Staffing research data management in UK HEIs

Following on from our earlier post about Institutional readiness for managing research data, Stéphane and I have been looking at staffing levels in UK HEIs for establishing and supporting RDM. The data comes from our recent survey of UK HEIs RDM practices and a mapping to JISCMRD programme institutions.

A further set of indicators can serve to substantiate the argument that HEIs which took part in the JISCMRD programme are more advanced in the development of institutional RDM practice. These are the figures that relate to staffing levels for all the different categories of RDM-related personnel identified in the Loughborough survey of research data management activities at UK HEIs. The following tables describe this:

  Number %
Number of institutions receiving Jisc funding who have any fixed-term staff in post 7 out of 15 47%
Number of institutions not receiving Jisc funding who have any fixed-term staff in post 6 out of 23 26%

 

  Number %
Number of institutions receiving Jisc funding who have any permanent staff in post 8 out of 15 53%
Number of institutions not receiving Jisc funding who have any permanent staff in post 5 out of 23 22%

 

  Mean Median
Average fixed-term staffing level (FTE) for institutions receiving Jisc funding 1.07 (*) 0
Average fixed-term staffing level (FTE) for institutions not receiving Jisc funding 0.54 0

(*) It is reasonable to say that the mean, in this instance, is somewhat skewed by one responding university having 5.5 FTE employed in RDM related roles.

 

  Mean Median
Average permanent staffing level (FTE) for institutions receiving Jisc funding 1.13 1
Average permanent staffing level (FTE) for institutions not receiving Jisc funding 0.24 0

These figures are perhaps hardly surprising, particularly for the fixed-term staff, who might have been recruited specifically for the duration of the Jisc projects; it’s noteworthy though that institutions receiving Jisc funding have also invested much more than others in permanent staff.

 Full survey results and discussion are available in a blog post by Martin Hamilton (http://blog.martinh.net/2013/10/metadata-is-love-note-to-future-uk.html).