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Smart Procedures Review: A proposal for higher education establishments

Smart Procedures Review: A proposal for higher education establishments. Claudio M. Radaelli Professor of Political Science Director, Centre for European Governance Monday, 15 February 2011. The message.

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Smart Procedures Review: A proposal for higher education establishments

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  1. Smart Procedures Review: A proposal for higher education establishments Claudio M. Radaelli Professor of Political Science Director, Centre for European Governance Monday, 15 February 2011

  2. The message • Procedures are important: monitoring, traceability, accountability, responsibility and good governance • But we all gain from making them smarter and reducing administrative obligations that do not deliver benefits

  3. The context

  4. The Problems with Procedures [1] Administrators create rules but their implementation depends on both academics and administrators [2] No test of value for money of procedures: Regulatory Costs often exceed Benefits [3] Poor monitoring-evaluation of rules [4] Goldplating and enforcement [5] Poor governance structures within the university

  5. Examples • Indiscriminate use of purchase orders • New procedures for PhD supervision: where do they come from? How will they outperform the previous procedures? Do they get to the real problems or skirt around them? • Marking hard copies of all papers, dispatching to the external examiners, perfunctory double marking • Reimbursement of trivial expenses: we still send around the universities pieces of paper and forms for 21-Euro reimbursements! • Course review and peer review of teaching could be done every three years instead of doing it every year: we could say instead that we review every year only if students’ satisfaction is below a certain level • Sending reports for the same activity to three bureaus across the university at different times of the year

  6. Suggested approach 1. Think about processes, not individual rules 2. Count the steps that matter to those who are mostly responsible for delivery of the process (typically the academics) 3. Identify and measure the administrative obligations that are required to get through these steps 4. Reflect on how the obligations have been produced : who was consulted, did someone pilot the procedures, did someone commensurate costs and advantages of the procedures, what is wrong with the status quo? 5 And evaluation

  7. An important principle Police-and-patrol (inefficient) Versus Fire-Alarm (Smart!)

  8. Processes • The research project: getting funded and executing the contract with the client; reporting to the client (ESRC, AHRC, EU) • Teaching a module • The PhD process (recruitment, supervision, examination, completion) There is a difference about how an academic looks at the steps of these three processes and how the processes are described and regulated by administrative procedures

  9. Example: The research project as process The researcher’s view • Application (where do I find best practice?) • Contract negotiation • Getting resources (hiring, buying data, using a lab) • Researching • Publishing • Reporting to the client The administrator’s view • Checks on the proposal (costs and content; some filters) • Staff / personnel (forms necessary to hire, is there money in the grant) • Expenses (can this lecturer rent a lab under the terms of her budget?) • Research accounting • No support to the researcher during the execution of the contract, only checks • Closing the code project (Money left, etc)

  10. Expected results?

  11. What we can hopefully get [1] Identification of processes and TIME: by ‘seeing’ the processes we learn how long they take. We also learn how to re-engineer, digitalize, and streamline them – e.g. one-stop-shops for the process called ‘the research project’ instead of dealing with 4-5 different bureaus in the university administration [2] Random checks instead of hundreds of checks - e.g. reimbursement of expenses [3] Evidence-based appraisals of new procedures: do the benefits justify the costs? Did we properly evaluate the status quo? -> No new procedure without assessment and consultation [4] Piloting of new procedures; open consultation [5] Monitoring the procedures we create -. keeping track of procedures by using suitable indicators

  12. And the following…. [6] Keep a baseline of costs created by existing procedures [7] Targets for the reduction of administrative burdens [8] One-in one-out rules on forms and burdensome procedures [8] Culture change, administrators that think about processes with the researcher’s view in mind, an improved culture that supporting innovation and “service” [10] Board-level champions: most universities have a DVC for research, in the future we may have a DVC with a portfolio for ‘smart regulation’

  13. Thanks

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