan, developed approaches identifying categorisations of leadership that, variously named, distinguished between task-focussed leadership and person-focussed leadership (e.g.

Fleishman, 1953; Stogdill and Coons, 1957; Kahn and Katz, 1953). Several models of leadership using a behavioural approach have since developed which propose significant characteristics and behaviours in a matrix, or similar, form, which models are sometimes used within organisations and in leadership development programs (Blake and Mouton, 1964, 1991; Blake,

Mouton and Williams, 1981; Likert, 1961, 1967; Adair, 1968, 1983).

As noted by Hernandez et al. (2011), the early behavioural researchers were aware of the relevance of situation to leadership (Hernandez et al., 2011, p 1170 citing Fleishman, 1953), but the contingent nature of leadership was foregrounded by the contingency theories of

Feidler (1967, 1971, 1978), House (1971, 1973, 1984), Hersey and Blanchard (1969, 1977), and

Vroom and Yetton (1973). These researchers argued that the circumstances in which the team finds itself — the external factors, including the physical environment and funding situation, and internal factors, including the particular individuals involved in the team and the

Chapter 2 30

relationships between them — are key influences on the leadership actions and style that are appropriate at a given time.

Feidler’s contingency model, for example,

“postulates that the performance of interacting groups is contingent upon the

interaction of leadership style and situational favorableness” (Feidler, 1971, p 128) and that

“’task-oriented leaders perform more effectively in very favourable and very

unfavourable situations, while ‘relationship-oriented’ leaders perform more effectively

in situations intermediate in favourableness” (Feidler, 1971, p 128).

These conclusions are supported by quantitative analysis of field studies and, to a more limited degree, by laboratory studies, using analysis of ‘least preferred co-worker’ surveys.

1978).

While contingency models of leadership acknowledge the interaction of situation and leadership style, other researchers have extended the range of factors that influence and define leadership. For example, it has been observed that leadership is likely to be provided by

Chapter 2 31

different members of a team at any one time and over time as a result of different skills and expertise among team members and in response to different circumstances (Gronn, 2002;

Gunter and Ribbins, 2002).

Extending these ideas still further, it is argued that leadership practice is generated by and emerges from the interactions of leaders and followers:

“We view team leadership capacity as an ‘emergent state’ or a construct that develops

over the life of the team; is typically dynamic in nature; and varies as a function of

team inputs, processes, and outcomes.” (Day, Gronn and Salas, 2004, p 861)

Leadership roles and behaviours respond to the practical situation in which the members of a team find themselves and result from interaction between leaders and followers in an iterative process of adjustment and optimisation.

Another perspective on this interactive and iterative view of leadership is provided by theories of relational leadership. Relational leadership is described by Hunt and Dodge (2000) as:

“[leadership moving] beyond unidirectional or even reciprocal leader/follower

relationships to [a focus] that recognizes leadership wherever it occurs; it is not

restricted to a single or even a small set of formal or informal leaders; and, in its

strongest form, functions as a dynamic system embedding leadership, environmental,

and organisational aspects.” (Hunt and Dodge 2000, p 448).

This view of leadership is founded on relational research which originated in the early 20th century. According to Bradbury and Lichtenstein (2000):

“A relational orientation is based on the premise that whatever is being studied must

be thought of as a configuration of relationships (Capra 1996), not an independent,

"objective" entity.” (Bradbury and Lichtenstein, 2000, p 552)

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Similarly, cultural approaches to leadership (promoted by Bensimon, Neumann and Birnbaum,

1989; Deal and Kennedy, 1982; Schein, 2010) take the view that leadership is not an independent entity to be discovered by researchers, but

“is part of the interactive process of sense-making and creation of meaning that is

continuously engaged in by organisational members; leadership can therefore only be

understood in relation to these shared, invented meanings or ‘cultures’.”

(Middlehurst, 1993, p 36)

2.2.2 Academic leadership

As pointed out by Marshall et al. (2011), leadership and management responsibilities are often not defined in academic position descriptions and leadership and management work is often not recognised as such in workload policies. Consequently, many academics find it difficult to recognise or distinguish between leadership and management.

Leadership in universities relates to teaching, to research, and to the professional activities that support any large organisation. Any one of these spheres is likely to include both professional and academic staff. Academic leadership, as described below, most commonly refers to leadership of academic staff in teaching roles.

Approaches to academic leadership

Much of the literature relating to academic leadership takes a behaviouralist approach, attempting to assemble checklists of behaviours, characteristics and competencies that make for effective leadership. For example, Vilkinas and Ladyshewsky (2012) examined the leadership behaviours of academic program directors, using the ‘Integrated Competing Values

Framework’ (ICVF) which “defines the core behavioural requirements for individuals in leadership positions” (p 112). The ICVF identifies six roles that underpin leader effectiveness: innovator, broker, monitor, deliverer, developer and integrator (this last described as the behavioural control room for the other five operational roles). Data collected from surveying

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Academic Program Directors and ‘significant others’ (nominated by the Academic Program

Directors as persons with whom they worked closely) were subject to detailed statistical analysis. From this analysis it was concluded that although Academic Program Directors often do not have a high degree of formal authority, they do display leadership behaviours and hence investment in leadership development for this group is worthwhile.

Using a different approach, Smothers et al. (2012) explored followers’ perceptions of the abilities and traits of the ideal leader of a business school. The authors note that configurational research, which argues that particular organisational configurations are more appropriate to particular types of organisations, is relevant in considering the particular types of leadership behaviour and structure that are appropriate to the higher education context.

The authors considered the cognitive framework used by leaders and followers in forming their perceptions of effective leadership using implicit leadership theories. Implicit leadership theories are “based on followers’ perceptions of leaders and reflect what followers believe a leader should look like in terms of abilities and characteristics” (Smothers et al., 2012, p 400).

Based on statistical analysis of data collected from an on-line survey of departmental leaders and faculty members, the authors concluded that equitable treatment of staff is perceived as key to a leader’s success in this role. There is a subtle distinction to be made between perceptions about an ideal leader, and descriptions of actual experiences of leadership.

In their comparison of leadership of change in business and higher education, Hechanova and

Cementina-Olpoc (2013) note that leaders in the two contexts face similar challenges, such as rethinking the mission of the organisation, and considering how to achieve more with fewer resources. It is suggested that transformational leadership (Kouzes and Posner, 1995) is appropriate where it is necessary to change the status quo. Based on Schein (2004), the authors argue that:

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“given the differences in the culture of academic and business organisations, there will

be differences in leadership behaviours and change management practices.”

(Hechanova and Cementina-Olpoc, 2013, p 12)

Through statistical analysis of a survey which assessed commitment to organisational change, transformational leadership behaviours, and change management practices, the authors found that academic leaders were more likely than business leaders to display transformational leadership characteristics.

The research described in Vilkinas and Ladyshewsky (2012), Smothers et al. (2012) and

Hechanova and Cementina-Olpoc (2013) compared behaviour or expectations of behaviour in positional leaders with checklists of leadership characteristics and behaviours that have been identified as ‘desirable’ in previous leadership research.

In contrast, the desirability of distributing leadership across an organisation rather than locating it in a political leader was recognised by Inman (2011) in her exploration of the journey to leadership of academics in higher education. Inman considered ‘how and why leaders become leaders’ through her analysis of a series of in-depth semi-structured biographical interviews with mid-level leaders of schools or faculties that were highly rated by the UK Quality Assurance Agency. In comparing the stories collected with research into the path to leadership in schools, Inman found that similar, though slightly different, stages of the leadership path were the experience of the higher education leaders who participated in this study. Those stages were:

• formation

• accession (involving experiential, development and consolidation sub phases)

• incumbency (involving initiation, informal development and autonomy sub phases)

• reclamation or retirement.

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Inman concluded that one implication for practice is that those who do not hold formal leadership roles should be given opportunities to take on some aspects of leadership early in their careers, thus distributing leadership and ensuring that leadership is the responsibility of everyone who desires improvement in the organisation.

Marshall et al. (2011) explored the meanings ascribed by academics to ‘leadership’ and

‘management’ of teaching and learning, recognising that these concepts do not have clear, consistent and accepted meanings within higher education. Using both document analysis and semi-structured interviews with academic staff at different levels across a range of institutions, the researchers concluded that although there is a range of conceptions of leadership and management, some key concepts can be identified. Leadership of teaching and learning was understood by the participants to relate to:

• establishing a direction or vision

• communicating the vision and aligning stakeholders

• enabling, motivating and inspiring staff.

The concept of management of learning and teaching was held to include:

• detailed planning and budgeting

• securing, organising and allocating resources

• monitoring performance and problem solving.

The leadership and management responsibilities identified were distributed across all levels of the institution and across a range of different actors, but this distribution was not explicit. The research described in this article is grounded on the understanding that academics at all levels and in all roles contribute to the construction of leadership and management and of leaders and managers.

Similarly, Evans et al. (2013, p 675) observed that “leadership is essentially a relational position” defined both by those in leadership roles and by ‘the led’. The researchers examined

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the less formal leadership role of the professoriate in the UK, that is, the leadership provided as a professor, rather than through any formal institutional leadership appointment. One conclusion drawn from data collected by surveying academic staff other than the professoriate was that although there were high expectations of professorial leadership, these expectations were generally not being met. The authors suggested that institutional expectations of professorial leadership should be more explicitly articulated to all staff and that the value of distributed leadership should be emphasised.

Inman (2011), Marshall et al. (2011) and Evans et al. (2013) all recognise the value of distributed leadership in the context of academia and understand leadership to be a socially constructed phenomenon involving not only the opinions but also the actions of followers as well as leaders.

The explicit aim of the study conducted by Juntrasook et al. (2013) was to disrupt the accepted premises of leadership research in higher education which, it is asserted, has traditionally focussed on those with positional leadership and has generally worked on the assumption that knowledge situated in one context can be generalised and replicated in other contexts. The authors present a detailed case study of the leadership experiences of a fixed term research academic. Data gathered through interview was considered using both narrative and discourse analysis to present alternative perspectives on leadership experiences from a non-positional leader. The value of these analytical techniques is emphasised particularly as a way of giving a voice and validity to those who construct themselves, and are constructed by others, as being leaders, without holding formal leadership positions.

Purposes of academic leadership research

As can be seen from the above discussion, there is a wide variety of purposes of research into academic leadership, although as noted by Juntrasook et al. (2013) most of the research is in

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an instrumental paradigm in which effective models and practices, principally for positional leaders, are the goal.

Some research seeks to use existing frameworks, models or sets of leadership characteristics with one or more different goals in view. For example, a study might compare data collected with a framework or model previously developed with the goal of testing or improving the model as in Vilkinas and Ladyshewsky (2012). Other studies aim to discover whether leadership in a particular context conforms to the previously developed sets of leadership characteristics (Smothers et al., 2012; Hechanova and Cementina-Olpoc, 2013).

Another category of research, generally taking more of a social constructionist approach, examines how leadership is understood in different contexts by people holding different roles in various parts of the academy. For example, Marshall et al. (2011) explored the construction of leadership and management in teaching and learning, and Evans et al. (2013) considered how leadership by members of the professoriate is experienced by a range of academic staff.

A third group of studies gives voice to the leadership experience. The leadership experiences of a group of United Kingdom vice chancellors was considered in Bosetti et al. (2010), reflecting on the particular issues faced by this group in the context of a rapidly changing environment, including challenges to understandings of the nature of a university posed by the demand for broader access to higher education, globalisation, and funding restrictions. As discussed above, Inman (2011) and Airini et al. (2010) also considered the experiences of particular groups of leaders (Inman — mid level leaders; Airini — female leaders). Holt et al.

(2013) described the experiences of subject coordinators, as a group with very little formal leadership authority but undertaking leadership roles. The experience of a particular leader is described by Juntrasook et al. (2013), not as a representative of a class of leaders but as an example of the way in which individuals can and do understand and experience themselves as leaders whether or not they hold formal positions of leadership.

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2.2.3 Leadership of researchers

Some early research relating to research leadership was undertaken in Australia in the context of university research centres by Zajkowski and Dakin (1997) and Zajkowski (2003).

Zajkowski and Dakin (1997) constructed case studies of the directorship of two research centres using documentary and interview evidence. The interview data was analysed to identify themes which were then informed by documentary evidence in clarifying the various roles of the directors. The study aimed to develop knowledge and understanding of the role of research centre directors in the institutional environment of late 1990s Australia. It was found that centre leadership requires skills in developing new areas and sources of funding, liaison with external groups and management of personnel, all skills that were not necessarily to be found in centre directors generally appointed directly from academic positions.

Zajkowski (2003) examined the relationship between the success of the director of a research centre and the location of the centre in the university’s institutional hierarchy through seven detailed case studies. It was found that directors of centres located outside academic departments had greater autonomy and financial freedom, but that the expectations by directors of university support for their role were not always met. Neither of these studies focussed on what it is that researchers recognise as leadership of their research organisation; rather, they were concerned with the role of identified research leaders and the pressures of their particular organisational context. Neither study was concerned with leadership of cross- disciplinary research.

In exploring leadership of research in the field of hospitality management, Ball (2007) used a qualitative, interpretative approach. Based on interviews with research participants and information derived from documentary materials, Ball constructed case studies of two universities of different ages and histories. He concluded that research leadership relates to leadership of the subject and leadership of people and that it depends very much on the

Chapter 2 39

context. Ball also concluded that research leadership can be formal, that is, enacted by those designated as research leaders by the institution, and informal, that is, enacted by people with responsibilities that do not expressly include research, but who offer their colleagues support and encouragement. Behaviours that were understood as leadership of research within a particular discipline were identified, but Ball (2007) did not consider the relevance of those practices in the context of cross-disciplinary research.

2.2.4 Leadership approach

Based on my reading of the literature and my own experiences on leading and being led, I understand leadership to be a mutually constructed relationship contingent upon the particular context of that relationship and those involved in it. Some leaders fulfil identified leadership roles while others provide leadership without reference to their formal role.

Consequently leadership cannot simply be identified from external markers; it is necessary to ask participants in a team who it is that provides leadership, what behaviours evidence that leadership, and how leadership is experienced by team members.

Leadership of a team or group occurs in the context of some sort of organisational structure, large or small, formal or informal. The brief review of the theory of organisations provided below will assist in identifying that context, which is then explored more deeply in a discussion of research teams.

2.3 Organisations and teams

A comprehensive analysis of CRCs as organisations is well beyond the scope of this study, but some understanding of organisations and of how they work will assist in understanding the context of participants’ experiences. In addition to being an organisation, a CRC is a team of researchers, thus the literature relating to research teams is discussed.

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2.3.1 Organisations A wide variety of frameworks contribute to the theory of organisations. Quinn and Rohrbaugh

(1983) developed a ‘competing values framework’ to identify organisational effectiveness based on the dimensions of an organisational focus on a scale from internal to external, and a structural focus on a scale from controlled and highly structured to flexible and adaptable.

Morgan (1986) uses a series of nine non-exclusive perspectives or metaphors to understand organisations, including ‘machine bureaucracies’, organisations as cultures, and organisations as instruments of domination. As will be described in Chapter 7, it emerged in the course of analysis that the results of this research are consistent with Bolman and Deal’s (2008) four frame approach to understanding organisations: the structural, human resources, political, and symbolic or cultural frames. Like Morgan (1986), Bolman and Deal (2008) do not regard the frames as exclusive of one another, but rather as different ways of considering the same organisation.

The structural frame relies on assumptions that organisations exist to achieve identified objectives and that they are most efficient when there is specialisation and a division of labour. This approach requires suitable forms of control to coordinate effort within structures that are appropriate to the organisations’ goals. This frame of understanding holds that

“organisations work best when rationality prevails over personal agendas and extraneous pressures.” (Bolman and Deal, 2008, p 45)

The human resources frame works on the premise that people and organisations fulfil one another’s complementary needs: “[o]rganisations need ideas, energy and talent; people need careers, salaries and opportunities.” (Bolman and Deal, 2008, p 122). A bad fit between individual and organisation is bad for both sides, while a good fit benefits both parties to the relationship.

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The political frame of organisations acknowledges that organisations involve shifting allegiances between the different interests of a range of individuals and groups. Good decisions emerge from the bargaining and negotiation that necessarily accompanies the allocation of scarce resources among individuals and groups with differing “values, beliefs information, interests and perceptions of reality.” (Bolman and Deal, 2008, p 194)

The cultural or symbolic frame holds “[w]hat is most important is not what happens but what it means” (Bolman and Deal, 2008, p 253) and that the meaning of an event or process is dependent on individual interpretations. Establishing an organisational culture involves developing a common way of understanding particular events or situations. Culture is the glue that holds an organisation together.

These four frames are only one way of understanding organisations, but they provide a useful set of perspectives that are reflected in the research data collected and help to structure our understanding of leadership within a research organisation such as a Cooperative Research

Centre.

2.3.2 Teams Most research about research teams has considered international collaborations. Rambur

(2009) identified five types of ‘multi-national research collaboratives’ of increasing complexity:

• parallel facility sharing, resulting in little interaction between collaborators (Rambur

2009, p 85);

• data sharing, ranging from a natural and voluntary collaboration to collect and share

data across sites to a collaboration that is forced, for example by a research funder,

resulting in difficult relationships and minimal actual sharing (Rambur 2009, p 85-6);

• bridging peers, where similar groups in different locations study similar subjects and

collaboration arises naturally, for example in the form of comparative studies (Rambur

2009, p 86-7);

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• differing scientific languages and academic cultures, requiring many interactions

between the participants in the collaboration and often entailing significant

difficulties, particularly regarding cultural differences (Rambur 2009, p 87-9);

• human subjects or politically/culturally sensitive themes, which added differing ethical

and integrity standards and requirements to the languages and cultural differences

mentioned above (Rambur 2009, p 89-90).

