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The HIBAR Research Alliance

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

The Value of Networks

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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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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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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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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