The SAGE Handbook of Research Management
- Robert Dingwall - Dingwall Enterprises Ltd.
- Mary Byrne McDonnell - Social Science Research Council, USA
The Handbook of Research Management is a unique tool for the newly promoted research leader. Larger-scale projects are becoming more common throughout the social sciences and humanities, housed in centres, institutes and programmes. Talented researchers find themselves faced with new challenges to act as managers and leaders rather than as individual scholars. They are responsible for the careers and professional development of others, and for managing interactions with university administrations and external stakeholders. Although many scientific and technological disciplines have long been organized in this way, few resources have been created to help new leaders understand their roles and responsibilities and to reflect on their practice.
This Handbook has been created by the combined experience of a leading social scientist and a chief executive of a major international research development institution and funder. The editors have recruited a truly global team of contributors to write about the challenges they have encountered in the course of their careers, and to provoke readers to think about how they might respond within their own contexts.
This book will be a standard work of reference for new research leaders, in any discipline or country, looking for help and inspiration. The editorial commentaries extend its potential use in support of training events or workshops where groups of new leaders can come together and explore the issues that are confronting them.
“The SAGE Handbook of Research Management should prove to be a valuable guide to researchers, grant writing, developing proposals, and teamwork. It is recommended to academic and research libraries.”
Wherever one is in the food-chain of research, one experiences frustrations, aspirations and determinations to secure change to enable what one sees as more effective and efficient processes to deliver life-changing outcomes. Dingwall and McDonnell manage to combine a realism, 'there is no one toolkit', with some useful guidance on the frameworks and framing which is required as a research community if we are to improve our chances of meeting our goals of advancing knowledge in the 21st Century.
Editors Dingwall and McDonnell are prominent researchers based, respectively, in the UK and US, who bring to the project collective expertise in higher education, administration, consulting, journalism, non-profit advocacy, and longitudinal research. Their experience gives them insight into the tensions and conflicting demands researchers in higher education face. The editors have gathered an international group of authors to discuss aspects of management across the research life cycle, with three main sections focused on starting, implementing, and disseminating research. The editors' introduction and conclusion help readers understand the context and interplay of successful management for organizations, teams, and their leaders.