The cross-disciplinary research that is the subject of this research is likely to encounter challenges identified in all of these categories of collaboration. Although ethical and integrity requirements are common across Australia and so might appear to be an exception, different disciplines have experience of different aspects of those requirements. For example, a physicist might not have experience of ethical clearance requirements until her involvement in a biophotonics project.

2.4 Conclusion

The literature clearly identifies the challenges of cross-disciplinary research and several means of overcoming those challenges. It does not, however, specifically discuss the effect that leadership can have on teams that conduct cross-disciplinary research or the forms of leadership that might be appropriate to such teams. Indeed the small literature regarding research leadership generally illustrates that it is a topic that has not been extensively explored and is not well understood. Although much of the literature relevant to cross-disciplinary research consists of personal reports of individuals’ experiences of such research, the literature relating to research leadership is much less revealing of individuals’ experiences of leadership.

The research leadership that is reported has generally used a qualitative approach, relying on interviews and documentary evidence to construct case studies. My approach is similar in its reliance on interview and documentary evidence and in its rich description of the cases

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considered. In analysing the research data I identified understandings of leadership that were expressed by the research participants be important, noting situations where there were common threads in these understandings shared by several participants.

My research will contribute to our understanding of what participants experience as effective leadership in overcoming the identified barriers to cross-disciplinary research.

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Chapter 3 – Approach and Methodology

3.1 Applied Thematic Analysis

My purpose in undertaking this research is to explore the ways that ‘research leadership’ is understood in the context of cross-disciplinary research by the participants in that research.

This type of inquiry lends itself to a qualitative approach: since it is not yet clear what the elements of research leadership are, a quantitative approach, which might be thought to be worthwhile if those elements were known, would be less useful. There are many different qualitative approaches that could be used: phenomenography, ethnography, content analysis, narrative inquiry, thematic analysis, grounded theory, and discourse analysis to name but a few. Guest et al. (2012), explain that

“good data analysis (and research design …) combines appropriate elements and

techniques from across traditions and epistemological perspectives.” (Guest, et al.,

2012, p 3)

Guest et al (2012) propose an approach to qualitative data analysis, Applied Thematic Analysis, which they summarise as:

“… a rigorous, but inductive, set of procedures designed to identify and examine

themes from textual data in a way that is transparent and credible. Our method draws

from a broad range of several theoretical and methodological perspectives, but in the

end, its primary concern is with presenting the stories and experiences voiced by study

participants as accurately and comprehensively as possible” (Guest et al., 2012, pp 15-

16)

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In developing Applied Thematic Analysis, Guest et al. (2012) have “tried to take the best from the multitude of methods and techniques and blend these pieces together to comprise a comprehensive approach” (Guest et al., 2012, p 18).

As stated above, I intend to explore how participants in cross-disciplinary research understand and experience research leadership. The data on which this exploration has been founded has been gathered through semi-structured interviews with researchers who participate directly in cross-disciplinary research and with Directors of Research Offices who observe and interact with such researchers. As I understand leadership to be mutually constructed, I chose to select researcher participants who have different roles and levels of seniority.

3.2 Trustworthiness of data and findings

A fundamental requirement of useful research is that the outcomes are regarded as trustworthy. As explained by Guba and Lincoln (1982), the accepted criteria of trustworthiness in the rationalistic, empirical science paradigm are paralleled by equivalent criteria in the field of naturalistic inquiry.

3.2.1 Credibility

The matter of credibility relates to the consistency of the data with the interpretation of that data. As explained by Guba and Lincoln, the most obvious method of assuring the credibility of research findings in a naturalistic inquiry is to ask the subjects of that inquiry:

“Do the data sources (most often humans) find the inquirer’s analysis, formulation,

and interpretations to be credible (believable)?” (Guba and Lincoln 1982, p 246)

An account of the analysis and interpretations of this study was sent to and considered by several participants from the two participant groups, and their responses taken into account in the completed work. The researcher participants who were involved in this activity had different levels of research experience and roles in the research.

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3.2.2 Transferability

In the scientific paradigm, it is expected that results will be generalisable as a result of selection of a representative sample for study. Naturalistic inquiry rejects the expectation of laws or rules that are independent of context, but recognises the possibility of transferability of findings. That transferability relies on the reader or user of the research being in possession of sufficient information about the context of the research participants and about their relationship with the researcher to make a judgement about the transferability of the findings to his or her own situation.

My disclosure of my perspective and relationship with the participants in this study and a rich description of the context of CRCs generally and of the CRCs that are the subject of the study are intended to facilitate the transferability of the research.

3.2.3 Dependability

Dependability provides for naturalistic inquiry a parallel to the rationalist criterion of replicability. Guba and Lincoln (1982, p 247) explain that dependability can be defined as stability, recognising that the design of naturalistic studies is emergent, adapting appropriately to circumstances throughout the study. Dependability is strengthened in this research through the use of two different, but related, types of participant, being researcher participants in CRCs and Research Office Directors who interact with CRCs. The triangulation of the responses of the two different groups provides a way of identifying the stability of conclusions.

3.2.4 Confirmablity

Parallel to the rationalistic concept of objectivity, is the naturalistic concept of confirmability:

“what is important is not that there be quantitative agreement but qualitative

confirmability. The onus of objectivity ought, therefore, to be removed from the

inquirer and placed on the data; it is not the inquirer’s certifiability we are interested

in but the confirmability of the data.” (Guba and Lincoln 1982, p 247)

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Reflexive consideration of the underlying assumptions of the inquirer, as described in section

3.2 of this paper, triangulation, as described above in 3.4.3, and careful review of findings to ensure that they can be traced to the data collected are considered to be appropriate methods of ensuring confirmability (Guba and Lincoln, 1982, p 248).

3.3 The role of the researcher

As is the case with every research project, as the researcher I do not come to this research subject without context or background; my initial interest in my research subject does not arise without some cause. I am Director of the Research Office in a medium-sized, research intensive university and my interest in the questions investigated in this research has developed over the course of my 17 year career in the field.

3.3.1 Positionality

As a researcher I have a ‘position’ with respect to the subject of my research, which must be acknowledged and explained in order for the research to have any validity. Insider status can be described as a particular form of positionality. When investigating a particular community or examining the understandings of a community with respect to specified subject matter, a researcher’s ‘other life’, their life beyond the research project, will have an effect on the research.

This is particularly relevant where the researcher has some sort of special ‘insider’ relationship with, or membership of, the participant community (Adriansen and Madsen, 2009). As an experienced research manager I have a particular understanding of the role, attitudes, languages and underlying beliefs of most research managers: that is, I am in and of the culture of research management. From one perspective, this insider status gives me a window into what research managers truly mean when they use particular language and provides more subtle understandings of the complex relationships between researchers and research managers. However, insider status does put me at risk of overlooking attitudes and

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approaches that do not conform to expectations created by the culture of research management. Unacknowledged, even unrecognised, assumptions that I make as a result of my experience and enculturation as a research manager might conceal insights that would otherwise be available from the data.

Insider status might also affect research through the familiarity of the participant community with the researcher. As a senior research manager fairly active in the community’s professional society and having more than 16 years’ experience, I can expect that some participants will respond differently to me from the way that they would respond to someone completely unknown to them.

Although I am an ‘outsider’ from the perspective of the researcher participants in my study, this outsider status nevertheless has colour. Researchers deal with research managers; some of those experiences are positive and some less so. Whatever the content and quality of the interaction, it has the potential to affect communication between the researcher and participant since both the researcher and participant will make sense of one another through the lens of previous experiences with similar people.

In that part of my research involving other Directors of Research Offices, my status as a colleague will also affect our interaction and my interpretation of the research data. The community of Directors of Research Offices is generally quite collegial and generous, but it must be expected that both interviewer and interviewee will to some extent construct a professional persona in our interactions. There is also the possibility that some of the information that would, in another context, be clearly expressed in an interview will instead be assumed knowledge between fellow Directors.

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3.3.2 Disclosure of my perspective

Every aspect of my research is, ab initio, coloured by my experiences and my motivation for undertaking the project. In this section, I disclose my experiences and motivations in order that the reader may take them into account when considering my research and its conclusions.

I did not dream of being a research manager when I was growing up. In fact I did not know that management of research was necessary. Had I been asked I would have responded that research didn’t really need to be managed, nor researchers led, because the researchers were sole traders in brilliance, conceptualising solutions to problems that were well beyond my understanding. As a high school and university student, I studied law and science and learned about different areas of knowledge. I was taught that academics are brilliant and absorbed the usual stereotypes about different disciplines: doctors think they are God, engineers don’t know how to construct a sentence, mathematicians can’t maintain a conversation, artists are temperamental, psychologists are crazy, humanities scholars ramble and never keep to a deadline.

By the time I fell into a research management career while escaping legal practice, these beliefs had been modified in some respects: I had learned that management and leadership are important in every organisational structure, and that academics are not always brilliant.

My career in research management has taught me that while a disciplinary stereotype may not be an accurate representation of every individual within that discipline, as with many stereotypes, a disciplinary stereotype usually has a kernel of truth.

One of the joys of working in research management is the feeling that you are contributing to society at large, that what you are doing is fundamentally worthwhile. Of course, it’s a matter of faith that all research is worthwhile, but when you are dealing with research that sets out to solve some of the larger problems faced by humanity — climate change, food and water security, public health challenges — no leap of faith is required.

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The solutions to these big problems don’t come in neat disciplinary packages: the relevant disciplines range from the physical, medical and biological sciences, through economic and social sciences, to the humanities and creative arts. Cross-disciplinary research, including all the variants of multi-, inter- and trans-disciplinary research, is key to answering real world problems. The differences between disciplines, therefore, play a central role in research that seeks to solve real-world problems.

In the course of my research management career I have been very interested to see that some research groups are happy and productive places, while others have an atmosphere of distrust and resentment. ‘Happy’ or ‘distrustful’ atmospheres do not seem to be associated with particular disciplines but, knowing that different disciplines have such very different cultures, I began to wonder whether cross-disciplinarity has any relevance to or effect on the atmosphere of a research group.

Cross-disciplinary research requires interaction between researchers with very different expectations in relation to theoretical constructs, methodology, evidence and proof. In other parts of society we expect these sorts of cultural differences to create conflict; why would this not be true of cultural differences between researchers? How do disciplinary cultures work in cross-disciplinary research?

Like many people, I have been intrigued by leadership throughout my career, and my experiences as a follower and as a leader inform each other. How is it that some leaders seem to change the mood of organisation within months of arriving while others have little or no impact? Who leads? Are there particular characteristics that make a leader? Leadership of research is particularly interesting: how does one lead a group of people whose training and experience mean that they question motives, contest decisions, and challenge outcomes at every opportunity? Cynical (and exasperated) references to ‘herding cats’ are common. Some

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leaders, however, are able to value the diversity that is a necessary part of a university while simultaneously providing a vision that unites the institution.

3.4 Conduct of this research

3.4.1 Selection of CRCs for this research

There have been 16 selection rounds for CRCs since the beginning of the program, with the most recent being announced on 16 February 2014. There are 36 CRCs currently operating and more than 200 CRCs have been established since the beginning of the program. Traditionally

CRCs have been funded for periods of seven years, though in more recent funding rounds funding has been available for anywhere from five years to ten years. Funding for the program was reduced in the 2014 budget and a review of the program (the Miles Review) is underway.

However, the value of CRCs as a site for cross-disciplinary research remains. CRCs are divided into four industry sector categories:

• Agriculture, Forestry and Fishing (currently 7 CRCs)

• Manufacturing (currently 5 CRCs)

• Mining (currently 2 CRCs)

• Services (currently 21 CRCs).

The selection of CRCs from which to collect data for this project was a two stage process. In the first, desktop, stage I examined the CRC Directory assembled by the Commonwealth government and considered two criteria:

• The first related to the length of time that the CRC had been operating: CRCs that were

established and had begun to conduct research projects, and thus were part way

through their funding period. I did not consider CRCs that were nearing the end of

their funding period in order to avoid the unsettling preoccupation with future funding

that often arises towards the end of any period of funded research.

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• The second criterion related to the disciplinary mix of the CRCs. After considering the

areas of research expertise and the research programs for each CRC, I identified those

CRCs that included a range of disciplines, with higher priority given to those that

included disciplinary mixes across the sciences, social sciences and humanities.

The second stage of my selection process was informal and involved talking to people who are closely involved with the CRC Program in one way or another, and asking for recommendations of which CRCs were cross-disciplinary and were thought to be operating well.

Having narrowed down my list of potential CRCs to a shortlist of four, I considered the different nodes for the CRCs and chose the two that had significant overlaps between the cities in which nodes of the CRCs were located.

3.4.2 Identification of participants and collection of data

The interview questions were developed based on the review of the literature in Chapter 2 above, and on my own experience in research management, which I have described in section

3.3 below. Sample question lists are contained at Appendix A. The interviews ranged from 30 minutes to just over one hour in length, and while the question lists provided a guide and checklist for the researcher as interviewer, the path of each interview responded to the information provided by the interviewees.

I emailed the CEOs of the CRCs I had selected requesting their agreement to participate in the research. The CEOs of both of the chosen CRCs agreed to participate and sent, on my behalf, email invitations to all participants. The identified CRCs are described in detail in Chapter 6. I also emailed Directors of the Research Office of universities that are participants in the CRCs inviting their participation in the research. Participation in the research involved participating in a semi-structured interview lasting up to one hour. Each person who agreed to be involved in the research was forwarded a description of the project, and before the interview

Chapter 3 53

commenced each participant was again given an opportunity to read the project description before reading and signing the consent form.

I interviewed seven participants in CRCs in semi-structured interviews that were each between

40 minutes and one hour long. I asked them about their role and the operations of the CRC, about cross-disciplinary research and about leadership, following up the questions depending on the response from the participant. Some of the questions were very specific to the CRC, while others asked for the participant’s general opinion on the issue. For example, in relation to leadership I asked “Who do you think leads people in the CRC?” and followed up with

“What do they do/what have they done that makes you think of them as a leader?” I also asked the more general question “What do you think makes a good leader?”

Participants were also asked whether they perceived the CRC to be a happy place, and if so, what made it happy. This question is based on my own experience of research centres: my observations suggest that the mood or atmosphere of a centre can be detected very quickly and almost always accurately. If the centre is a happy place, people believe that the leadership of the centre is good.

Five Research Office Directors were interviewed with questions focusing on the CRCs in which their institution participates, their own involvement with CRC development and operations, their perceptions of leadership in CRCs, and their experience of cross-disciplinary research. For example, “Are the projects in [a particular] CRC cross-disciplinary?”, “Are cross-disciplinary projects more or less likely to be successful?” and “Who do you think leads people in the different CRCs that you’ve worked with?”

3.4.3 Process of analysing data

Most interviews were audio-recorded and transcribed, but in three cases notes of the conversations were taken. I read the transcriptions and notes repeatedly and distilled summaries of the interviews to ensure complete familiarity with the data.

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The purpose of the analysis was to identify the qualitatively different ways that the participants experienced leadership in cross-disciplinary research in the context of CRCs. The transcriptions and notes were coded using nVivo software to assist in the identification of common themes and expressions, and from those themes and expressions emerged the different qualitative understandings of leadership expressed by the participants.

The different ways of understanding leadership that were observed and expressed by the participants were identified and described. In describing the several different ways of understanding leadership that were expressed by the participants in this research, it was of course, necessary to distinguish these understandings from one another and from the surrounding ‘background noise’. The variations in experience of the participants expressed in the data were contrasted to highlight the different understandings.

In grouping or categorising the understandings of leadership that were identified in a useful and accessible way it was valuable to refer to Bolman and Deal’s (2008) four organisational frames, considering the structural, human resource, political and cultural or symbolic aspects of organisations. The understandings of leadership identified and the categorisation of those understandings are outcomes that are both constructed by researchers and discovered within data. Thus I don’t regard the understandings and categorisations described in this paper as being the only possible interpretation of the data. Rather they are constructions and categories identified by me in the data obtained from the participants and are necessarily influenced by my experiences and my motivation for conducting the research.

The thematic analysis of leadership in the context of cross-disciplinary research produces a useful arrangement of understandings grouped into categories that could be used by others in that context to guide behaviour and to identify leadership that is more or less likely to be effective. However, the leadership themes identified are not necessarily solely relevant to the cross-disciplinary aspects of the research context. In order more closely to link the identified

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understandings of leadership with the cross-disciplinary research context I have compared those understandings with the literature relating to the challenges of cross-disciplinary research and methods of overcoming those challenges (see Chapter 2). Using a backward mapping approach, as proposed and explained by Robinson (2005), we can look beyond generic leadership theory to identify some of the appropriate content of leadership in the cross-disciplinary research context. Not all of the approaches for dealing with the challenges of cross-disciplinary research are most effectively dealt with through research leadership. Not all of the understandings of leadership identified in the context of CRCs are particularly relevant to cross-disciplinary research as distinct from research in other contexts. By comparing the challenges of cross disciplinary research with identified leadership conceptions it is possible to identify the overlap between them, giving some content to leadership practice within the area of interest.

