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The HIBAR Research Alliance

Expanding Highly Integrative Basic And Responsive Research To Accelerate Service To Society

Organizational Change

Launching HIBAR Research Buddies

Launching HIBAR Research Buddies

A student-led effort to build a community

October 2024

HIBAR Research Buddies is an innovative student-led project at the University of British Columbia (UBC) to build a community of graduate students who care deeply about engaging directly, through their research, with experts working outside of academia. Community activities focus on impactful Highly Integrative Basic And Responsive (HIBAR) research projects, emphasizing the value of co-leadership and co-production by academics and external experts – a topic that is intrinsic to all HIBAR projects and typically not addressed in graduate student curriculum.

To learn more about the HIBAR Research Buddies, read the pilot project report here. 

Many graduate students are eager to make a societal impact through their research but struggle to find opportunities, partly due to the traditionally inward focus of academic research. This project seeks to build a supportive community for students, particularly for those who feel disconnected, helping them see how university research can address societal needs and fostering a greater sense of belonging within academia. Community activities emphasize the vital role that graduate students can take within HIBAR research teams, and highlight opportunities for students to participate in activities that will, over time, help to change the academic culture toward more societally-engaged research. 

HIBAR Research Buddies was launched in April 2023 as a 1-year pilot project, led by a team of nine graduate students from UBC’s Vancouver and Okanagan campuses. Their efforts demonstrated that there is clear and significant interest among UBC graduate students across both campuses to belong to the HIBAR Research Buddies community.

In this webinar, project leaders shared lessons learned from this pilot project over the past year, as well as the resulting framework for future activities that can help to build a vibrant and engaged community over the next several years, both at UBC and beyond.

Key Takeaway Messages

Faculty members can help graduate students to connect with HIBAR projects.

Students benefit if they take initiative to build connections outside of academia.

Peer support is really valuable for students working on HIBAR projects.

Increased funding enable students to develop stronger cross-sectoral relationships.

Connection to a societal problem makes a research project more meaningful.

Read the key takeaway messages from all of our webinars here.

Watch the full webinar recording

Watch key excerpts from the webinar

Webinar Speakers

The HIBAR Research Buddies pilot project at UBC was funded by:
  • UBC Science Strategic Innovation Fund
  • Irving K. Barber Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences Endowment
  • UBC Faculty of Applied Science
  • UBC Faculty of Forestry
  • UBC Faculty of Health and Social Development
  • Walter H. Gage Memorial Fund
  • Tuum Est Student Initiative Fund

For more details about HIBAR Research Buddies, please contact the leadership team by email at hibar.b@ubc.ca.

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Modernizing scholarship for the public good

Modernizing scholarship for the public good

An action framework for public research universities​​

June 2024

The problems facing communities, regions, countries, and the globe are increasingly multifaceted and complex – challenging public research universities to expand and renew how they deliver on their missions for a new era.  In response to these challenges, the Association of Public and Land Grant Universities (APLU) launched the Modernizing Scholarship for the Public Good initiative, with a goal of spurring more publicly engaged and impactful research.

This initiative culminated in an extensive action framework that offers guidance to public research universities on ways that they can support scholars and advance publicly engaged and impactful research, with special attention to the ways that diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice are integral to this work.

In 2021, Dr. Elyse Aurbach was named a Civic Science Fellow, co-hosted by APLU and the University of Michigan’s Office of the Vice President for Research, to lead this multi-institutional project. In this webinar, she described the framework and highlighted institutional examples from universities that have successfully taken such action, focusing on strategic actions that institutions can take to encourage and enable more Highly Integrative Basic and Responsive (HIBAR) projects.

Here are several key links that Dr. Aurbach shared during the presentation:

Key Takeaway Messages

There are no “one size fits all” strategies that will enable organizational change at all universities.

Significant and sustained change requires a lot of time and/or resources.

Organizational culture eats policy, procedure, and practice for lunch.

Look for opportunities to lay the groundwork for future change efforts.

Our collective progress is hindered by the lack of shared terminology about impactful, engaged research.

Institutional change efforts are most effective when they include meaningful assessment tools.

Meaningful, sustained change is often a result of a long-term, deliberative process.

Read the key takeaway messages from all of our webinars here.

Watch the full webinar recording

Watch key excerpts from the webinar

Webinar Speaker

Elyse Aurbach

University of Michigan

Elyse Aurbach is Director for Public Engagement & Research Impacts in the University of Michigan’s Office of Research. In this role, Dr. Aurbach develops strategy and oversees a team to support university faculty in their public engagement efforts. She previously served as Public Engagement Lead with the Center for Academic Innovation, overseeing the center’s role in a Presidential strategic focus area on faculty public engagement, and pursued a double-life as a scientist studying the neurobiological underpinnings of major depression and leading a number of projects to improve science communication and public engagement.

