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Abstract
Multidisciplinary research institutes provide universities with an important vehicle to conduct research across traditional disciplines, and this can be an attractive capability for external funding bodies. However, there can be particular challenges, including managing different reporting lines, the need for effective research coordination, and the development of collaborations across institutes. These issues are especially relevant in the early development stages of institutes. Consequently, this paper will describe a case study investigation of the Institute of Shock Physics, a university research institute at Imperial College London in the United Kingdom. The case study will provide a discussion of the key strands of management activity that have been pursued in the first two years of operations for the Institute, together with details on how any difficulties were overcome. Management areas discussed in the case study include collaboration development, financial program management, research project management, program reporting and governance, and risk and safety management. This analysis will be carried out in the context of supporting research from the literature and through building on the findings from the case study a set of recommendations have been formulated on developing and implementing management systems for new research institutes.
Keywords: Multidisciplinary university research institute; university-industry research collaboration
Introduction
Historically, much academic work has been organized according to traditional subject areas, such as geography, business management, materials science, aeronautical engineering, mechanical engineering, and so on. Whilst a university 's ability to provide a firm education and scholarship in these fundamental academic areas remains essential, not least in the sciences to ensure there is adequate coverage of the core underpinning scientific subjects (namely mathematics, chemistry, physics, and biology), there is nevertheless an increasing focus on multidisciplinary academic work. Multidisciplinary approaches offer the potential to bring together different perspectives to address otherwise intractable problems (Haythornthwaite, 2006), and this is especially pertinent to academic areas that have developed in recent years and in parallel with modern technological advancements. Such multidisciplinary areas could include, for example, nanoscience and nanotechnology, forensics and criminal science, biomédical engineering, environmental science and climate change studies, systems engineering, and cybernetics. Correspondingly and over the last couple of decades there has been a proliferation of multidisciplinary institutes and research centres created at universities and other organizations such as hospitals to...