3.5 Summary of approach and methodology

The applied thematic analysis methodology employed in this study was chosen for its appropriateness to the exploratory nature of the question being investigated, that is, participants’ understandings of leadership in the context of cross-disciplinary research, and for its appropriateness to the size of the study and the experience of the researcher. The trustworthiness of the research has been assured by conforming to the criteria of credibility, transferability, dependability and confirmability as set out by Guba and Lincoln (1982) and described above. A comprehensive discussion and disclosure of the researcher’s position and interests is provided at Section 3.3. Conclusions from the research have been ‘member- checked’ with participants in the research. The following three chapters provide a rich description of the context of CRCs generally, of the relationships and interests of the various stakeholders in CRCs, and of the particular CRCs that are the subject of this research.

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Chapter 4 – The Cooperative Research Centre Program

The Cooperative Research Centre (CRC) Program is an expression of a policy to bring

Australia’s research expertise to bear on practical problems. Many CRCs focus on the problems faced by particular industries:

• Agriculture, Forestry and Fishing

o Invasive Animals CRC

o Plant Biosecurity CRC

o Poultry CRC

• Mining

o CRC for Optimising Resource Extraction

o Deep Exploration Technologies CRC

• Manufacturing

o Automotive Australia 2020 CRC

o CRC for Advanced Composite Structures

• Services:

o Capital Markets CRC

o Energy Pipelines CRC.

Some CRCs (often known as ‘public good CRCs’), particularly those in the Services sector, have public good objectives relating, for example, to health or environmental objectives:

o CRC for Cancer Therapeutics

o CRC for Low Carbon Living

o CRC for Contamination Assessment and Remediation of the Environment

o Young and Well CRC.

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The structure of the CRC program, including its history and purpose, the structure and selection of CRCs, and the various reviews of the program over the 25 years of its operation to date is described below.

4.1 History, purpose and reviews

4.1.1 The CRC program since 1990

The Cooperative Research Centre (CRC) Program was established by the Commonwealth government to enhance Australia’s capacity to undertake commercially relevant research. It was designed by Professor Ralph Slatyer, then Australia’s Chief Scientist, and began in 1990, with the results of the first selection round being announced in 1991. The Program aimed

(Howard Partners, 2003):

• to provide a funding mechanism that would enable the assembly of large high quality

teams with a particular focus, in contrast to the institution and individual researcher

focussed programs offered by the main funding bodies (e.g. ARC and NHMRC)

• to provide education for research students that gave them skills necessary for work in

industry

• to enable the assembly of large high quality research teams

• to develop research capacity in industry.

The terminology around the aims of the CRC Program has changed slightly, but the intent of improving collaboration between industry and research institutions remains. The CRC Program is described on the Government CRC Program website:

“The CRC Program supports industry led research partnerships between publicly funded

researchers, business and the community to address major long term challenges. The

program supports research collaborations across all disciplines and industry sectors. It has

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a long history, developing real world solutions improving the competitiveness, productivity

and sustainability of Australian industries across all sectors. CRCs:

• develop new technologies and products

• create new markets and export opportunities; and

• build capability and capacity for industry through targeted education and training

activities.” (http://www.crc.gov.au/About-the-program/Pages/default.aspx: as at

21 June 2014)

According to the CRC Program Guidelines, the objective of the Program is

“to deliver significant economic, environmental and social benefits to Australia by

supporting end-user driven research partnerships between publicly funded

researchers and end-users to address clearly articulated, major challenges that require

medium to long-term collaborative efforts.” (Commonwealth of Australia, 2013, p 1)

4.1.2 Reviews of the CRC program

The CRC Program has been subject to several reviews throughout its 25 year history:

• Review of Greater Commercialisation and Self-funding in the CRC Program (Mercer

and Stocker, 1998)

• Measuring the Outcomes of the CRC Program (Garrett-Jones and Turpin, 2002)

• Evaluation of the CRC Program (Howard Partners, 2003)

• The Economic Impact of CRCs in Australia (The Allen Consulting Group, 2005)

• Economic Impact Study of the CRC Program (Insight Economics, 2006)

• Collaborating to a purpose: Review of the Cooperative Research Centres Program

(Commonwealth of Australia, 2008)

• Economic, Social and Environmental Impacts of the CRC Program (Allen Consulting,

2012)

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These reviews have considered variously the economic, social and environmental impacts of the program, and its effectiveness as a means of encouraging and supporting engagement between industry and the research sector. The most recent review by the Allen Consulting

Group found that the Program would generate a net economic benefit of $7.5 billion over the period from 1991 to 2017, or an annual contribution of $278 million, or around 0.03 percentage points to GDP.

Another review of the Program is currently being conducted by Mr David Miles, with terms of reference that consider:

• the effectiveness of the CRC Program as a vehicle for achieving the Governments

applied science and research priorities

• how the CRC Program investment can deliver better outcomes for industry

• how the CRC Program investment can drive collaboration between industry and the

research sector

• how the administrative and contractual requirements of the Program could be

streamlined

• whether there is sufficient demand within the research and industry sectors for a

Program of this type.

This review is expected to be completed by early 2015 and should be considered in the light of larger government policy with respect its Industry Innovation and Competitiveness Agenda, including the consultation paper “Boosting the Commercial Returns from Research”

(Commonwealth 2014b) and the Industry Growth Centres initiative (see http://www.industry.gov.au/industry/Pages/Industry-Growth-Centres.aspx#header).

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4.2 Structure of CRCs

4.2.1 Participants

Every CRC must include one higher education institution (that is, a university or a research institute associated with a university) and one public, private or community end-user of research. Participants in a CRC can leave or join the Centre during the funding period, and no participant is required to commit for the entire funding period, but there must be sufficient stability and funding commitment to ensure that the CRC continues to meet the

Commonwealth’s funding requirements (see Commonwealth of Australia, 2013, p 2) and can achieve its objectives. All participants in a CRC must contribute resources and the total of cash and in-kind resources must at least match the requested Commonwealth grant.

4.2.2 CRC activities

The activities of the CRC must include:

o “medium to long-term end-user driven collaborative research;

o an end-user-focused education and training program at least including, but not

limited to, a PhD program that complements the research programs and that

builds engagement, innovation and R&D capacity within end-users;

o SME strategies that build their innovation and R&D capacity; and

o utilisation activities to deploy research outputs and encourage take up by end-

users.” (Commonwealth of Australia, 2013, p 3).

Any research discipline may be part of a CRC, including humanities and social sciences disciplines. Cross-disciplinary research is encouraged, as is international engagement

(Commonwealth of Australia, 2013, p 3).

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4.2.3 Decisions about CRCs

The Minister (generally the Minister responsible for Industry), or the Program Delegate appointed by the Minister, makes decisions about the CRC Program, including which CRCs should be funded, as well as decisions arising from reviews of particular CRCs and reviews of the CRC Program.

The Minister’s decisions are informed by recommendations of the CRC Committee, which consists of up to 14 members, including an independent chair and nine other members, together with up to four ex-officio members (Commonwealth of Australia, 2013, p 3).

4.2.4 Funding of CRCs

There is no specific limit on the funding available to a CRC, but the average annual award since

2008 is $3.6M, with funding available for up to ten years. Supplementary funding is available in certain circumstances and extensions of up to a total of 15 years are possible. As noted above, the participants in a CRC must together contribute cash and in-kind resources to the research program that at least match the funding requested from the Commonwealth.

CRC funds supplied by the Commonwealth can be applied to meet the direct and indirect costs of research, the salaries of researcher, support staff and student stipends, and the purchase of equipment, but not the construction of facilities. In exceptional circumstances Commonwealth funding can be used to extend or renovate buildings (Commonwealth of Australia, 2013, p 6).

Guidelines are provided for the valuation of in-kind contribution, and research participants are not required to contribute cash (Commonwealth of Australia, 2013, pp 7–8). It is questionable whether, by implication, end-user participants are required to contribute cash. Contributions must be made as they were committed in the application for funding, even if the

Commonwealth grant is less than was requested (Commonwealth of Australia, 2013, p 7). All

Program Leaders and Senior Managers must commit more than 50 per cent of their time and effort to the CRC (Commonwealth of Australia, 2013, p 16).

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4.2.5 Governance

CRCs may be incorporated or unincorporated but must demonstrate good governance, and it is recommended that the governance comply with the eight principles of good governance developed by the ASX and adapted to CRCs, which are:

• lay solid foundations for management and oversight

• structure the CRC board to add value

• promote ethical and responsible decision-making

• safeguard integrity in financial reporting

• make timely and balanced disclosure

• respect the rights of shareholders/participants

• recognise and manage risk

• remunerate fairly and responsibly.

The Board of a CRC must include a Chair who is independent of all participants and the majority of board members must be independent of research participants.

The CRC Program website provides a set of principles for governance as well as a guide to CRC governance which describes different models and compares their relative merits. The issue of intellectual property, always a potential source of dispute in university-industry collaboration, is also the subject of a guidance document available on the CRC Program website.

4.3 Application and selection

The application and selection process are described in the CRC Program Guidelines

(Commonwealth of Australia, 2013). Applications for CRC funding may be called for by the relevant Minister at any time. The selection criteria applied to CRC applications are:

1. Research — “The proposal will undertake excellent-quality research that addresses

issues of economic, environmental and/or social significance to Australia.”

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2. Results — “The outputs from the proposed research, when implemented, will deliver

high levels of economic, environmental and/or social benefits to Australia.”

3. Resources — “The proposed collaboration will marshal the appropriate participants

and other resources necessary to achieve the proposed outputs.”

The two stage selection process first involves assessment and shortlisting of compliant applications by the CRC Committee. The CRC Committee considers:

• eligibility requirements

• participant contributions

• selection criteria, including advice on research quality

• government priorities and

• all other eligible applications.

Shortlisted applications from the first stage are then interviewed and may be asked to provide further information.

The CRC Committee then makes a recommendation to the Minister regarding which CRCs should be funded and how much funding each should receive.

4.4 Award and agreements

After award, the participants in each successful application nominate an agent to act on their collective behalf. The agent must execute an agreement with the Commonwealth (the

Commonwealth Agreement) that sets out the funding arrangements. Two template

Commonwealth Agreements are available on the CRC Program website, one for incorporated

CRCs and the other for unincorporated CRCs. The terms of the agreements set out requirements relating to governance, reporting, intellectual property and research integrity among other things. Schedules to the Commonwealth Agreement describe the particular

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arrangements for each CRC, including research and education activities, milestones and expected impacts.

The essential participants in a CRC must also execute an agreement among themselves and the agent (the Participants’ Agreement), setting out:

o “the establishment of the CRC entity to govern and manage the CRC;

o payment of participant contributions;

o ownership of IP;

o utilisation of research results including licensing arrangements;

o appointments of key staff; and

o any other matters relevant to an equitable sharing of the costs and benefits of

the work of the CRC among participants.” (Commonwealth of Australia, 2013,

p 15)

The Participants’ Agreement also sets out arrangements for the selection, funding, conduct of, and reporting on projects. Again, a template CRC Participants’ Agreement is available on the

Program website.

4.5 Review of CRCs

The review arrangements for CRCs have changed over the course of the Program. Originally,

CRCs were subject to a third year review and a fifth year review. The current review schedule involves a ‘Welcome visit’ shortly after the CRC is established, a first year review which considers how the CRC is developing, and provides an opportunity to identify particular challenges and obtain advice on possible ways of dealing with those challenges. Following the first year review, CRCs are to be subject to an independent review every three to four years.

These independent reviews are intended to assist the CRC to assess:

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• the effectiveness of its governance and management arrangements in terms of

planning, decision-making, reporting, conflict resolution and risk management;

• its performance to date in the research, education and training, and

commercialisation and utilisation activities;

• its strategic direction in the context of end-user engagement;

• any need to reallocate resources in order to achieve its intended outcomes; and

• possible strategies for the remaining grant period and beyond to maximise its

benefits to end-users and Australia. (Commonwealth of Australia, 2014a, p 7)

The Commonwealth will use the review to assess the CRC against its predicted impacts, to make decisions about funding and conditions of that funding, to identify concerns and best practices, and to provide input to any evaluation of the CRC program.

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Chapter 5 – The Realities of CRCs and Universities

The structure, selection process, funding and operations of CRCs are guided by the

Commonwealth and Centre agreements but, of course, there are complexities and subtleties that cannot be captured by formal documentation. The formal documentation does not and cannot reflect the web of interests of all those who participate in and interact with CRCs.

Universities, researchers, research managers, industry, research end-user participants, and government all have different roles and levels of interaction with CRCs. The interactions between the parties are governed and navigated according to the Commonwealth and

Participants’ Agreements, but the different interests, even among players of the same type, let alone among the different types of organisations and individuals involved, mean that the relationships rarely conform to the ‘ideal’ that is assumed in the agreements. It must also be recognised that a CRC is an entity separate from its participants; the interests of the CRC are unlikely to align perfectly with the interests of all of the different types of participants.

The content of this chapter is predominantly based on my own experience of a number of

CRCs during the course of my research management career. In some cases, similar experiences have been described by others in program reviews, government reports and peer-reviewed articles, in which case I have included appropriate references.

5.1 Universities

5.1.1 How do universities get involved in CRCs?

Universities become involved in CRCs through different means and for different reasons.

Sometimes researchers are asked to be involved so that the CRC can access their particular expertise, and thus the researcher’s employer university becomes involved. Generally an employer university will facilitate a researcher’s involvement in a CRC, provided that a return in the form of research income appears likely. Sometimes a university will identify a particular

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area of research expertise that it wishes to further enrich and develop through participation in a CRC, which might require negotiation with an existing CRC or involvement in the development and submission of a CRC proposal. Existing collaborations between researchers across institutions, and collaborations with research end-users are another source of CRC ideas. Sometimes particular end-user sectors identify a need for research and approach one or more institutions about developing a CRC proposal.

5.1.2 What commitments do universities make to CRCs?

Universities have varying degrees of commitment to the idea of participating in CRCs. CRCs involve high overheads in terms of the time and effort involved in their establishment and administration. Some universities outsource the legal review and negotiation of the

Participants’ Agreement, because relative to the research income received as a result of a CRC, the hours spent on negotiating the various agreements associated with a CRC interfere with the ability of those responsible for research agreements to conduct their business-as-usual, day-to-day work. Reporting on projects and on the cash and in-kind commitments to a CRC, as well as the expenditure of CRC funds, can be time consuming, particularly if the institution does not participate in many CRCs and so lacks experience in the style of reporting that is necessary. Another administrative burden is imposed by the various reviews to which CRCs are subject.

Commitment to a CRC is important at many different levels of a university and during different stages of CRC development and existence. Commitment from the university executive, through the Deputy Vice Chancellor, Research, is important at the stage of entering into negotiations to become involved in a CRC, since involvement invariably requires a significant commitment of institutional resources, both in the conduct of the research and the administrative work surrounding the CRC. Up until about 10 years ago it was common for universities to make cash commitments to CRCs, and to expect a return on their cash commitment of three of four

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dollars for every dollar of University cash committed. This is still a common mode of engagement in those CRCs that have been operating for longer periods. More recently, however, universities have tended to take the approach that, as research providers, it is more appropriate to commit in-kind resources, in the form of researchers’ time and access to research equipment and facilities, rather than cash. As discussed below, the implications of involvement in a CRC on a researchers’ productivity is uncertain (see Section 5.2).

5.1.3 What concerns do universities have about involvement in CRCs?

The University of Melbourne has produced a short advice document for Deans, Associate

Deans and Chief Investigators to consider when contemplating involvement in a CRC, which lists factors including organisational structure, intellectual property, and cash and in-kind contributions (Melbourne Research, 2013). Similarly the University of Adelaide provides support through a website that covers issues including the level of University authority required to commit the University to a CRC, intellectual property, and reporting requirements

(University of Adelaide, 2015).

Commitment to a CRC is a commitment to a large program of research, raising the challenge faced by all universities to resource that research. University research is rarely, if ever, fully resourced by the funder of the research. To a greater or lesser degree, depending on the type of research undertaken and the source of project support, research is subsidised by a university’s teaching activity. As Professor Paul Johnson, Vice-Chancellor of the University of

Western Australia commented:

“When research is not adequately funded, it has to be cross-subsidised by other

income-generating activities. Every grant that we win, every fellowship that we host,

and every major piece of research infrastructure that we run, has to be cross-

subsidised by income generated from students, mostly undergraduates.” (Go8 News

August 2015, p 9)

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Once involved, a university must ensure that its obligations under the Participants’ Agreement are able to be met, and must also be aware of the implications of the CRC for particular researchers and for intellectual property, both within the CRC and independently developed by the institution in related fields. Participating researchers must win sufficient funding to support the research projects that they undertake for the CRC and the university must also be alert to the possibility that a researcher’s commitment to the CRC might interfere with their obligations to their employing institution (‘going native’). Any intellectual property that arises from the CRC must be managed effectively and in accordance with the university’s and the researcher’s best interests.