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Broadening Faculty Reward Systems to Support Societally-Impactful Research

Broadening Faculty Reward Systems to Support Societally-Impactful Research

A landscape scan of promising steps taken by universities

December 2023

Academic reward systems often evaluate a faculty member’s scholarly impact primarily using citation counts and publication metrics, and fail to sufficiently recognize their contributions that impact society, for example through policy outcomes, community development, and technological innovation. There is increasing awareness of the need to adjust the incentive system to better reward societally-impactful research, and that doing so may help universities retain talented faculty, deepen public trust, and increase the impact of their research on issues of global and local significance.

Participants in the Transforming Evidence Funders Network (TEFN), facilitated by The Pew Charitable Trusts, recently commissioned a landscape scan of promising reforms to faculty reward systems. This scan draws upon and analyzes insights from 13 universities and 10 organizations in the United States to illustrate the extent and variety of initiatives underway to enhance recognition of societally-impactful scholarship. It also highlights opportunities for funders to accelerate and sustain these efforts.

You can download a copy of the landscape scan report here.

Webinar speakers Emily Ozer and Jennifer Renick, two co-authors of the report, described some of the promising approaches revealed by the scan, lessons learned from their own efforts to promote and achieve institutional changes, and some of the many opportunities to accelerate this work.

Key Takeaway Messages

Funders can accelerate universities’ efforts to broaden faculty reward systems.

It is important to evaluate the impact of institutional change efforts.

Institutional change efforts can be greatly accelerated through sharing across peer networks.

Faculty often identify their research as “societally impactful” when inclusive definitions are used.

Read the key takeaway messages from all of our webinars here.

Watch the full webinar recording

Watch key excerpts from the webinar

Webinar Speakers

Dr. Emily Ozer

University of California Berkeley

Emily J. Ozer is a psychologist and Professor of Community Health Sciences at the UC Berkeley School of Public Health and the UC-Berkeley Faculty Liaison to the EVCP (Executive VC/Provost) on Public Scholarship and Engagement. Her research focuses on promoting the healthy development and empowerment of adolescents, bridging participatory research approaches and prevention science in school-based interventions.

Jennifer Renick

Dr. Jennifer Renick

University of Memphis

Jennifer Renick is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Counseling, Educational Psychology & Research at the University of Memphis. Her community-engaged research focuses on the intersection of community, developmental, and educational psychology, specifically on how to improve school climate and connection for historically underserved adolescents.

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Supporting Inclusive Recognition of Innovation & Entrepreneurship

Supporting Inclusive Recognition of Innovation & Entrepreneurship

An overview of the Promotion & Tenure – Innovation & Entrepreneurship (PTIE) effort

November 2023

Universities today can, and should, enable greater contributions toward solving society’s critical problems while also boosting academic excellence. To do so, universities must ensure that promotion and tenure processes fairly assess and value entrepreneurial, innovative endeavors that can produce the kind of societal impacts that universities are increasingly being called on to provide.

Oregon State University, with support from the U.S. National Science Foundation, facilitated a national conversation on how to inclusively recognize innovation & entrepreneurship impact by university faculty in promotion, tenure, and advancement guidelines and practices. This led to the creation of the Promotion & Tenure Innovation & Entrepreneurship (PTIE) effort, which now involves more than 65 U.S. institutions and numerous national stakeholder organizations. This work has resulted in a comprehensive set of recommendations for promotion and tenure reform.

Webinar speakers Rich Carter and Almesha Campbell described the networked-systems approach PTIE has taken to develop a nationwide coalition. They shared how universities can use the resulting framework to better align the intellectual capabilities of their faculty with an innovation economy, and how the strategy can be broadly applicable, beyond innovation and entrepreneurship, to recognize the many and evolving dimensions along which faculty create societal impacts.

Key Takeaway Messages

Promotion and tenure reform requires champions at all levels.

Through networks, proponents of change efforts gain access to credible external champions.

There is a considerable appetite for broadening incentive systems to support societally-impactful research.

The intent of promotion reform is to remove a disconnect by rewarding faculty for efforts that the university already values.

Read the key takeaway messages from all of our webinars here.

