Consortium
University College Cork (UCC) sees research, education, and policy influence as interconnected elements that can drive societal progress and economic growth. They are committed to make a positive impact through its research and innovation (R&I) efforts.
Their aim is to transform HEIs towards a more financially sustainable research and innovation ecosystem that enhances excellence and world-class research.
OUR GOALS
UCC recognizes the need for innovative funding approaches among new demands, such as the green and digital transition, and seeks to address challenges like over-reliance on limited funding sources, brain drain, and fragmented support systems for researchers.
Through its Living Lab, UCC engages stakeholders to co-create solutions, enabling strategic investment, institutional autonomy, and deeper societal collaboration to future-proof its research and innovation capabilities.
INTERVENTION AREAS
UCC university started working on CATALISI project with the 1 big domains and 1 intervention area – namely
Finance
- Sustainability in campus operations.
UCC story OF TRANSFORMATION
Challenges
Finance
- Low research investment for research and innovation.
- Over-reliance on small number of large-scale research centers creates financial risk.
- Research income often covers only direct project costs, with inadequate institutional overheads to support the full cost of running research projects, such as administrative and support services.
- Lack of mechanisms to retain overhead funds for strategic initiatives or capacity-building efforts, limiting the institution’s ability to invest in long-term sustainability.
- Brain drain and attracting and sustaining a pipeline of research talent.
- Securing pre- and post-award grant support for researchers
- External funding agencies increasingly dictate research priorities, limiting HEIs ability to pursue institutionally driven research agendas.
- There is a disconnect between research systems and societal actors, funding bodies, and policymakers.
methodology
Finance
- “Living Lab” approach, where stakeholders from academia, business, public administration, and civil society collaborate to identify challenges and co-create solutions.
- Building a strategic model of income allocation that balances the need for financial sustainability with the flexibility to invest in long-term goals, such as talent retention and support for Open Science initiatives.
- Actively involve a wide range of stakeholders (quadruple helix model) to gather diverse perspectives and needs, ensuring that the transformation process is informed by both internal and external partners.
- advocate for greater institutional autonomy by influencing funding policies and creating systems that support more diverse and institutionally determined research priorities.
OUTCOMES \ ACCOMPLISHMENTS
The CATALISI model focuses on three main domains for institutional transformation (Research careers and talent support, Open science and public engagement, and Sustainable research and education) composed by different intervention areas and intersected by seven targeted and innovative acceleration services (Living Labs, Design Lab for transformational pathway, and Counselling, Reinforce Human Capital; Predictive study on skills anticipation; Marketplace; Community of practice (CoP)). These are designed to facilitate and catalyse institutional transformations in the field of Research and Innovation which will strengthen HEI’s collaborations and alliances as lighthouses of European values.
University College Cork has leveraged the CATALISI initiative to advance its contribution to European Research Area (ERA) policy priorities, particularly ERA Action 7, 10, 14, 15 and 17. UCCs specifically focussed on addressing issues regarding the sustainability of research financing. Its Transformational Pathway and Action Plan applied a Living Lab approach to address research financial sustainability as a main intervention domain. Aligned with this ambition UCC, with support from ENOLL, developed a report on the Framework Conditions, including the Barriers and Enablers towards achieving its objectives.
As part of this approach, we explored the following questions: Is innovation in HEI research funding possible? How can HEI funding adapt to the rapidly evolving globalising context HEI’s find themselves in? What implications do changes in the funding landscape have on governance and leadership? What is the capacity of universities themselves to think ahead and develop financial strategies? Which investment priorities are needed to future-proof activities?
As part of its participation in CATALISI UCC aimed to reinject some re-imagination into these questions and outline possible future paths for university research finances. The Living Lab focussed on a cross-cutting target intervention area under the working title ‘Financial Sustainability for Research & Innovation’. In line with the Living Lab methodology embraced by CATALISI, a transformation approach was adopted, prioritising participatory and iterative co-creation actions with stakeholders including university staff and students and external partners.
While framing its Living Lab and the intervention area it is targeting, UCC recognised that financial sustainability is an integral and requisite part of realising sustainability in broader terms and within the context of a research and innovation ecosystem that interacts at local, regional, national, and international levels. Institutionally UCC is committed to continually strengthening its research and academic excellence. This intervention area is therefore strongly aligned to the university institutional strategy, leadership commitment and ambition around UCC’s Research and Innovation agenda. This is articulated under Goal 1 of the UCC Strategic Plan 2023-2028 which sets out to ‘deliver impactful research and innovation that addresses global grand challenges in signature areas of excellence’.
Participants in the UCC Living Lab highlighted the following issues:
Firstly, in Ireland, there is a relatively low level of Gross Expenditure on Research and Development (GERD), one of the lowest investment in R&I of OECD countries. In addition, a high proportion of total research income to UCC comes from a small number of large-scale research centres, with an over reliance on one single state funding agency, presenting a need for more balance to ameliorate risk.
Research income for the most part, solely covers direct research project costs. In many cases, the small institutional overhead provided (indirect costs) by a research grant does not sufficiently support the full cost to the institution of supporting a funded research project. For example, additional needs include support from staff in the research office, finance office, legal office, human resources department, Library, and many other support services over the lifetime of the grant.