It is not unusual for university participants to have difficulty in meeting their resource commitments to CRCs. Generally, universities’ contributions to CRCs take the form of in-kind commitments of researchers’ time, and of equipment and infrastructure that are necessary for the research to be undertaken. In return, the university expects that the participating researcher will receive funding from the CRC for project costs such as postdoctoral researchers or research assistance, consumables, travel, and so on. This makes it possible for the university to make its contribution, by enabling the participating researcher to do research work associated with the CRC. Universities, therefore, are to some degree at the mercy of the CRC, since if their researchers do not win project funding, the university cannot fulfil its obligation to supply the researcher. The university must also balance, however, the other obligations of its staff, for example, commitments to other research projects and funding and to teaching and administrative commitments.

The competition for research funding that exists in other parts of academia also exists in the context of CRCs. Depending on their age and profile, universities are more or less jealous of the commitments made by the CRC to projects to be conducted by other institutions.

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Universities’ involvement in CRCs depends very much on the preparedness and capability of researchers to engage in this type of research as described in Section 5.2.

5.2 Researchers

Relationships between researchers and CRCs depend on several factors, including the researcher’s understanding of and ability to collaborate with research end-users and with fellow researchers, and their understanding of the institution’s goals in being a partner in the

CRC. Researchers have different understandings of working with industry partners — some have worked in industry previously themselves while others have been university researchers throughout their careers. Likewise, they have different conceptions of applied research and different levels of understanding of the practicalities of transferring knowledge from the bench or desk to a setting in which the research outcome is used. Harman (2001) discusses science and technology academics’ understandings of industry-university partnerships, concluding that researchers generally have a good understanding of the benefits and risks of industry engaged research.

The commitment of researchers to CRCs is variable. Some researchers understand the principles of working with industry partners on applied research and do it very well. Others see the CRC purely as a source of research funding and aim to extract the funding while making very little commitment to the goals of the CRC or the industry and end-user partners. In this context the matter of ensuring that the researcher delivers an outcome to the CRC and to the research end-user becomes a challenge both for the CRC administration and for university research managers.

Involvement in a CRC can have an unsettling effect on a researcher’s career path and expectations (Steenhuis and Gray, 2005; Turpin and Garrett-Jones, 2010). Turpin et al. (2011) noted that there is a potential for conflict between the goals of the organisations involved in a

CRC and the individual goals of researchers. Perceptions of career risk resulting from the

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uncertainty caused by these factors can affect the quality of researchers prepared to be involved in CRCs (Garrett-Jones et al., 2010). However, one US study of the effect of involvement in industry funded research collaborations on a researcher’s productivity concluded although researchers with industry experience tended to have fewer total career publications, they had more research students, and that for younger faculty and for women the effect on publication output was positive (Lin and Bozeman, 2006, p 287).

Researchers also have different understandings of collaborating both within and across disciplines. Some are good team players while others much prefer to work alone. Some understand and embrace the concept of trans-disciplinary research, while others feel that their disciplinary purity is compromised by even a multi-disciplinary approach.

The loyalties and obligations of researchers are sometimes difficult to track. As noted above, loyalty to one’s discipline and obligations to disciplinary colleagues commonly outweigh obligations to one’s employer.

The result of the differing demands of CRCs and universities, and of differing abilities of researchers to meet and manage those demands, is that researchers’ obligations to the CRC and to their employer are often in conflict. The skilful management of relations between the

CRC and the university is something that can be handled by the one or a combination of the researchers, research managers, or a senior leader, for example the CEO, of a CRC.

One researcher participant in this study noted that “at times I feel sorry for the researchers because I understand that organisations have issues and that they’ve got to enforce rules” about infrastructure levies and salary returns — “researchers just fill in the forms they have to fill in and then the CRC says that it won’t pay for your building or for the researcher but we’ll pay for your technical officer, and then there are arguments about IP etc.” (CRCA2)

In summary, researchers have differing levels of ability and preparedness to engage with research end-user participants in a CRC. It must also be remembered that end-user

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participants have differing levels of experience with research and often widely differing conceptions of research. Section 5.3 discusses some of the differences between end-user participants and the effects of those differences on their involvement in, and the outcomes of, a CRC.

5.3 Research end-user participants — industry, government and not- for-profits

Research end-user participants can be of vastly different size, scope, engagement and degree of interest in the outcomes of the research. This is true of research end-users within any particular CRC as well as between CRCs. These differences have significant effects on the research undertaken by the CRC and its industry relevance.

The commercial competitive nature of the relationship between industry participants sometimes limits the research that can be conducted by the CRC because the participants might not want to share the outputs of the research or the research might involve the use of participant data that is commercially sensitive.

This conflict is lessened somewhat if the end-user participants are homogeneous, and the research focuses on solutions that benefit the entire end-user group, rather than things that can be captured by a single player. For example, if the participants in a rural industry CRC are beef cattle producers, a better diagnostic test for a particular disease would support control of the disease across all producers. If the participants in the CRC were veterinary pharmaceutical producers, the same research is more likely to produce intellectual property disputes.

Many industry participants are unfamiliar with the research process and have unrealistic expectations about what the CRC can deliver for their particular interest, the specific results that can be delivered, and how long the research is likely to take. This can lead to frustration and disillusion with the research process, and add to the perception of university academics as

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living in (and unable or unwilling to escape from) an ivory tower. Government is another research end-user group that sometimes is unfamiliar with the research process and has expectations of research that cannot be delivered.

Where both industry and government organisations are involved in a CRC, conflicts can arise where regulator and regulated have different objectives for the research and are differently affected by its outcomes.

Non-profit and community organisations can also be participants and bring a very valuable breadth of views and priorities to CRCs. As with all types of participant, governance structures in these organisations are sometimes not very robust; the breadth of opinion introduced might be under-valued as a result of the difficulty of marshalling such diverse viewpoints. Not-for- profit and community organisations are often under-resourced, making their participation in research projects a risk to the delivery of outcomes at the same time as their end-user perspective is a driver of higher quality outcomes. Like other organisations, they sometimes have very unsophisticated approaches to research.

There is a large number of characteristics in relation to which research end-user participants can differ from one another, including for example, size, value, governance, type, sophistication with respect to research, and understanding of universities.

Research managers are employees of universities with responsibility for bringing CRC participants, whether they are end-users, universities, or individual researchers together. Their challenges are described in section 5.4.

5.4 Research managers

Research managers are employed by institutions and must represent the interests of the institution in its interactions with the CRC. This is no easy task given that, as described above, the various interests of the institution are sometimes in conflict with one another. The

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requirement for the university to meet its obligations under the CRC Participants Agreement must be balanced with the requirement for CRC-related researchers to meet obligations under other funding agreements.

From a personal perspective, research managers are likely to encounter other conflicts: most research managers are keen that ‘their’ researchers have the opportunity to do good research with appropriate funding from the CRC. A university, however, might make an assessment that the return on investment in a particular project or program is not sufficient to justify its continued involvement.

CRCs also require, relative to the funding, a large investment of research management time in negotiating agreements, assisting in the submission of project funding applications and meeting the often-demanding reporting requirements. This is particularly true of smaller universities with involvement in only one or two CRCs — the university’s Research Office might not have enough experience of CRC management to make the process a familiar one, requiring a disproportionate investment of resources in even the simpler reporting tasks.

It is not unusual for a CRC to take some time, years in some cases, to establish well-functioning governance and administrative structures and processes, since description provided in a CRC application is likely to be much more simple than its implementation. Even for quite senior researchers a CRC is likely to be the largest and most complex research group with which they have been involved; senior research managers, who are likely to have experienced several

CRCs in operation, often provide guidance in relation to administration and governance.

The entities directly involved in a CRC, and the research manager midwives to CRCs, have tasks, interests, and existences independent of the CRC. Once created, the CRC itself has interests and obligations that are independent of its members, as described in Section 5.5

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5.5 The CRC

The CRC entity commits through the Commonwealth Agreement to deliver certain research programs using the resources provided by the partners and the funding from the

Commonwealth. In the lengthy process of establishing a CRC, key performance indicators are set out and given effect through the Commonwealth Agreement.

The role of the CRC as a bridge between research end-users of various types on the one hand and universities and other research organisations on the other, is not straightforward. As noted above, the different types of participants have very different interests and the administrative body of the CRC is generally not large. Managing the different interests and driving congruence between the research that researchers are interested in conducting and the problems that research end-users want solved is a complex task of balancing priorities, institutional and partner commitments, egos, profits, and the career advancement requirements of researchers. A degree of homogeneity in the end-user organisations is valuable, as is a reservoir of good will between all of the participating organisations.

An instinct for survival also springs up in the administration of CRCs, so the ongoing life of the

CRC becomes another interest to be managed in addition to the interests of the research and end-user participants, and the interest of the Commonwealth in ensuring that its research investment provides the expected return, in terms of commercial outcomes and research productivity.

As noted above, the Program Guidelines permit CRCs to be unincorporated joint ventures or incorporated entities, although a strong preference is expressed for a structure built around an incorporated entity. Most CRCs collaborations choose to establish a company limited by guarantee as the entity to contract with the Commonwealth, though some prefer that a lead organisation (usually a university) enters into the Commonwealth agreement on behalf of all of the participants. Even where the preferred structure of the CRC itself is unincorporated,

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incorporated entities are often established by the CRC participants as a trustee to hold the legal ownership of intellectual property on behalf of the participant beneficiaries.

The Commonwealth reviews of CRCs involve significant effort by the CRC administration, but are perceived as helpful. Director 5 described the benefit to some early- to mid-career researchers of participating in a formal review process, and the value of the process in recognising some strong research. The benefit of involvement in a review process was also recognised by CRCA5, who commented on the opportunity for a junior researcher to meet with a number of research end-user partners.

One of the most important outputs of a CRC is intellectual property. Section 5.6 discusses the complex intellectual property arrangements required to manage the interests of organisations and individuals involved in a CRC in ownership, development and commercial or other use of that intellectual property.

5.6 Intellectual property

Intellectual property arrangements are one of the more contentious issues in establishing most CRCs, as a result both of the large number of actors in the negotiation and of the widely different interests of those actors. Industry participants are generally interested in capturing the knowledge from a CRC to give them a competitive advantage in the market place. Thus the involvement of several industry partners is likely to create conflicts as each defends its market position against the others and tries to capture the benefits for itself alone. The identification and early protection of intellectual property is extremely important, though the expense of patent protection creates pressure to maintain confidentiality around research developments, at least in the early stages of development.

Government players are often more interested in the policy outcomes of research conducted by a CRC, however, these policy outcomes do not always align with the political directions of the government of the day. The publication of outcomes is often controlled through

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confidentiality provisions, at least for some initial period following the research, in order for government players to manage the release of information.

Researchers and universities sometimes have unrealistic expectations of return from intellectual property, over-estimating their contribution to value to be derived from the property and under-estimating the contribution from commercial participants. A lack of understanding and experience of the relative contributions of research, knowledge transfer and translation activities to commercial returns from intellectual property ensures that CRC negotiations (as indeed negotiations with industry players about any research project) are often lengthy and fraught.

As noted above, government and industry end-users of research often wish to maintain confidentiality around the policy and intellectual property outcomes of research, which conflicts with researchers’ preferences that new knowledge should be published as it becomes available. Researchers are also under pressure to publish their research both for their own reasons of career advancement and from their employer universities. Universities depend on the publication output of their academic staff both to drive income under the various research block granting schemes that are based on the number of publications institutions researchers produce, and to contribute high quality outputs to the Excellence in Research for Australia initiative.

5.7 Summary

The concept of a CRC appears at first sight to be a simple and obvious one: a group of research end-users who need problems solved collaborate with a group of university researchers who want to solve problems and the cogs of the collaboration are greased by the Commonwealth contribution of cash. However, as discussed above, the partner groups are diverse and their understandings of one another and of the process for agreeing on what is a problem, as well as the process for solving it, are far from perfect. Even within a particular partner group or a

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particular partner, there will be divergent views about fundamental issues including what to research, how to conduct the research, what resources are necessary and what to do with the outcomes.

Nonetheless, the CRC program has been recognised as a reasonably successful way of facilitating industry relevant research, and, as noted above, it makes a very significant contribution to the Australian economy (see, for example, Commonwealth of Australia, 2008;

Mercer and Stocker, 1998; Miles, 2015).

The particular CRCs that were the subject of this study will be described in Chapter 6.

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Chapter 6 – CRCs involved in this Research

This research was conducted within two CRCs that undertake end-user focussed, cross- disciplinary research. The process of selecting the CRCs used in this research is described in

Chapter 3, with the result that one commercially focussed CRC and one public good CRC have been chosen. The history, structure, approach, and CEO of these CRCs are described in detail below, providing a rich context for an account of the results of the study and analysis of the data.

In each CRC, researchers from different disciplines engage in the formulation and investigation of research problems in order to develop effective solutions for research end-users. During the study it became apparent that researchers recognise differences in one another’s understandings of problems but do not connect these with differences in disciplines. Although they recognise that different areas of disciplinary expertise might be required for an investigation, they rarely label their work as cross-disciplinary and even more rarely understand the spectrum of cross-disciplinarity described in Chapter 1. My own assessment of the degrees of cross-disciplinarity within each of the CRCs is included within the descriptions contained in Sections 6.1 and 6.2, below.

6.1 CRCA

CRCA is very commercially focused, and has been operating in different iterations for more than ten years. It has fewer than 15 essential participants, and a large number of non-essential participants. Together the participants in CRCA make up a very large proportion of the industry that it serves, and include government regulators, Australian and international research providers, product producers and suppliers to those producers. Although there are different parts of the industry represented within the CRC, I did not perceive conflicts between those different parts in my discussions with researcher participants.

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Disciplines involved in this CRC include several aspects of biological sciences, some engineering and there is occasional input from the humanities and social sciences. The construction of research projects is, as described below, very much focussed on contribution to the goals of the CRC; disciplines are accessed to the degree and in the manner that is appropriate to the commercial problem being tackled. As such, much of the work involves more than one discipline. Different projects within the several research programs of CRCA would be situated in different places on the spectrum of cross-disciplinarity described in Chapter 1.

Preparation of the current iteration of CRCA was very much driven from the top down, coordinated by the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and led by industry. The industry partners identified priorities and these priorities have become the programs of the CRC. One researcher participant noted that some CRCs are very much a grab bag of researchers’ pet projects, but that CRCA is very different: researchers must clearly explain how the project that they wish to undertake contributes to the goals of the CRC. CRCA’s CEO has been with the CRC since its inception early this century and is perceived as a champion of the industry-led approach of the

CRC.

CRCA is an unincorporated joint venture of its essential participants, which carries out the CRC activities under the direction of a skills-based Board. An operating company (CRCA Co) has been established to provide specific services to the joint venture. CRCA Co is limited by guarantee and registered as a charity. Intellectual property developed by CRCA is held in a unit trust for the essential participants, with CRCA IP Co Pty Ltd, a subsidiary of CRCA Co, having been established to act as trustee. Essential participants acquire units in the trust in proportion to their contributions to the CRC. The Board of CRCA also serves as the Board of CRCA Co and of CRCA IP Co Pty Ltd.

The Board of CRCA has several independent members, including the Chair and Deputy Chair, and all have identified and relevant areas of expertise and skill, including governance, finance,

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economics, industry and research experience. The CEO is guided and supported in the management of the CRC by committees with the following functions:

• executive committee

• scientific committee

• education committee

• research end-users’ committee.

The members of each committee have identified areas of expertise and most committees have both independent members and members from different types of participants in the CRC. For example, the research end-users’ committee has (a minority of) members who are employees of research participants, while the scientific committee has members who are employees of research end-user organisations.

The CEO is advised by an executive committee, which in turn is advised by scientific, education and research end-user committees.

The Program Managers of CRCA are members of the scientific committee which reviews proposed CRC projects to ensure that they are sound from a scientific perspective. A project approved by the scientific committee is then reviewed by the end-user committee to ensure that the project is aligned with the needs of CRCA’s research end-users and finally by the executive committee to ensure that the project conforms to the objectives of the CRC and that the budget, including in-kind contributions, is appropriate. The Board of CRCA then considers the project, and gives the final approval. It is very rare for a project that has been approved by the supporting committees to be rejected by the Board.

Once the project has been approved, project agreements between the project participants and the CRC are executed and work on the project can commence. The Program Manager is then responsible for monitoring and managing the project using an electronic monitoring system.

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The project team informs the Program Manager when a milestone is met, and if the Program

Manager agrees, payment will be made.

Most projects are of three years duration, and are reviewed at 18 months, at completion, and if or when the project fails to meet its milestones. The review process requires that independent reviewers consider the project and then there is a meeting of the researchers, the independent reviewers, the Program Manager and the CEO. At that meeting it is decided whether to continue the project, to change it, or to stop the project altogether. The Program

Manager cannot decide independently to stop a project.

Communication with stakeholders and research end-users is very important to CRCA which uses a variety of means to achieve its communication objectives. In addition to the electronic and other means described below, CRCA has developed electronic games as a means of outreach and of achieving the participants’ objectives.

CRCA uses websites both to describe the activities of the CRCs and to provide a location for research outputs from the CRC and from other sources. The electronic monthly newsletter produced by CRCA has a large and international distribution list and is complemented by a biannual update to CRC members highlighting industry relevant outcomes from the CRCs research. Also in the e-communication space, CRCA is an active user of social media communication methods, including Facebook and Twitter.