Watch the full webinar recording

Watch key excerpts from the webinar

Webinar Speakers

Dr. Rich Carter

Oregon State University

Rich Carter is a Professor in the Department of Chemistry and Faculty Lead for Innovation Excellence in the Office of Research at Oregon State University. He is the Principal Investigator of the NSF-funded program that led to the creation of the PTIE effort.

Dr. Almesha Campbell

Jackson State University

Almesha Campbell is the Assistant Vice President for Research and Economic Development at Jackson State University (JSU). For over 10 years, she served as the Director for Technology Transfer and Commercialization at JSU and continues to manage the intellectual property process from triage of invention disclosures to commercialization.

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Aligning Open Science with Promotion and Tenure Guidelines

Aligning Open Science with Promotion and Tenure Guidelines

The University of Maryland’s Department of Psychology Leads the Way

October 2023

It has long been recognized that transparent and accessible knowledge enhances scientific integrity and enables greater participation by collaborators outside of academia. However, promotion and tenure guidelines often do not reward open science practices, which often prevents faculty members from pursuing research projects for the public good.

The University of Maryland’s Department of Psychology tackled this problem and, in April 2022, adopted new guidelines that explicitly codify open science as a core criteria in tenure and promotion review. The successful adoption of this new policy presents an opportunity to push for enduring systemic change, to ensure that incentives for advancement reflect the values of faculty members and their institutions.

As Department Chair, webinar speaker Michael Dougherty championed this change and led a multi-year effort to develop and implement the new policy. He was committed to rewarding work that was made broadly available without barriers, but he recognized it would be a culture change that required time. During this webinar, he described the approach that was taken to develop and adopt the new policy, aimed at empowering faculty members to do research in the way that they want to do it, and on the topics that energize them. 

Key Takeaway Messages

Administrators can accelerate change efforts by signaling their support, loudly and often.

Administrators are very often open to new ways of doing things.

Faculty members want to do the right thing, but often struggle to do so.

Many faculty members are excited to pursue new cross-sectoral collaborative project.

It can be difficult to imagine a different promotion and tenure system.

Intentionality and persistence are essential for successful change efforts.

Read the key takeaway messages from all of our webinars here.

Watch the full webinar recording

Watch key excerpts from the webinar

Webinar Speaker

Michael Dougherty

University of Maryland

Michael Dougherty is Professor of Psychology and Chair of the Department of Psychology at the University of Maryland, College Park. His research and administrative efforts have been driven by a commitment to the view that basic research ought to be guided by real-world problems.

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Catalyzing Change by Supporting Embedded Expertise

Catalyzing Change by Supporting Embedded Expertise

Researchers and Practitioners Partner to Transform Education and Stimulate Teaching and Learning Excellence

February 2023

Much has been learned in recent years about postsecondary instructional methods that lead to better student learning, but these methods are not yet widely implemented, predominately because their implementation requires a change in academic culture, not simply changes in individual behavior. The “Transforming Education, Stimulating Teaching and Learning Excellence”, or TRESTLE, project is a leading example of ongoing efforts to address this culture-change challenge.

Led by the University of Kansas, TRESTLE is a collaboration of seven research universities that aims to help Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) departments transform undergraduate courses in order to improve undergraduate learning and educational outcomes. The TRESTLE model involves embedding STEM education experts (specially prepared postdoctoral scholars or faculty leaders) in departments, to collaborate with department faculty to guide and support the implementation of research-based educational practices. 

In this webinar, TRESTLE leaders Andrea Follmer Greenhoot and Caroline Bennett described the HIBAR research characteristics of the project, and the synergy generated by the “embedded expertise” partnership between researchers and educators. They also shared insights they have gained about catalyzing academic culture change, including how collaboration among similar institutions increases the opportunity for good ideas to emerge and spread.

Key Takeaway Messages

Deep partnerships between researchers and practitioners enables rapid iteration of practice-informed improvements.

When institutions collaborate on change efforts, good ideas emerge and spread more quickly.

Institutional change initiatives are more often most effective if they are situated within a unit that has broad reach

Read the key takeaway messages from all of our webinars here.

Watch the full webinar recording

Watch key excerpts from the webinar

Webinar Speakers

Andrea Follmer Greenhoot

University of Kansas

Dr. Andrea (“Dea”) Follmer Greenhoot is Professor of Psychology, Director of the Center for Teaching Excellence and Gautt Teaching Scholar at the University of Kansas. Dea serves as Director of the Bay View Alliance and is principle investigator of the BVA’s TRESTLE project.. 