Internally, CRCA coordinates an annual postgraduate workshop to build relationships among its large number of postgraduate students and arranges an annual conference of its members, including both industry participants and researchers. The annual conference ensures that there is a continuing close link between the activities of the CRC and industry needs, and provides an opportunity for exchange of ideas across research programs and the different CRC sites. A mark of the trust within CRCA is the description by one research participant of a series of workshops held at an annual conference. In those workshops, industry participants

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described to an open forum of researchers some of the problems that they faced and then the researchers brainstormed potential research solutions.

CRCA, being a commercially focussed organisation, produces registrable intellectual property and actively promotes commercialisation of that intellectual property. Processes and personnel exist to identify and record intellectual property and to ensure that it is protected and licensed or otherwise commercialised as appropriate. As noted above, the legal interest in intellectual property created by CRCA is held by a unit trust for the benefit of the essential participants of the CRC, with CRCA IP Co Pty Ltd, the trustee, being wholly owned by CRCA Co.

CRCA also manages legacy intellectual property from previous iterations of the CRC, which is owned by another company. Intellectual property is identified as it develops in CRCA by informal disclosures and through annual reports. The commercial manager, in consultation with the CEO and with the approval of the Board, drives the CRC’s IP identification, protection and commercialisation strategy and management. Income derived from intellectual property is returned to unit holders in the trust company CRCA IP Co Pty Ltd.

The recommendations flowing from the third year review of CRCA focus principally on education and training offered by the CRC and on the plan for transition after the completion of Commonwealth funding of the CRC. One postgraduate participant in this research valued their participation in the review process as a development exercise.

CRCA’s CEO is regarded as a strong and charismatic leader who has earned the regard of many researchers over years of collaborative engagement: “of all the CRCs I’ve been involved with

[this] has been one of the better ones, and I think that’s largely due to [the CEO]”. The CEO is generally regarded as having some understanding of all of the research areas of the CRC, and the more senior researchers were confident that they have good communication channels and feel comfortable ‘picking up the phone for a chat’.

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6.2 CRCB

CRCB is a public good CRC, is part way through its first term, and has between 10 and 15 essential participants. The total number of partners involved in CRCB is very large but so is the sector. Thus the CRCB partners form a smaller proportion of its particular field of interest than is the case with CRCA. The partners in this CRC include government, service providers, not-for- profit and community organisations, Australian and international research providers, and some very large multinational companies.

Research fields involved in this CRC involve disciplines in the human sciences, humanities and social sciences, and it takes an innovative approach of the CRC which sometimes highlights, at least for the people involved, methodological differences between researchers. As in CRCA, projects range across the spectrum of cross-disciplinary forms.

CRCB is a public company limited by guarantee (CRCB Co) and registered as a charity. CRCB’s

Essential Participants have a right to membership of CRCB Co. CRCB has not established a separate entity to facilitate commercialisation of intellectual property since broad dissemination of its research is a much more important objective for this public good CRC than commercialisation.

The small (fewer than 10 members) skills-based Board of CRCB is required by the constitution of the company to have a majority of independent members. Membership of the Board includes people with financial, legal and governance expertise, in addition to expertise in research and service provision. The Board is advised by the CEO and assisted by a number of committees:

• executive committee

• an end-user committee

• a committee of essential participants

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• a scientific committee

• a committee focusing on the provision of strategic advice.

CRCB has a very professional approach to public communications with well documented requirements regarding communications to ensure a consistent visual identity. The CRCB website is used as a very effective tool for communication with partners and with the end- users of its research. It includes descriptions of projects and their outcomes, the partner organisations, and students and researchers involved in the CRC, as well as news and event listings. Social media are very important forms of communication for CRCB, including

Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and YouTube.

A fortnightly emailed newsletter ensures that CRCB partners are well informed about activities of the CRC and an annual conference facilitates communication between CRC participants from the end-user, service provider, policy and researcher communities. CRCB also hosts other forums that are relevant to its mission.

As a social good organisation CRCB has different objectives in relation to intellectual property from CRCA, but places a similarly high value on translation of research outcomes. While the measurement of these outcomes is more difficult, CRCB articulates the expected impacts and desired outcomes of its research very clearly in its strategic plan, setting measurable targets around each of the outcomes specified. Outputs are recorded in terms of academic publications, applications of its research in developing tools to assist research end-users, and the effect of CRC research on policy and practice. Celebration of the impact of its research is an important part of the communication strategy adopted by CRCB.

The relatively young CEO, very much a public figure, is regarded as an inspirational and energetic leader who has assembled a large and productive collaboration.

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There is some feeling among the small number of participants that I spoke to that some of the approaches to achieving the CRC’s goals are given more credence than is warranted. There are sharp differences between groups of researchers with respect to their methodologies and epistemologies. These different levels of understanding of methodologies might be overcome over a period of time, but the charismatic leadership of the CEO does not appear to be enough on its own to achieve this goal.

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Chapter 7 – Understandings of Leadership in a CRC

Transcriptions of the interviews with the two groups of research participants, CRC Participants and Research Office Directors, were separately analysed, exploring the participants’ understanding of leadership. In the course of the interviews, research participants sometimes spoke of the leadership behaviour, good and bad, of particular individuals and sometimes of ideal or preferred leadership behaviours. The understandings of leadership that emerged from this analysis were then considered and categorised in the strategic, human resource, political and cultural organisational frames identified by Bolman and Deal (2008). The outcomes of this analysis are described in Sections 7.1 (CRC Participants) and 7.2 (Research Office Directors) and are then compared and contrasted in Section 7.3.

7.1 Conceptions of leadership of CRC Participants

7.1.1 General

The seven CRC Participants interviewed ranged from senior leaders through to postgraduate research students and one research end-user. One of the researchers had also been an industry participant for the larger part of his career. Their ages and levels of experience naturally had a similar range. I interviewed four men and three women; the three women were the most junior of the interviewees. This is not surprising, given that according to the

2014 higher education staff data collection, while men and women are approximately equally represented at academic staff Levels A to C, more than twice as many men than women hold academic appointments higher than Level C.

The understandings of leadership identified from interviews with CRC Participants, and subsequently grouped according to Bolman and Deal’s four organisational frames, are:

• Structural

o Making decisions and accepting blame

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o Management — arranges meetings etc.

o Providing a structure that people feel comfortable/secure working within

• Human Resource

o Communication and empathy, people focussed

o Provides vision, motivation and energy

• Political

o Separation of the CRC from the constituent organisations’ particular interests

• Cultural

o Not too great a focus on successful research

o Capacity to step outside one’s own work, to think about other people’s issues

o Openness, willingness to explore different ideas/opportunities.

While each understanding appears to connect most immediately with the frame to which it has been attributed above, the categorisation is clearly not exclusive. For example, the conception of leadership as involving communication and empathy and being people focussed, is most closely related to the Human Resource frame as described by Bolman and Deal (2008), but it is also closely related to the Cultural frame, in which a similar though distinct conception of leadership involves a capacity to step outside one’s own work and to think about other people’s issues.

7.1.2 Structural

Making decisions and accepting blame

This conception of leadership was described by both senior and junior researchers although the two groups had different areas of emphasis reflecting their different types of experience.

The idea of the leader as a decision-maker was identified in all participant interviews, with different emphases given to different forms and styles of decision making. Junior CRC

Participants emphasised the role of leaders in making choices about appropriate directions in

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research. For example, CRCB1, a PhD student, remarked that “[the leader is] always around to make the final decisions. If we get into a corner or anything [the leader has] come in and made decisions.” When asked what a good leader added to the team, CRCA5, also a PhD student, responded, among other things that “they’re there to make the ultimate decision.”

More senior CRC Participants took a larger view of decision making, relating it to organisational and management decisions, for example, deciding whether a project should or should not continue, rather than about the detailed activities to be carried out during a project. CRCA1, having described the complex process of reviewing a project, noted that in deciding whether or not a milestone had been met, “it’s a ‘yes’ or a ‘no’, they meet it or they don’t, they get paid or they don’t get paid”.

CRCA2 took the view that leaders generally should not make decisions about the details of project issues:

“you employ skilled people for a reason. They’re skilled and they’re intelligent, they

can make their own decisions … you need to give people the opportunity to actually do

things, do the right things, rather than coming back to me and saying well, ‘I was going

to test these twelve samples, do you think that’s what I should do?’” (CRCA2)

Another aspect of this understanding of leadership is the importance of leaders taking responsibility for the decisions that they make. CRCA1 noted that “I would much prefer to be with a leader who will take the blame.” It is “a crucial skill [to be] willing to stand up, to argue

… to not just apply whatever the rules and the regime’s requirements are.”

From the quotations above it can be seen that leadership in this context involves taking responsibility for decision-making and not allowing blame for mistakes to be allocated to junior staff. Junior staff were clear that the decision should be ‘the final decision’. They described

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situations in which the team had already made considerable efforts to resolve the problem and then relied on the leader to make a decision about the best solution.

Management — arranges meetings etc.

Another understanding of leadership that, shared by some participants, but less broadly referred to than the decision-making responsibilities described above, related to management tasks such as organising regular formal meetings.

This functional, practical management, part of leadership tended to be identified as important by the more junior CRC Participants interviewed. For example, CRCA5 contrasted a good leader, who “had the group meeting every week” with another setting in which there was “no direction from the supervisors”. The routine of group meetings was valued highly by the more junior CRC Participants: they valued the content of the information exchanged, but regarded the existence of the meetings as an important way of giving structure to their work lives.

Senior managers in CRCA have several perspectives on this management aspect of leadership.

It is recognised that group meetings or CRC-wide meetings are essential in exchanging ideas and refreshing the outlook of researchers at all levels. As noted by CRCA1 in relation to group meetings:

“[the] CRC has had this capacity to allow us to assemble teams across organisations,

across countries, across disciplines … I’ve found that workshops, getting people in the

one room at the one time, has been really the best way of trying to build that. We

make use of video–conferencing, emails … but it doesn’t beat having everyone

together in the one room.”

The senior CRC Participants also meet face-to-face twice or more per year and have regular telelinks amongst themselves. This helps to overcome the difficulties of being a multi-site organisation.

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The annual conference held by CRCA is recognised for its importance in linking and communicating between the different parts of the CRC, and senior CRC Participants are conscious of the importance of structure and management on the scale of the entire CRC rather than their own particular group. Senior CRC Participants value the communication for its content and because they recognise the important role it plays in building a collaborative team. Junior researchers value meetings very much for their value in team-building and avoiding isolation.

Provides a structure that people feel comfortable/secure working within

Another leadership theme that was identified by CRC Participants interviewed for this research related to the creation of a stable structure with which participants in the CRC felt comfortable. The transparency and stability of this structure was identified as an important factor in ensuring that researchers could confidently use the CRC systems and processes.

CRCA3 commented that the CEO of CRCA

“has a sense of ownership of what’s going on … a sense of providing direction, and

[has] done that ... by providing a structure that everyone feels comfortable with [and

in which] people know … where they’re going.”

It was noted, however, that this structural certainty was not sufficient: “Leadership is something about providing people with motivation and a vision, rather than just providing a structure.” (CRCA3)

Although having a clear structure for the CRC was recognised as a significant advantage for researchers and for the CRC more generally, the possible costs in terms of a reduction in innovation and ‘outside-the-box’ thinking were also recognised. The structure of CRCA is

“pretty stable and therefore the confidence … in terms of relationships between researchers … is much, much better … [but the CRC is] nowhere near as dynamic.” (CRCA3)

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This aspect of leadership was not expressed by junior CRC Participants. Although the clear and reliable structure for the CRC would certainly affect them, providing consistency and stability of projects and supervisors, the junior participants were much more focussed on the aspects of structure that more directly affected them, for example, team meetings.

The distinguishing characteristics of this understanding of leadership related to the ability of the leader to create a stable structure and to maintain that stability over time, giving research participants confidence in their dealings with the CRC and with one another.

7.1.3 Human Resource

Communication and empathy, people focussed

This conception of leadership by CRC Participants is similar to the conception described by

Research Office Directors (see Section7.2.2). The importance of good communication by leaders to the other participants in the CRC, and the accessibility of leaders, was regarded as very important.

While researchers in CRCA do work across disciplines, the cross-disciplinarity of their work has not been a particular subject of discussion within the CRC. Nonetheless, when the matter of cross-disciplinarity was discussed it was apparent that communication difficulties do arise between disciplines:

“The biggest single communication problem is when you move outside biology. So I

find the most difficult communications and understandings are when you start to deal

with engineers. Because they have a very different mindset and frame set and I think

it’s just … the live in a different universe … [W]e haven’t addressed it that much in the

CRC but in general the approach has always been that we’ve used lots of workshops,

face to face, get people in together.” (CRCA1)

CRCA3 commented that:

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“unless you’ve got someone who’s the glue who can stick the group together, then yes

it will go pear-shaped and people go and do their own thing. That’s the nature of

researchers I think. That they’re very independent people who do their own thing,

they’ll work together if they have to, to get the money but in reality if there’s tensions

there, well they’ll go and do their own thing and bounce off one another as little as

possible. But you can sometimes have somebody in the team who’s a bit of the glue,

kind of, stick both sides together. … It’s the same type of abilities that facilitators have

got — it’s the capacity for someone who can see both sides of the argument, who can

see where there’s commonality and point out that commonality.”

As described in Chapter 6, CRCs have a variety of ways of disseminating information to researchers, end users and the public, but ‘real-time’ forms of communication by leaders — by telephone or face-to-face — are most highly valued.

CRC researchers valued the accessibility and approachability of the CEO:

“[y]ou can pick up the ‘phone and talk to [the CEO] about stuff, and you get the sense

that you’re actually getting fair hearing, so he’s not just listening because that’s his job

to listen to it. He’s open and transparent and it really does change the dynamics of the

whole CRC how he fulfils that role.” (CRCA2)

CRCA3 commented:

“[the CEO] has a good understanding of what most people do and therefore is

approachable in the sense of — if you go and talk to [the CEO] about your project, [the

CEO] knows what you’re talking about.”

CRCA4 remarked after a telephone interruption to our interview “That was [the CEO]. So I get calls routinely.”

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The junior CRC Participants value communication from supervisors, but commented more on problems created by the absence of communication than the benefits of good communication.

For example:

“because there was a lack of communication from my supervisor to the team … [the

team was unable to obtain essential material and so the project] … got canned

because they couldn’t reach the milestone.” (CRCA5)

This understanding of leadership is characterised by its focus on the capacity of the leader to listen to and understand the perspectives of a large number of researchers from a wide range of disciplinary backgrounds, and by the emphasis on real-time, face-to-face engagement between the leader and other members of the CRC.

Provides vision, motivation and energy

The vision conveyed by CRC leaders was regarded as important by both senior and junior CRC

Participants, though there was a difference in the scope of the vision that was important to the two different groups.

The senior CRC Participants, who were leaders themselves, regarded leadership with respect to the overall vision of the CRC as most important. CRCA2 noted that:

“[t]he CEO really sets the tone for the whole thing … how [the CEO goes] about it and

how they interact and work with people sets the tone for everything else that happens

in the CRC”.

CRCA3 values the direction provided by the CEO, saying that:

“the goals are very clear and it’s visionary in the sense that in setting up those goals,

there’s been very much an industry input in creating those visions which are then

turned into research goals, which are quite clear and don’t change particularly much

along the way.” Chapter 7 95

Although more junior CRC Participants were more concerned with their particular project or program, the motivation and direction provided by a leader was nonetheless regarded as very important. One participant drew a musical analogy:

“[T]he conductor [must] pump the energy into the orchestra, and if you don’t have

that energy then the orchestra isn’t going to respond … the leader has to be really

motivating and energising the team for it to work … one lone violin player can’t get the

response that the conductor can.” (CRCA5)

This researcher contrasted two laboratories saying that in one team “there’s no direction from the supervisors and the team was … less motivated” while in the other the leadership “shows in team motivation. People were happy to come to work.” S/he noted that a good leader adds

“motivation and direction”.

CRCB approaches the subject of its research with a very clear and particular philosophy or vision, but the effectiveness of communication of that philosophy to CRC researchers was questioned by CRCB1, who remarked “I’ve never seen people who doubt their methods less than the people at the head office of the CRC.” These reservations about the effectiveness of communication of the CRC’s philosophy has not been communicated directly to the CRC leadership.

The characteristics of this understanding of leadership relate first, to the development of the vision in, as much as is possible, a collaborative manner, and secondly, to the communication of that vision with conviction and energy to motivate the CRC “orchestra” to play in time and in tune with one another.

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7.1.4 Political

Separation of the CRC from the constituent organisations’ particular interests.

CRC Participants shared an understanding of the role of a leader in separating the CRC’s activities and interests from the particular interests of its constituent research organisation partners.

It was noted by CRCA1 that

“you can be … captured by the [CRC] so there’s always a tension between your host

organisation and your funding body, and they both have slightly different perspectives,

[they] can have different objectives and it can be a difficult thing for a researcher

caught in the middle to try and balance that out.”

The CEO of CRCA is described as openly acknowledging that researchers in the CRC have drivers from their home institutions as well as from the CRC, pointing out, for example, that program leaders do wear two hats, and that other researchers must recognise the tension that creates. The CEO tries to “separate [the CRC processes] from the internal politics of the partner organisations.” (CRCA1)

This characteristic of leadership is distinguished from others by its explicit acknowledgement of the conflicting interests of researchers’ home organisations and CRCs of which they are part.

Recognition, rather than resolution, of this conflict is the important feature of this understanding of leadership.