Caroline Bennett

University of Kansas

Dr. Caroline Bennett is Professor of Civil, Environmental and Architectural Engineering and Dean R. and Florence W. Frisbie Associate Chair of Graduate Studies at the University of Kansas. She also serves as a campus leader for the TRESTLE project. 

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Building Sustained Research-Practice Partnerships

Building Sustained Research-Practice Partnerships

A targeted funding program enables research institutions to shift their policies and practices to value collaborative research

January 2023

Research-practice partnerships bring together experts from the research and practice communities to develop a joint research agenda to address pressing questions. However, despite its considerable benefits, collaborative work of this type is not always valued by universities and, as a result, policies and practices within universities can inadvertently create disincentives for faculty members to participate in research-practice partnerships. 

In response to these obstacles, the William T. Grant Foundation established the Institutional Challenge Grant program, encouraging research institutions to remove barriers that inhibit collaborative work. In addition to supporting an existing institutional partnership to pursue a joint research agenda, these grants enable changes in institutional policy and practice to value research-practice partnerships and enhance the capacity of researchers and practitioners to together produce and use high-quality rigorous research results. 

In this webinar, W. T. Grant Foundation Senior Program Officer Jenny Irons described how the Institutional Challenge Grant program supports universities in building sustained research-practice partnerships that will reduce inequality in youth outcomes. Grant recipient Alicia Sasser Modestino from Northeastern University described how the funding has enabled a lasting partnership with The City of Boston’s Department of Youth Engagement and Employment, and created a number of organizational change efforts within the university aimed at building a supportive infrastructure and changing what it means to be a “successful researcher” at the university. 

While these grants are intended specifically to enable research-practice partnerships, the institutional changes they create will more broadly enable researchers to participate in HIBAR projects, as well as other forms of community-engaged research. We are delighted to share this inspirational funding initiative with the HIBAR Research Alliance community as part of our webinar series.

Key Takeaway Messages

Successful changes within academic departments can catalyze broader institutional change.

For a change effort to succeed, it is important to identify and act upon the levers for change.

Research teams may find it surprisingly challenging to convey what societal impact looks like for the problem they are addressing.

Many faculty members benefit greatly from ongoing coaching for building effective relationships with external partners.

Building and sustaining an effective research relationship takes a great deal of time.

Read the key takeaway messages from all of our webinars here.

Watch the full webinar recording

Watch key excerpts from the webinar

Webinar Speakers

Jenny Irons

William T. Grant Foundation

Jenny Irons is a Senior Program Officer at the William T. Grant Foundation, where she leads the Institutional Challenge Grant program and the major grants funding initiative to support research on reducing inequality among youth. She serves on the Foundation’s senior program team, which sets program directions, develops new initiatives, and reviews grants. 

Alicia Sasser Modestino

Northeastern University

Alicia Sasser Modestino is an Associate Professor with appointments in the School of Public Policy and Urban Affairs and the Department of Economics at Northeastern University, where she also serves as the Research Director of the Dukakis Center for Urban and Regional Policy.

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The USF Pandemic Response Research Network

The USF Pandemic Response Research Network

Lessons Learned through a Highly Integrative Basic and Responsive Research (HIBAR) Approach to COVID-19

December 2022

The recent COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the significant threats that pandemics pose to all aspects of our lives, including physical and mental health, economics, education, environment, public policy, and communication. Given the complexity, diversity, and speed of these global impacts, governments, institutions, and individuals must collectively develop and implement multidisciplinary and timely approaches to mitigate them. Universities provide a critical asset for addressing pandemic mitigation, as these institutions possess broad intellectual capital that can be leveraged to guide national and global responses.

Universities across the world responded to the COVID-19 pandemic in different ways, implementing a variety of strategies that link disciplinary expertise with specific societal needs. The University of South Florida took a unique and effective approach, by adapting a rapid response research network concept that essentially integrates HIBAR principles to address the wide-ranging aspects of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The webinar speakers discussed the USF Pandemic Response Research Network (USF-PRRN), highlighting the HIBAR features of the network and how the USF-PRRN concept can be applied to other global challenges. They described:

  • USF’s initial leadership response to SARS-CoV-2 and COVID-19 Pandemic;
  • how USF leveraged its intellectual capital;
  • the formation of a HIBAR Pandemic Response Network;
  • how USF provided institutional incentives;
  • the long-term sustainability of the network;
  • the institutional return on investment; and
  • models for HIBAR research networks that can meet current emergent global challenges.

You can read more here about the USF Pandemic Research Response Network and how the concept can be applied to address other global challenges.