7.1.5 Cultural

Not too great a focus on ‘successful’ research

One particularly interesting understanding of leadership held by several of the senior CRC

Participants interviewed is that a leader should not be too focused on ‘good’ research results or ‘successful’ research. Since the context of this leadership is organisations that are very much

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about producing solutions it seems counterintuitive that a characteristic of leadership is that a leader should not focus on positive research results. However, the senior researchers and leaders who participated in this research made it clear that too great a focus on achieving

‘good’ research results is counterproductive.

CRCA1, a senior manager, observed that

“If you have a program where everything is met in research … that’s a flag that

researchers haven’t been stretching” and

“I’m quite comfortable with failed projects … one of the messages I try to get across to

the researchers [is] that there’s nothing wrong with failed projects.”

This participant commented that:

“you’ve got to get people the opportunity to have a go and live with the consequences

and if the consequences are failure, you can’t blame them … it’s about the journey, it’s

not about the end.”

CRCA2, a research project leader, said of researchers:

“They’re skilled and they’re intelligent, they can make their own decisions … I think

you need to give people the opportunity to actually do things, do the right things… so

you give them some broad guidance and just let them go off and see how they go.

Sometimes they go alright and sometimes they don’t.”

When asked about the consequences research not going well, this project leader said: “Well you just go and work out another plan. I’m not much into retribution.”

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Senior researchers were aware of the tendency of research students who had been very high- performing undergraduate students to encounter difficulties in accepting the failures that are a necessary part of research. One junior researcher participant in this study acknowledged, however, that “science wouldn’t be research if you knew the outcome and 99% of experiments don’t work” (CRCA5).

Accepting that research necessarily involves risk, the identifying characteristics of this conception of leadership include providing researchers with guidance and with opportunities to make decisions about their research directions, and ensuring that fault was not attributed to a researcher for the failure of an experiment or project:

“You have to … accept that people are doing their very best but you’re not going to get

there.” (CRCA1)

The distinguishing or structural feature of this conception was principally acceptance of the failure of a research project to achieve the expected outcome without inappropriate attribution of blame to a researcher who had simply encountered a truth or fact that made achievement of project goals impossible.

Capacity to step outside one’s own work, to think about other people’s issues

Senior participants in CRCA identified the importance of the ability to step outside one’s own research work and interests and enter into someone else’s domain.

When asked to identify the characteristics of leaders, CRCA1 stated:

“I think a capacity to step outside your own world. So there are many researchers

whose focus is very much their own world, and their problems and their issues …

[P]eople who can be very much aware of the rest of the group, the issues, who don’t

just self-focus, to me is a sign of someone who’s developing those capacities [for

leadership].”

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CRCA2 described the CEO of CRCA:

“[Y]ou can always … pick up the phone and talk to him ... and you get the sense that

you’re actually getting a fair hearing, so he’s not just listening to it because that’s his

job.”

Junior CRC Participants particularly valued supervisors’ showing interest in their work. It was important for the supervisor to step outside his or her own research project or interest and demonstrate real involvement in the work of junior researchers. CRCA5 commented that in one team:

“[the leader] was organised, [and] wanted to be there, it was a team effort so you

weren’t sort of isolated — you could go and do your stuff independently but you still

came back to contribute to a team and felt like you were contributing.”

Interest in the work of others and being prepared to step outside one’s own immediate concerns were recognised by both junior and senior researchers as being important to leadership.

Openness, willingness to explore different ideas/opportunities

The conception of a leader as being someone who is open to others’ expertise and willing to explore different ideas and opportunities was expressed by several participants. CRCA2 remarked that among the ‘good’ mid-career researchers as well as the CEO and senior researchers there is a “basic openness and willingness to talk and explore new opportunities”.

Another senior researcher commented “I enjoy the challenge of understanding ... how those disciplines see the world” but that “more goal driven individuals in science ... will find interacting with other disciplines very frustrating” (CRCA3). CRCA4 noted that the CEO of CRCA appeared to have a thorough understanding of the different areas of interest of the CRC, while

CRCA2 commented that he didn’t know what discipline the CEO was based in, and that his own

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lack of knowledge suggested that the CEO was very open to different approaches. CRCB1 remarked that involving many different people with very different expertise was time- consuming but that “hearing the different voices and heaving people with different expertise around the table … has been awesome”.

The distinguishing features of this conception of leadership relate to the leader not being completely captured by his or her own discipline and having the capacity to listen to the ways that others approach problems.

The characteristics of leadership described above are those identified by participants who are involved in the conduct of research within a CRC; they are views from within. In Section 7.2 below, I explore the understandings of leadership held by Research Office Directors, who have a very different, external, perspective on CRCs.

7.2 Conceptions of leadership of Directors of Research Offices

7.2.1 General

The Research Office Directors interviewed (three male, two female) all have considerable experience in leading and managing research management units at universities. Some also have experience as researchers and in managing research centres. All have considerable experience with successful research centres and were confident that leadership played a very important role in success. The Directors spoke of their experiences with a number of different

CRCs, not only those experiences with the CRCs from which the CRC Participants were drawn.

They appear to enjoy discussing successful centres and were confident in describing successful leaders of these centres, including the sorts of leadership that they regard as contributing to successful cross-disciplinarity. The understandings that the Research Office Directors shared are based very much on their experiences, unmediated by theories about leadership. When

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asked how he recognised successful research leaders, one Research Office Director responded

(with a sparkle in his eye) “The sparkle in their eye.”

Several of the Research Office Directors regarded CRCs as good ‘training grounds’ for research leaders, and observed that the more junior researchers were often better able to use the opportunities for development that are available through a CRC. Director 3 observed that the younger researchers were more able to get involved in, and to lead, collaborative, cross- disciplinary research. The same Director reflected that the more established researchers would sometimes come together for the purpose of developing a project and winning funding but would then retreat to their own disciplinary home, avoiding real cross-disciplinary collaboration.

Director 5 commented that through experiences gained through work within CRCs “the best

[young researchers] just grow in stature, … grow in understanding, … grow in negotiation

[skills], … grow in articulation of what it is they’re trying to do” and “they have fun as well, which is really important.” This Director noted that although CRC funding might be quite limited and might be distributed across several institutions, project leaders developed important skills through learning different organisational cultures and building and managing geographically distributed teams.

Understandings of leadership identified through analysis of interviews with Directors of

Research Offices were consistent with three of Bolman and Deal’s four organisational frames:

• Human Resources:

o good communication and listening

o inspiring, sharing a vision

• Political:

o tenacity and drive, energy and commitment

• Cultural: Chapter 7 102

o tolerance of failure and learning from mistakes

o openness to contributions and recognition of others’ expertise, not ego driven.

The observations made by Research Office Directors that related to the structural elements of

CRCs were closely related to the Directors’ roles in negotiating the relationship between their institution and the CRC. These observations do not appear to relate to leadership of researchers, perhaps because the Directors regard the structure of the CRCs as being more within their own domain, and therefore do not reflect on the importance of structural issues in leadership of researchers.

The range of different conceptions of leadership of cross-disciplinary research in the context of

CRCs provides several perspectives on the possible ways of understanding leadership.

Although the understandings are related to one another in more or less obvious ways (for example, communication is part of sharing a vision and inspiring), they provide a series of alternative approaches to the challenges faced in leadership of cross-disciplinary research.

7.2.2 Human Resource

Good communication and listening

Research Office Directors share a view that the ability ‘to get on with people’ is a fundamental part of leadership. Director 2 commented “If you can’t get on with people, you can’t do anything” and Director 5 remarked “You’ve got to have an interest in people.” An interest in others is an important aspect of several conceptions of leadership, but is key to the understanding of a leader as a good communicator and listener.

Face-to-face, one-on-one communication rather than broadcast means of communication by leaders to CRC Participants, such as newsletters or large scale meetings, was the focus of attention for Research Office Directors. This was true in relation to other researchers: for example, Director 5 described some of the (quite junior) program and project leaders in CRCB

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as taking on coaching and mentoring roles, particularly with post-doctoral staff and postgraduate students. Junior researchers who were taking on leadership roles were described by Director 3 as maintaining good communication with their colleagues, often playing a liaison, or go-between, role between team members.

Good communication was also an important characteristic of senior researchers: a successful

CRC CEO was described by Director 4 as an excellent networker and collaborator who had made full use of his extensive range of industry contacts in assembling the CRC proposal. The emphasis on communication with individuals was also relevant to communication between leaders and research end-users, focusing on the leader’s ability to build discrete relationships with particular organisations.

The importance of listening well was emphasised by all Research Office Directors. When asked about the characteristics of a good leader of collaborative research, Director 2 responded:

“With the potential partner, they really listen and then they shape up a response that is feedback to that listening and a map of our expertise against what’s been communicated.”

This was contrasted with the sort of person who is not a good leader of collaborations with industry: “they want to tell them ‘what we can do for you’, not listen.” Attentive listening was demonstrated by reflecting through feedback a clear understanding of the speaker’s words.

This understanding of leadership relates principally to the leader’s capacity to relate to others at an individual level. The important characteristics of this sort of leadership are that the followers feel listened to, included and recognised for their contribution, whatever that contribution might be. The content of the communication was not necessarily inspirational or challenging but followers came away from the conversation feeling valued by the leader.

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Inspiring, sharing a vision

Inspiring others and sharing a vision with research colleagues, potential funders, university leaders and peer reviewers, is shared by several Research Office Directors as another conception of leadership.

Director 2 remarked of people who lead well in the context of CRCs that “[when they] draw a team together, they really can talk the win-win, they really can excite people … they have the ability to inspire people and say ‘come on, you’ll be really good at this, we need you.’” Asked what it is that people do when they lead, Director 3 responded that leaders develop a direction and inspire people to follow, noting that leaders have a very large impact on the ‘spirit’ of the group. Director 4 described the ability of another successful CRC CEO to share a vision, enabling the CEO to pull disparate organisations and research groups together as a team to create the CRC. Director 5 explained that the CEO of CRCB was able to inspire government and many interested companies and played a key role in drawing together the very large number of partners involved in that CRC. When asked what qualities the CEO had or what they did that made them a good leader, Director 5 responded: “It’s sheer capacity, sheer energy, sheer exuberance.”

This understanding of leadership is obviously closely related to the communication and listening skills discussed above. However, it can be distinguished by a more positive and energetic approach to inspiring others to share a vision of what is possible in a research space.

Leaders demonstrating this conception of leadership talk about big research ideas, of what can be achieved and of the impact that the research could have on the different types of research end-users. This understanding of leadership is less focussed on responding to individuals and should be contrasted with the inclusive, listening mode referred to above. It is instead concerned with motivating a number of types of respondents, including researchers, research end-users, government funders and university administrators.

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7.2.3 Political

Tenacity and drive, energy and commitment

Research Office Directors share a conception of leadership as requiring tenacity and drive, energy and commitment, based on their experiences of successful leadership of CRCs. CRCs are very large and complex organisations so the establishment of a CRC requires a very high level of commitment to negotiate between research and end-user partners a direction and structure that all parties will, at least, tolerate. Research managers are generally responsible for reducing the arrangements to an acceptable written form, but the content of those arrangements and the subtleties of navigating the relationships between large numbers of partners who have, sometimes, very different interests, must first be negotiated by a research leader. The leader must not only have a vision of the desired outcome, but also the energy and commitment to ensure that the outcome is achieved.

Director 4 described the CEO of a CRC that ran for several terms and has resulted in many further research opportunities, saying that that CEO “had the tenacity and vision to make it happen”. “[T]he ability to withstand pressure” and the “drive to do things, to make change” were described as important characteristics of research leaders by Director 5, who stated that the energy of a research centre comes from the leadership: “You tend to get high achievers who [are] driven, in a sense, by the energy of the researcher gene…”. Director 2 remarked that the ability to drive a collaboration or a project is an important trait of a research leader.

Leadership of a CRC, or of any large collaborative venture is, at one level, plain hard work requiring tenacity, drive, energy and commitment to perform. This understanding of leadership acknowledges these requirements.

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7.2.4 Cultural

Tolerance of failure / learning from mistakes

Tolerance of failure is perhaps less obvious characteristic of leadership than such ideas as

‘inspiring others and sharing a vision’ but this was described by two Research Office Directors as important in the context of CRCs and of research generally. Director 3 noted that one of the most important things about leadership, particularly in research, is that the leader is not distressed by failure. It was explained that a research leader must be able to respond positively to failure and be open to learning from the experience of failure. Director 5 remarked:

“Things go belly up all the time [with] relationship disputes and … people who are on

grants who really shouldn’t be. … But people learn that. You learn who’s good value,

you learn who delivers …”

Clearly, in this context failure was understood to include not just a failure to achieve a particular research result (which must be regarded as a normal outcome in any research project), but also failures in management and leadership. In relation to CRCB, Director 5 commented that the CRC took “quite some time to really settle down” and that, as is normal in that Director’s experience, it

“spent the first three or four years really deciding what it is. … it’s been a difficult

learning process… setting up a project management unit, going through iterations of

various finance people and various communications people, the usual stuff”.

Director 5 also noted that “[the CEO] has also reshaped … ideas around the CRC… I know there’s been a few little epiphanies.” Director 5 described the CEO discovering that some of the operational parts of the CRC that were expected to run smoothly, did not, in fact, do so.

The process of encountering these problems, accepting that changes needed to be made (the

‘epiphanies’), and replacing dysfunctional systems with functional ones, was regarded as an

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important behaviour by Director 5, and evidence of a key characteristic of leadership. The understanding of leadership as including a tolerance of failure and preparedness to learn from mistakes, clearly extends beyond failures in research to failures in management and in leadership itself.

The key distinguishing characteristics of this conception of leadership are a preparedness to accept that mistakes will certainly be made, and to learn from those mistakes. Risk is a fundamental part of the nature of research, but it seems that in this context the (probably apocryphal) quotation from Einstein that “If we knew what we were doing it wouldn’t be called research, would it?” can be extended to cover at least some aspects of research leadership and management.

Openness to contributions and recognition of others’ expertise, not ego driven

The characteristic of a leader as recognising the contributions and expertise of others, of not being driven (entirely) by ego, is particularly significant in the context of cross-disciplinary research. It is not possible for a research leader in this context to be an expert in all of the relevant fields of interest. The ability of a leader to acknowledge and value the expertise of other team members is a conception of leadership that comes closest to distinguishing the

‘research leader’ from the ‘leader of research’.

Respect for other disciplines was highlighted as important by Director 2, along with “allowing other people to be experts”:

“you need someone to say ‘Look, I’ve come to you because of your expertise, I’m not

threatened by it, we want it’ … they need to actually have that skill set of not needing

to know everything.”

Director 5 emphasised the importance of openness:

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“They’re not embedded in a discipline focus, they actually see the idea, they see the

problem, they see the issue.” and

“To be in a CRC, it’s not ‘I am at my lab doing this’, it is ‘I am working with industry, I

am looking at solutions to big, intractable problems, I’m building teams, I’m creating

further networks…’”.

Both of these directors also noted the importance of a leader of a CRC not being driven by his or her ego. The capacity to work with others without allowing one’s ego to interfere with acceptance of other researchers’ contributions was clearly acknowledged. As described by

Director 2:

“[I]t’s something about ego, or lack of it. The ability to have your ego where it’s

appropriate, but not let it stop things happening, because often [it is] really good

researchers who don’t have these skills, it’s almost as if there’s an insecurity and

they’re always trying to build themselves up.”

Director 5 stated very plainly that “[y]ou can’t be in [a cross-disciplinary] space if you’re totally ego driven”.

The characteristic of leadership as being open to others contributions and not being ego driven is similar to the previously described concept of tolerance of failure and learning from mistakes. However, the two conceptions can be distinguished on the basis of the more positive and outward looking characteristics of openness and lack of ego, compared with the more reflective nature of tolerance of failure and learning from mistakes.

Clearly the way that CRC Participants understand leadership in the context of CRCs is similar to, but not the same as, the way that Research Office Directors understand the phenomenon.

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Section 7.3 aims to compare and connect the characteristics of leadership identified by the two groups of research participants.

7.3 CRC Participants and Research Office Directors compared

The two types of research participant and the analysis of interviews with the participants in two groups, as described above, produces two comparable groups of leadership characteristics. The different expression and grouping of leadership characteristics between the two groups is reflects of the data gathered through interviews, and gives users of this research access to a more subtle understanding of the different conceptions than would be available if the analysis dealt with all the research participants as a uniform group.

Comparison of the characteristics identified by the two groups of research participants has the potential to provide a richer understanding of leadership of cross-disciplinary research in this context. There are obvious parallels between many of the understandings of leadership expressed by Research Office Directors and Researcher Participants, although the parallel understandings are expressed in significantly different ways by the two groups. Equally there are some areas in which the different roles of the participants have produced very different experiences and consequently very different understandings. Even within the CRC Participant group, the difference between experienced researchers and research trainees can be found in their different perspectives on matters that are common between them as described, for example in Section 7.1.2 under the heading ‘Provides a structure that people feel comfortable/secure working within’.

7.3.1 Common understandings

Human resource understandings of leadership

The understanding of leadership expressed by CRC Participants and labelled as

“communication and empathy, people focussed” and that expressed by Research Office

Directors and labelled “good communication and listening” have a great deal in common. The Chapter 7 110

emphasis on face-to-face communication that was clear in the Directors’ understanding of leadership was more muted, but still present, in the CRC Participants’ understanding of leadership. Unlike the Directors, the CRC Participants often referred to broadcast communications, such as newsletters and websites which are effective means of communication about the broad directions and research agenda of the CRC, but not at all effective in demonstrating an empathetic connection with an individual. This is might be a consequence of the Participants’ individual engagement and experiences with particular CRCs rather than evidence of a truly different understanding of leadership. Directors deal with many very different CRCs, and generally don‘t find it necessary to keep up with the research agenda in each one. In contrast, CRC Participants are likely to deal with fewer CRCs and the research agenda for each CRC is likely to be of critical importance to a researcher.

Both the CRC Participants and the Research Office Directors expressed understandings of leadership that related to vision and motivation or inspiration. Directors and senior CRC

Participants described leadership as involving the ability to provide a research vision that appealed to a range of researcher and research end-users, together with the capacity to inspire or motivate individuals to pursue common goals. Junior CRC Participants were less concerned with this aspect of leadership and were more concerned with conceptions of leadership that had more immediate effects on them as individuals. CRC Participants linked this vision and motivation aspect of leadership with providing energy to the collaboration, a conception that links with the political conception of leadership revealed by Research Office

Directors, as is described below.

Political understandings of leadership

A key common characteristic of research leadership as understood both by CRC Participants and by Research Office Directors is the concept of research leaders as a source of energy in a research collaboration. Research Office Directors conceived of CRC leadership as requiring a

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great deal of energy to be pumped into the collaboration, particularly during the formation and establishment of the CRC. This conception is echoed to some degree by the human- resource related conception of CRC Participants that a research leader in this context must be a source of energy in the CRC and must ‘pump the energy into the orchestra’. The similar expression of a requirement for ‘energy’ in leadership should not be allowed to obscure the fact that these different conceptions of leadership discuss energy on a different scale and with different ends. The political conception described by Research Office Directors refers to energy and commitment to complete the negotiations required for organisation of a CRC or collaborative project. The human resource conception described by CRC Participants refers to energy required to ensure that the research ‘orchestra’ plays in tune.

Cultural understandings of leadership

Although their respective conceptions of leadership in relation to failure are expressed from different perspectives, CRC Participants’ “not too great a focus on successful research” and

Research Office Directors’ “tolerance of failure and learning from mistakes” are obviously centred on the same ideas. In fact, the approaches of Directors and senior CRC Participants are extremely similar, though, not surprisingly, the CRC Participants express the idea in a rather more directly applied way: “You have to ... accept that people are doing their very best but you’re not going to [succeed]”. The Research Office Directors focused more closely on failures in process and learning from those failures, while the CRC Participants referred to research not achieving the expected outcomes.

The leadership conception of Research Office Directors requiring “openness to others’ contributions and recognition of others’ expertise, not ego driven” is paralleled by aspects of two conceptions expressed by CRC Participants “capacity to step outside your own work, to think about other people’s issues” and “openness, willingness to explore different ideas/opportunities”. Openness to contributions and recognition of expertise are essential

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prerequisites to being prepared to explore different ideas and opportunities. The capacity to step outside one’s own work and to think about other people’s issues is, at base, not to be ego-driven. The conception of leadership drawn from CRC Participants is a practical expression of the conception drawn from Directors.

7.3.2 Understandings of leadership unique to CRC Participants

CRC Participants expressed several understandings of leadership related to Bolman and Deal’s

(2008) structural frame that have no parallel in Research Office Director’s understandings:

• making decisions and accepting blame

• management, arranging meetings etc.

• provides a structure that people feel comfortable/secure working within.

One possible explanation for Research Office Directors failure to express understandings of research leadership that relate to Bolman and Deal’s (2008) structural frame is that, as noted in section 7.2.1, Directors are likely to regard the structure of a CRC as very much within their own domain of activity and thus relevant to research management rather than research leadership. While Directors recognise and value the capacity of a leader in a CRC to be tolerant of failures in leadership and management, as explained at Section 5.4, most regard structural issues as management tasks to be undertaken by professional support staff and thus outside the responsibilities of a CRC leader. Another possible and linked explanation is that Directors are principally involved in CRCs at the stage of establishment, while the structural issues referred to are more relevant to the continuing smooth operation of the CRC.

Another understanding of leadership expressed by CRC Participants, but not by Research

Office Directors is the political conception of “separation of the CRC from the constituent organisations’ particular interests”. This separation is, in fact, a significant concern of universities as constituent organisations and hence of Directors, but it was not expressed by them to be a leadership issue. From the perspective of Directors, the separation of the

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interests of the CRC from those of the university is problematic, which might explain the failure to include this issue in their understandings of leadership of CRCs.

7.3.3 Understandings unique to Research Office Directors

Research Office Directors expressed an understanding of leadership in CRCs as requiring tenacity, drive and commitment, characterised as being relevant to the political frame of

Bolman and Deal (2008), but no equivalent understanding was expressed by CRC Participants.

This is possibly a consequence of the fact that, as noted above, Research Office Directors’ experience of CRCs is often associated with CRC establishment, while the experience of CRC

Participants is much more involved with the conduct of research once the CRC has been established. The inertia that impedes the creation of any large organisation has, largely, been overcome by the time the CRC is actually conducting research.

7.3.4 Summary of CRC leadership understandings

The understandings of leadership expressed by CRC Participant and Research Office Director participants in this research are summarised in the table overleaf.

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Table 1: Map of understandings of leadership of CRC Participants and Research Office Directors in Bolman and Deal’s (2008) four frames.

CRC Participants Research Office Directors

Structural Frame

Making decisions and accepting blame

Management, arranging meetings etc.

Providing a structure that people feel

comfortable/secure working within

Human Resource Frame

Communication and empathy focussed Good communication and listening

Provides vision, motivation and energy Inspiring, sharing a vision

Political Frame

Separation of the CRC from constituent

organisations particular interests

Tenacity and drive, energy and commitment

Cultural or Symbolic Frame

Not too great a focus on successful research Tolerance of failure, learning from mistakes

Capacity to step outside your own work, to Openness to contributions and recognition

think about other people’s issues of others’ expertise, not ego driven

Openness, willingness to explore different

ideas/opportunities

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Chapter 8 – Backward mapping and the focus of leadership

8.1 Backward mapping

It is proposed to examine the effective leadership of cross-disciplinary collaborations by using the ‘backward mapping’ approach proposed and developed by Robinson (2005). This approach goes beyond examining ‘generic’ leadership theory and examines the types of leadership that are effective in assisting the creation of the best possible conditions for the achievement of goals of the team or group. In this way the forms of leadership that are specific to facilitating and supporting cross-disciplinary research can be identified. Robinson, a researcher in educational leadership, explained:

“the approach to educational leadership research I am advocating begins, not with the

traditional literature on leadership, but with robust research findings on effective

teaching. Those findings provide clues to the leadership practices and dispositions that

are required to develop and sustain effective teaching.” (Robinson, 2005, p 66)

In this study, I have discussed the literature relating to cross-disciplinary research and its challenges, as well as those practices that have been experienced as facilitative of such research. I have examined particular cross-disciplinary collaborations and identified those leadership practices and dispositions that participants in those collaborations experience as beneficial. It remains to map the leadership practices and dispositions identified onto the barriers to cross-disciplinary research and practices beneficial in overcoming those barriers, as described in the literature, to see more clearly how leadership can facilitate cross-disciplinary research.

The barriers to cross-disciplinary research and those steps that were identified as being facilitative in Chapter 2 can be re-cast into the four frames described by Bolman and Deal

(2008). This information can then be compared with the conceptions of leadership identified in

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the course of this study, highlighting leadership that focuses on problems particularly associated with cross-disciplinary research and distinguishing it from leadership of research more generally.

8.2 Structural frame

8.2.1 Cross-disciplinary research and the structural frame

The structural frame of organisations must deal with two central matters: “how to allocate work … and how to coordinate diverse efforts once responsibilities have been parcelled out”

(Bolman and Deal, 2008, p 52).

In allocating work, careful structuring of a research group is identified by some as a significant contributor to successful cross-disciplinary collaboration. Bindler et al. (2010) describe a cross- disciplinary health science research collaboration in which the cross-disciplinary nature of the project was consciously managed from the outset. The cross-disciplinary team was assembled by a university researcher who saw the funding call and identified and made contact with the appropriate team members. There had been collaboration between many of the partners in the research prior to this project. The responsibilities of the two principal investigators were clearly defined and deliberate efforts were made to deal with such issues as the role of theory in the research. The well-planned interdisciplinary collaboration described demonstrates an unusual understanding of the importance of the team and organisational structure:

"Using teamwork theory, the PIs planned the teams that would be needed, roles and

members of each team were established, and periodic evaluation of the outputs from

the teams guided strategies for amount of meeting time needed and role revision. The

step of team identification and construction was essential to success." (Bindler et al.,

2010, p 4)

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The coordination of the efforts of team members through communication is another key component of success. Communication, facilitated by good research information management, is closely linked to the team structure. The communications strategy involved scheduled meetings focussing on particular issues — theory, collaboration with fellow researchers, budget, leadership and communication with study participants — as well as a project website, teleconferencing access, and group emails. (Bindler et al., 2010, pp 4–5).

The element of time is an important one in any research project: there is often tension between the ideals of the researcher regarding the time required to carry out comprehensive research and the aims of the funder, which, particularly in the case of applied questions, are likely to be achieved by speedy resolution of a problem. Blythe and Croft (2010) describe a research project involving collaboration between a physicist/modeller (Blythe) and a linguist

(Croft) in undertaking a research project on the dynamics of language change. In describing their long term (5 years) collaboration they observe that the qualitative approach taken by the humanities and the quantitative approach of the hard sciences are “not entirely incompatible”

(Blythe and Croft, 2010, pp 17–18) and highlight the importance of having time to develop the collaboration noting that "an element of trust between the two parties is … essential" (Blythe and Croft, 2010, pp 18–19). The length of time over which this relationship developed enabled the development of trust over a considerable period.

8.2.2 Leadership as experienced in CRCs

The understandings of leadership identified in this study of cross-disciplinary collaboration and associated with the structural frame are of leaders as: o Making decisions and accepting blame o Managers, arranging meetings etc. o Providing a structure that people feel comfortable and secure working within.

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The first of these is clearly an important understanding of leadership. It does not, however, map clearly onto the issues identified in the literature as being particularly facilitative of cross- disciplinary research. Intuitively, it seems that decision making is an important function of leadership in many contexts, and certainly in other research contexts. Thus while this conception is experienced as important to cross-disciplinary research collaboration, there is no suggestion that failure to make decisions and accept blame is regarded as more important in that context than in the context of research generally.

The conception of leaders as managers, arrangers of meetings and facilitators of communication within and between groups, does appear to have particular relevance to collaborative cross-disciplinary research, in that it is one of the ways of meeting the needs identified by Bindler et al. (2010) for good communication to coordinate the efforts of team members. Communication of the group’s vision and alignment of stakeholders was also identified as part of leadership in the context of teaching and learning (Marshall 2011). This structural understanding of leadership is related to, but can be distinguished from, a role ensuring good communication between collaborators through its emphasis on the role of the leader as the facilitator of communication, not only the supplier of information. This understanding of leadership is not exclusively relevant to cross-disciplinary research collaborations, but may be more important in this context than to other types of collaboration.

The third understanding of leadership identified, the establishment of an organisational structure that participants felt comfortable working within, is not identical to the allocation of responsibilities referred to by Bolman and Deal (2008), but does correspond to the importance of stability, the necessity of investing time to build a cross-disciplinary research relationship.

The mismatch between different types of research and participants in a research project in relation to timelines and timeliness is identified above as a barrier to cross-disciplinary research; a structure that all participants are comfortable with will include timelines to

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manage the tension between researcher on one hand and funder or end-user on the other.

Thus it appears that this conception of leadership role is an important part of leadership of cross-disciplinary research.

8.3 Human Resource

8.3.1 Cross-disciplinary research and the human resource frame

The fit between the needs of an organisation and the needs of its employees is the focus of the human resource frame (Bolman and Deal, 2008, p 122). Organisations are inanimate constructs that need employees in order to carry out any physical act, as well as to contribute ideas and talent. Employees, on the other hand, require more than salary to be satisfied with their work. Some of the strategies and practices that Bolman and Deal nominate as important to meeting the many needs of employees include empowering employees through provision of information and support and encouraging autonomy and participation (Bolman and Deal,

2008, p 142).

Several studies of cross-disciplinary research identify communication as an essential ingredient in cross-disciplinary collaboration, noting that it is recommended that such communication should be ‘rich’, that is, meetings and face-to-face discussions. Dewulf et al. (2007) discuss the two purposes of such communication, the first involving transmission of content information and the second, ‘relational’ communication, that is, getting to know one another, establishing mutual understanding of expectations, establishing roles within the project and beginning to work as a group.

Dewulf et al. (2007) cite Weick (1995) when pointing out the importance of communication through meetings and direct contact rather than “poorer impersonal media such as formal information systems and special reports” (Dewulf et al., 2007, pp 3–4) and note that:

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:Content can be transmitted through other means of communication as well, but

relational connecting is much more powerful in face-to-face interaction than through

more impersonal means of communication.” (Dewulf et al., 2007, p 7.)

8.3.2 Leadership as experienced in CRCs

As noted in section 7.3.1, Research Office Directors and CRC Participants had similar conceptions of leadership in the human resource frame. One of those conceptions related to

‘good communication and listening’ (as expressed by Directors) and to ‘communication and empathy, people focussed’ (as expressed by CRC Participants). This conception of leadership coincides with the importance of communication to cross-disciplinary research collaboration as expressed by Dewulf et al. (2007). In particular, the emphasis on face-to-face communication, strongly expressed by Research Office Directors but also stated by CRC

Participants, is also nominated by Dewulf et al. as an important way of overcoming the barriers to cross-disciplinary research collaboration.

Other conceptions of leadership common to CRC Participants and Research Office Directors, though expressed slightly differently, were ‘provides vision, motivation and energy’ (CRC

Participants) and ‘inspiring, sharing a vision’ (Research Office Directors). Motivation, vision, energy and inspiration are all associated with leadership, but are not addressed in the literature identifying challenges in cross-disciplinary research collaboration. This suggests that these conceptions of leadership are not more significant in the context of cross-disciplinary research than in other contexts.

8.4 Political frame

8.4.1 Cross-disciplinary research and the political frame

The political frame identified by Bolman and Deal (2008) focusses on the competing interests of different individuals and groups involved in any organisation. Institutional barriers, or at the very least a lack of institutional supports, are identified by several researchers as challenges in Chapter 8 121

conducting a cross-disciplinary project (Haribabu (2000); Muehrer (2002); and Behague et al.

(2008)).

In a case study of interdisciplinary collaboration between plant breeders and biotechnologists

Haribabu (2000) tries to understand the social processes of knowledge production, focussing on how disciplinary cultures affect perceptions about the object of the research, the way that cultures affect construction of the problem and possible interventions to solve the problem, and how individuals’ organisational cultures, motivations and anxieties affect cross-disciplinary collaboration. Among the many barriers to cross-disciplinary research collaboration identified by this research was the support (or otherwise) provided by institutions for cross-disciplinary research. It is noted that:

“Organisational mandates and norms affect the interdisciplinary exchange needed for

transcending disciplinary boundaries. In regular universities the general tendency is to

emphasise basic research and publications in addition to training, while mission-

oriented organisations are mandated to carry out applied research and the

development of products.” (Haribabu 2000, p 329)

In discussing research on mental health disorders involving collaboration between basic behavioural scientists and public health scientists, Muehrer et al. (2002) observe that one hindrance to collaborative work is that

“[t]he organisation of universities and other institutions in which physical and mental

health research is conducted … presents barriers to cross-talk among these disciplines"

(Muehrer et al. 2002, p 253).

The authors go on to describe several institutions that are successful in supporting cross disciplinary research by ensuring that cross-disciplinary research is advantageous to all disciplines, providing opportunities to increase grant funding; and through ensuring the

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professional development of researchers and graduate students using a structure that supports and/or mandates training in methods used by other disciplines.

In a detailed study of collaboration between anthropologists and epidemiologists described in

Behague et al. (2008), it is observed that:

“In our experience the importance of institutional support for in-depth and sustained

inter-disciplinary collaboration cannot be underestimated.” (Behague et al., 2008, p

1707)

One means of providing that support is the appointment of researchers from disciplines that are not the part of the institution’s disciplinary ‘mainstream’; for example, appointing an anthropologist to a group traditionally dominated by medically-trained epidemiologists.

8.4.2 Leadership as experienced in CRCs

The matter of institutional support is a problematic one in the context of CRCs. A CRC is a site for cross-disciplinary research collaboration relying on the resources of other organisations, and as noted in Section 7.1.4, researchers sometimes find themselves caught between the two types of organisations: the CRC, which is funding their research; and their home institution, usually a university, which pays their salaries.

Leadership of cross-disciplinary research as it relates to institutional support for such research must therefore occur in at least two different ways. Provision of institutional support for cross- disciplinary research from within the CRC might occur by ensuring that it is not disadvantaged relative to discipline-based research in terms of funding or other traditional measures of research performance, and by supporting cross-disciplinary professional development opportunities. Ensuring institutional support for cross-disciplinary research from the CRC’s constituent organisations is obviously much more a matter of influence than direction by a CRC leader.