Key Takeaway Messages

When presented with a HIBAR research opportunity, faculty members will readily engage.

HIBAR research networks are powerful tools for enabling culture change.

HIBAR research networks enable long-term partnerships because they dynamically respond as the research evolves.

Through HIBAR research networks, faculty members discover colleagues who deeply share their interests.

Read the key takeaway messages from all of our webinars here.

Watch the full webinar recording

Watch key excerpts from the webinar

Webinar Speakers

Randy W. Larsen

Associate Dean for Research
College of Arts & Sciences

Sylvia Wilson Thomas

Interim Vice President
for Research & Innovation

Howard Goldstein

Associate Dean for Research
College of Behavioral & Community Sciences

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Asking Different Questions

Asking Different Questions

Providing students with tools to produce more inclusive, accurate, and ultimately impactful research results

October 2022

Asking Different Questions, a new graduate student training program developed at the University of California, Davis, is aimed at giving early career researchers a more solid foundation to do cross-sectoral research, by providing them with the intellectual tools they need to produce more inclusive, accurate, and ultimately impactful research results.

The program was inspired by decades of research that revealed how historical precedents, cultural norms, and systems of power continue to bias scientific research and technological innovation. Funded by a National Science Foundation Innovations in Graduate Education (IGE) award, Asking Different Questions tackles an important challenge facing universities, namely that research across science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields takes place within a larger societal context that is often not reflected in the research questions that are explored. The program was developed to provide students with the training needed to recognize and address the real-world complexities within their research context.

Highly Integrative Basic and Responsive (HIBAR) research projects are co-led by people in academia and society who work in an equitable partnership and integrate the core goals of seeking new knowledge and addressing a problem in society. Shared goals and shared decision-making are essential components of these partnerships, and the diverse perspectives that partners bring to the project mean that, together, they make wiser decisions about the direction, participants, and activities within the project – from the start and throughout.

The Asking Different Questions curriculum equips researchers with skills needed to build trusted cross-sectoral partnerships, and the HIBAR Research Alliance is delighted to showcase the program as part of our 2022-2023 webinar series.

Key Takeaway Messages

Substantive and lasting change requires changing the overall system and culture.

It is vital for universities to make space for graduate students to pursue HIBAR research.

Universities, can, and should, support graduate students as change leaders.

Be more flexible about what defines an academic discipline.

Make space for insights from PhD committee members from outside the discipline.

Read the key takeaway messages from all of our webinars here.

Watch the full webinar recording

Watch key excerpts from the webinar

Webinar Speaker

Dr. Sarah Rebolloso McCullough

Associate Director Feminist Research Institute University of California, Davis

Dr. Sarah Rebolloso McCullough, Associate Director of the Feminist Research Institute at the University of California, Davis, described how the Asking Different Questions program creates meaningful and respectful dialogue across boundaries that typically divide—between universities and communities, activists and researchers, scientists and humanists, workers and policymakers.

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An Institutional Change Project

An Institutional Change Project

Building the Responsible Research in Business and Management (RRBM) network to catalyze lasting change

February 2021

Prof. Jerry Davis and Prof. Anne Tsui shared their experience in building the Responsible Research in Business and Management network (RRBM), a global grassroots movement led by 24 senior scholars aiming to change the ecosystem of business research to be more useful to society. RRBM’s mission is to solve two main problems: (1) questionable research practices that threaten the credibility of scientific findings and (2) the disconnect between researchers’ priorities (publications, citations, careers) and the needs of the communities of practice (credible knowledge to inform and improve practice).

The webinar focused on concrete actions and projects initiated along the way to catalyze key stakeholders — journal editors, academic association leaders, deans and vice deans, senior scholars, and accreditation agency leaders — to take small but meaningful actions as part of a broader ecosystem change. They reported some small wins and lessons they have learned so far from attempting to change an entrenched and deeply engrained research ecosystem that has dominated business research practices in the past.

Key Takeaway Messages

The research ecosystem is highly interconnected and self-reinforcing.

It takes collective action to change an ecosystem.

Recruit allies who really care about the problem.

You can’t solve every problem at once.

Small wins add up if you are persistent.

Read the key takeaway messages from all of our webinars here.

Watch the full webinar recording

Watch key excerpts from the webinar

Webinar Speakers

Dr. Jerry Davis

Gilbert and Ruth Whitaker Professor of Business Administration and Professor of Sociology

University of Michigan

Dr. Anne Tsui

Motorola Professor of International
Management Emerita, Arizona State University

Distinguished Adjunct Professor of Management, University of Notre Dame

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