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Interestingly, neither CRC researcher participants nor Research Office Directors experienced these things as leadership of cross-disciplinary research. Although there are certainly cross- disciplinary research development opportunities available through both of the CRCs studied, in neither case was the provision of these opportunities conceived of as a form of leadership. Nor were the matters of ensuring that cross-disciplinary research is not disadvantaged, or the influencing of constituent organisations, described as experiences of leadership within CRCs.

The political conception of leadership distilled from CRC researcher participants’ descriptions of experiences, that of recognising (rather than resolving) the conflicted situation in which researchers are placed, is appropriate to a context that is unique to multi-institutional research collaborations. CRCs are one example, but there are many other types of multi-institutional research collaboration (for example, ARC Centres of Excellence and NHMRC Program Grants), in which similar factors are at play.

8.5 Cultural

8.5.1 Cross-disciplinary research and the cultural frame

The cultural (or symbolic) frame of Bolman and Deal (2008) is important in the context of cross-disciplinary research collaboration because the different disciplines bring different, and sometimes conflicting, cultural perspectives. This is reflected in the fact that the most widely identified hindrance to cross-disciplinary research relates to cultural differences. Researchers’ unfamiliarity with different methodologies, including both a lack of understanding of alternative methodologies and a lack of respect for methodologies different from one’s own, is highlighted in many accounts. For example, in a case study of interdisciplinary collaboration between plant breeders and biotechnologists described by Haribabu (2000), some of the many barriers to interdisciplinary research collaboration that were identified included different conceptions of the scale and scope of the problem, and anxiety of individual researchers

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regarding interdisciplinary research, particularly with respect to power differentials between the disciplines.

In discussing research on mental health disorders involving collaboration between basic behavioural scientists and public health scientists, Muehrer et al. (2002, p 253) regret that the collaborative work has been hindered because the two groups of scientists rely on “different theories, methodological traditions, and dissemination strategies”.

Behague (2008) records that a collaboration between anthropologists and epidemiologists encountered difficulties because researchers from the two disciplines had very different understandings of the features of their joint problem that were important, how those problems would best be investigated and how the problem might be solved. For example, the anthropologists regarded the development of an understanding of culture as a fundamental part of the research, whereas the epidemiologists tended to ‘black-box’ the concept of culture, that is, to regard it as a static, unknowable feature that was beyond influence or response

(Behague, 2008, p 1702). Likewise the epidemiologists found the work undertaken by the anthropologists “unscientific and subjective” since it was not undertaken in a positivist frame

(Behague, 2008, p 1702).

In examining interdisciplinary environmental research involving both social and biophysical sciences, MacMynowski (2007) considers specifically the power differential between the different disciplines and how that affects the collaboration and its development towards the integration required of true interdisciplinarity. In particular, MacMynowski focuses on the power attributed by the disciplines to different types of knowledge claims and the value placed on objectivity over subjectivity.

Previous experience in cross-disciplinary research is identified as a contributor to future success in cross-disciplinary research by Blythe and Croft (2010) and Bindler et al. (2010).

Previous experience of the context is also a factor related to the development of trust

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between participants in a collaboration, which is noted as important by Blythe and Croft

(2010).

8.6 Leadership as experienced in CRCs The shared conceptions of leadership in relation to failure, the ‘tolerance of failure and preparedness to learn from mistakes’ of Research Office Directors and ‘not too great a focus on successful research’ of CRC Participants, do not appear to address particular challenges identified in the literature relation to cross-disciplinary research. Nor does research related to academic leadership of teaching and learning mention these conceptions of leadership, possibly because failure and the risk of failure are less common in contexts other than research. In the context of research, possibly whether or not the research is cross-disciplinary, it appears that tolerance of failure is clearly important to participant’s understandings of leadership. This aspect of research leadership warrants further study.

The cultural conflict between different disciplines, illustrated by the mutual frustration of the epidemiologists and anthropologists with one another’s approaches to the problems that the collaboration was tackling described in Behague et al. (2008), is a challenge relevant to some understandings of leadership as identified in this research. The understandings of leadership drawn from Research Office Directors as requiring an openness to contributions and recognition of others’ expertise and from CRC Participants, involving a capacity to step outside one’s own work and to think about other people’s issues, describe behaviour that is open to different approaches to a research problem. The ability of a research leader to acknowledge their lack of expertise in a particular area and to recognise the value of contributions that they themselves cannot make, does meet a specific challenge of cross disciplinary research collaborations that has been identified in the literature exploring those challenges.

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Chapter 9 – Conclusion

Understandings of leadership that participants regard as relevant in the context of research in

CRCs have been identified in the course of this research. Some of those understandings particularly address difficulties encountered and recorded in the context of cross-disciplinary research, making them particularly relevant in that context. This does not reduce the relevance of these understandings of leadership of research generally, but rather acknowledges their particular importance in the special context of cross-disciplinary research.

9.1 Understandings of leadership particularly relevant to cross- disciplinary research

First, in cross-disciplinary research it is understood to be particularly important that research leaders fulfil a role as managers, organisers, arrangers. The literature illustrates that participants in cross-disciplinary research find this function to be particularly important to ensuring that their research is successful. The participants in cross-disciplinary research who were part of this research recognise that the role of manager, organiser, is an important function of leaders.

Second, the leader as communicator, an understanding of leadership of both CRC Participants and Research Office Directors, is another important part of leadership of cross-disciplinary research because it addresses a particular difficulty identified in the literature about cross- disciplinary research. It is particularly important in cross-disciplinary research that the different disciplinary groups develop a good understanding of one another’s perspectives and methods.

In large dispersed organisations such as CRCs the broadcast means of communication, such as websites and newsletters, are ensure that all parties to the collaboration have access to relevant information about the workings and successes of other parts of the collaboration. The connections formed between individuals, and the additional information conveyed, in face-to-

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face situations make an essential contribution to mutual understanding and in overcoming the distrust that can arise between different disciplinary backgrounds.

Third, a leader’s open to others’ contributions, and motivation by things other than his/her own ego, is of particular relevance to cross disciplinary research. In this context, the contributions of others, particularly those outside the leader’s own discipline, may be more difficult for the leader to understand and easier to overlook. Different disciplines make different types and levels of contribution in solving a problem; acknowledgement of the importance of the range of disciplinary expertise contributed by collaborators is conceived as important in the leadership of cross-disciplinary research.

9.2 Understandings of leadership relevant to all types of research

Understandings of leadership described below as not being of particular importance to cross- disciplinary research, are nevertheless important and relevant in that context. My argument is rather that these understandings of leadership are not more important to cross-disciplinary research than to other types of research.

A research leader is understood to be one who makes decisions and accepts blame: this form of leadership is relevant to research whether or not the research is cross-disciplinary, as well as in many other contexts. In every project, decisions of varying degrees of importance must be made, and those decisions have different levels of effect on the project and on the use of resources. It is important that a leader is prepared to make a decision when it is not clear what decision will produce the best outcome. For this reason, leaders often have more experience than others involved in the project. It is also important that once the decision is made, the leader will stand by that decision and take responsibility for it, or to review and alter the decision, if, in the event, a different decision would have produced a better outcome.

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The role of a leader in providing a structure that all feel comfortable with, or at least in which all understand the decision making process, is also clearly an important one in the context of

CRCs. It is not more important in the cross-disciplinary research context than in other contexts.

In order for any collaboration to be effective, those involved in it must understand how it works.

A research leader who inspires, shares a vision, and provides motivation and energy to a collaboration was shared as an important understanding of leadership by Research Office

Directors and CRC Participants, but does not appear to be of particular importance to cross- disciplinary research collaboration. Rather this conception is likely to be common across different research contexts and across leadership practice more generally.

The CRC Participants’ understanding of leadership of research as providing recognition of, though not necessarily resolution of, conflicts between institutions is clearly limited to situations in which more than one organisation is involved. Such situations might not be limited to cross-disciplinary research, since there are many mono-disciplinary, cross- institutional collaborations.

The provision of energy and commitment, tenacity and drive is clearly recognised as significant but is not recognised as solving any particular difficulty identified as specific to cross- disciplinary research. This understanding of leadership is relevant to all types of research involving collaboration and the coordination of several participants.

Things go wrong in research. When a researcher investigates a question, he or she must choose the way that the question might be addressed and must make some guesses about the possible solutions. Sometimes, of course, those guesses will not be correct. The understanding of a leader of research as one who is not too focussed on success, and having a level of tolerance for failure, is one that is relevant beyond cross-disciplinary research.

Chapter 9 129

9.3 Conclusions

Leaders of cross-disciplinary research must be good leaders of research. Research leadership is conceived of as many things:

• Making decisions and accepting blame

• Management, arranging meetings etc.

• Providing a structure that people feel comfortable/secure working within

• Communication and empathy focussed

• Good communication and listening

• Provides vision, motivation and energy

• Inspiring, sharing a vision

• Separation of the CRC from constituent organisations particular interests

• Tenacity and drive, energy and commitment

• Not too great a focus on successful research

• Tolerance of failure, learning from mistakes

• Capacity to step outside your own work, to think about other people’s issues

• Openness to contributions and recognition of others’ expertise, not ego driven

• Openness, willingness to explore different ideas/opportunities.

Of these, leaders of cross-disciplinary research should pay particular attention to:

• Management questions around arranging group meetings

• Communication between the various members of the group, both in terms of

communication of content and information and relational communication

• Openness to and recognition of the contributions of others, not being ego driven.

These aspects of the practice of research leadership are most relevant in ensuring that cross- disciplinary research is productive in terms of results and effective in terms of ensuring that

Chapter 9 130

the collaboration properly involves and benefits all participants. It is hoped that proper attention to the types of leadership identified here, those that are best calculated to overcome the recognised barriers to cross-disciplinary research, will support research to solve some of the large and intractable problems that can only be tackled through collaborative cross- disciplinary research teams.

9.4 Further research

This research has made a beginning in identifying particular practices or constructions of leadership that are recognised as being relevant to cross-disciplinary research. The limited time and resources available for this project restricted the scope of data collection, and a much larger study, possibly including other large scale, formal collaborations would provide a useful test of the trustworthiness and reliability of the findings of this research.

The particular context of Cooperative Research Centres differs significantly from many other cross-disciplinary research contexts, particularly in terms of the formality and expected duration of the collaboration. A study of cross-disciplinarity in less structured and formal contexts is likely reveal other important conceptions of leadership of cross-disciplinary research, and so would be a useful next step in exploring this phenomenon.

Exploratory studies like those described above would allow the development of theses about aspects of research leadership in the context of cross-disciplinary research which could be tested. Research investigating the leadership of cross-disciplinary research is bound to encounter many difficulties, including the challenges of deciding what can usefully be examined. Should one focus on ‘successful’ research leadership and if so how does one define

‘successful’ research leadership? Can research leadership be successful if those who are led are not satisfied with their work? Can research leadership be successful if the research that is led is not ‘successful’? What is successful research? Is it related to achievement of the expected or hoped for result? Or to research output in terms of publications or patents?

Chapter 9 131

Even if some of the base assumptions of an investigation of research leadership were to be evidently incorrect, for example, equating publication output with successful research or successful research with successful research leadership, the investigation would, within its limitations, add to our understanding. As with many social phenomena, accurate measurement of every dimension of leadership of cross-disciplinary research is unlikely to be achievable, and a better understanding is an honourable objective.

Good leadership of cross-disciplinary research is important: as noted in Chapter 1, significant problems do not always emerge in neat disciplinary packages and solutions require effective cross-disciplinary research collaboration. Leadership will arise in a collaboration; leadership of a type that researcher participants find helpful is desirable, but not assured. The intent of this study is to make a better understanding of such helpful leadership available to leaders of cross-disciplinary research collaborations.

Chapter 9 132

Postscript I have been changed significantly by this research, not only as a result of the passage of several years. As a research manager, I have learned a new respect for the challenges faced by my academic colleagues in the development and conduct of research projects. Although I have always regarded my professional role as a facilitative one, a much richer set of experiences now inform my actions and as a result I have a more nuanced understanding of the competing pressures and priorities affecting researchers. I have also learned the importance of balancing the competing priorities of framing and directing the research question around a topic that is both interesting and useful, and following the research question along the highways, suburban streets and bush tracks down which it leads. The voice that I have used successfully throughout my professional career has been greatly developed by writing this thesis, a task that I found unexpectedly difficult. Importantly, I have a much greater understanding of the subject of the research, leadership in the context of cross-disciplinary research. Some of the outcomes are expected, for example, the importance of good communication, while some are less obvious

(at least to me), for example, the importance of meetings.

This study has benefited me both as a researcher and as a research manager; I hope that others find it useful, too.

Chapter 9 133

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Appendix 1 — Interview questions Interviews with Researchers

Questions about the individual 1. What is your position/role in this CRC? 1.1. Academic/researcher or professional 1.2. What is your discipline/area of professional work 1.3. How senior/junior? Who do you report to? 2. Tell me about the work that the CRC does 2.1. What research project(s) are you most involved in/interested in? 2.2. How did you become involved in that research project(s)? 2.3. Were you involved from the beginning of the project(s)? 2.4. How did the project start(s)?

Questions about the CRC 3. Who are the partners in the CRC? 3.1. University partners? 3.2. End user partners 3.2.1. Government? 3.2.2. Commercial? 3.2.3. NGO? 4. How is the CRC run 4.1. How much do you know about how decisions are made in the CRC? How are the decisions made? 4.1.1. About what research projects to do? 4.1.2. About who works on a project? 4.1.3. About how resources (human resources, facilities, money for travel etc) are used 4.2. How much say do you think the partners have in what happens in the CRC? 4.2.1. Government? 4.2.2. Commercial? 4.2.3. NGO? 4.2.4. Universities? 5. Do you think the CRC is a friendly, happy place to work? 5.1. What makes it friendly/unfriendly? 5.2. Do people from different areas/disciplines socialise together? 5.3. Have they always done that? If not, what made the change?

Questions about leadership 6. Who do you think leads people in the CRC? (probably more than one person, so follow up on each one) 6.1. Why? What do they do/what have they done that makes you think of them as a leader? 6.2. Who leads your research project/administrative or professional activity? 6.3. What do you think makes a good leader?

Appendix 1 145

Questions about cross-disciplinarity 7. Do you think the CRC does cross-disciplinary research? 7.1. What projects would you say are examples of cross-disciplinary projects? 7.2. Have you worked on a cross-disciplinary project? 7.3. Was the project different because it was cross-disciplinary? 7.3.1. More difficult? Easier? Why? 7.3.2. If no problems, some people say that cross-disciplinary projects are more difficult because people have different expectations of the project outcomes and different beliefs about methodologies – why do you think those things were not a problem in your situation? 7.3.3. If there were problems, were those problems resolved? 7.3.3.1. What do you think was key to resolving the problems/would have helped in resolving the problems? 7.3.3.2. Who was involved in solving the problems? Do you think of those ‘problem solvers’ as leaders?

Interviews with Research Office Directors

Questions about the individual 1. How do you interact with CRCs? 1.1. How many? 1.2. In what situations? 1.3. With the CRC itself or with your university’s researchers only? 1.4. Do you have/have you had a formal role with a CRC?

Questions about the CRC 2. Tell me about the different CRCs that your university is involved with 2.1. Which CRCs are administered by your University 2.2. Which CRCs are not administered by, but do involve, your University? 2.3. Do they all have the same structure? 2.4. Were you involved in the set up of the CRCs? 2.5. Are you involved in the reviews of CRCs? 3. Who are the partners in the CRC? 3.1. Which University partners have you had most dealings with? 3.2. Which end user partners have you had most dealings with? 3.2.1. Government? 3.2.2. Commercial? 3.2.3. NGO? 4. How is the CRC run 4.1. How much do you know about how decisions are made in the various CRCs? How are the decisions made? 4.1.1. About what research projects to do? 4.1.2. About who works on a project? 4.1.3. About how resources (human resources, facilities, money for travel etc) are used 4.2. How much say do you think the partners have in what happens in the CRC?

Appendix 1 146

4.2.1. Government? 4.2.2. Commercial? 4.2.3. NGO? 4.2.4. Universities? 5. Are there any CRCs that you think of as particularly friendly, happy places to work? 5.1. What makes it friendly/unfriendly? 5.2. Do people from different areas/disciplines socialise together? 5.3. Have they always done that? If not, what made the change?

Questions about leadership 6. Who do you think leads people in the different CRCs that you’ve worked with? (probably more than one person, so follow up on each one) 6.1. Why? What do they do/what have they done that makes you think of them as a leader? 6.2. Who leads your research project/administrative or professional activity? 6.3. What do you think makes a good leader? 7. Can you think of any person who was a leader (positional or not) in a CRC that you think was particularly good at it? 7.1. What was their role? 7.2. Why were they good leaders?

Questions about cross-disciplinarity 8. Do you think the CRC does cross-disciplinary research? 8.1. Are there cross-disciplinary projects? 8.2. Do you think the cross-disciplinarity makes a project easier or more difficult? 8.2.1. More difficult? Easier? Why? 8.2.2. If there were problems, were those problems resolved? 8.2.2.1. What do you think was key to resolving the problems/would have helped in resolving the problems? 8.2.2.2. Who was involved in solving the problems? Do you think of those ‘problem solvers’ as leaders?

Appendix 1