As there is no mechanism currently for retaining overhead institutionally to invest in strategic initiatives or capacity building initiatives, an enhanced strategic model of income allocation is required for longer term financial sustainability, as without the ability to invest strategically, the institution is compromised.
For example, increasingly UCC, as a local regional institution, is experiencing issues related to brain drain, talent retention and attraction. It needs to unlock mechanisms to better retain, attract and sustain a pipeline of research talent. This requires identifying and unlocking financial mechanisms that enable institutional development in this area.
In addition, staff have identified Pre and Post Award grant support as an issue for researchers outside of research centres. Staff have identified a range of support needs for College and School based researchers, in particular – grants involving complex community partnerships (co-hiring, co-financing, co-researching etc.) which require deeper research supports than are currently available. UCC’s research and innovation context is also one of rapid pace of change with respect to Open Science. Currently, there is an ad-hoc fragmented approach to Open Science because of financial constraints with regard to planning for future needs.
Secondly, UCC Living Lab stakeholders were concerned about a context where research priorities are increasingly set by external funding agencies, with a narrowing of research topics and a need for greater diversity and more institutionally determined topics. With regard to institutional autonomy, UCC finds itself relatively constrained regarding its ability to fund and support an institutionally determined and driven research agenda – within a wider context of a funding policy and culture determined nationally and at European level.
In addition, Funders are also increasingly encouraging societal engagement as an aspect of research proposals, but without consideration of the collaborative design, planning and ongoing partnership over many years needed with external partners to enable meaningful and impactful research. Systems and supports are needed to realise truly transformative rather than transactional relationships between higher education and society. In this regard, there is currently a disconnect between university research systems, societal actors, funding instruments, policymakers and the public, presenting a need and opportunity for advocacy to funding bodies and policymakers to address these issues.
As a result of CATALISI’s Living Lab, UCC now finds itself more equipped to identify the issues and progress innovation towards the ‘Financial Sustainability of Research & Innovation’. Its capacity to think strategically and to also think ahead as an organization has been enhanced through identifying and partnering with its stakeholders, internally and externally. We are now positioned to gather valuable insights into the local context, barriers, and the framework conditions that impact our potential for institutional transformation. The involvement of quadruple helix stakeholders – Academia, Business, Public Administration, and Civil Society – has added a mosaic of perspectives, needs, and expectations to our thinking.
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UCC has improved its decision-making supports through engaging Quadruple Helix stakeholders for the first time in understanding the underlying issues. It has applied state of the art co-creation methods to support strategic policy level development.
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Embedding the CATALISI Acceleration Services into the institution, particularly the Living Lab approach has helped to consolidate and extend our knowledge, reputation and global positioning.
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UCC has leveraged the knowledge and skills acquired through CATALISI to secure a co-lead role of the UNIC European University Alliance Centre for City Futures which is a transnational Living Lab comprising 10 university and city partners working together to address urban challenges. UCC has also secured the co-lead position of the European University Alliances Living Lab Hub.
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UCC had engaged in High Level Policy Dissemination: for example, UCC published a paper and presented at the EUA Funding Forum at Helsinki in 2024. 2024 EUA Funding Forum
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UCC has disseminated through online activities such as newsletters, LinkedIn articles and Webinars.
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Through experience gained as the CATALISI WP4 leader, UCC is now a sought-after European partner for Horizon Europe Consortia, including the main Evaluation and Impact Assessment Partner in other Horizon Europe Grants, e.g. Green In Cities HEurope Consortia.
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Towards research financial sustainability UCC has used the CATALISI suite of Acceleration Services to co-create a new Revised Overhead Model by directing funds (approx. €2 million pa) towards strategic investment in research capacity, underpinning the institution’s flagship UCC Futures initiative (https://www.ucc.ie/en/
futures/). UCC was able to explore new funding income streams thanks to conversations with partners during the CATALISI mutual learning events. (MMLs). UCC successfully leveraged the CATALISI methodology to secure £1m grant from Welcome Trust in relation to community-led research scheme and research culture transformation using a Living Lab approach. It has additionally deepened its engagement with the EU Urban Initiative, INTEREGG, WIDERA, MSCA and Erasmus+ grants. -
Research financing sustainability is also being progressed through UCCs development of a robust participatory evaluation approach – allowing it to pursue a commercialisation activity and Key Exploitable Result (KER). UCCs bespoke Participatory Evaluation Approach has been road-tested and trialled as part of CATALISI as a state-of-the-art method for HEI’s to develop, monitor and capture the impact of HEI organisational change initiatives (filling a gap in current practice). Its Theory of Change Approach and Monitoring framework will be established as an open initiative available to HEI’s across Europe, with follow on consultancy support provided on a commercial basis.
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In addition, UCC has pursued the implementation of a new approach to responsible research assessment supported by the development of CoARA Action Plan (enabled by a grant via the CoARA Boost Programme – €40.000).
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UCC has also deepened its approach to Research Integrity through co-learning within the CATALISI initiative with other participating HEI’s. UCC created a joint survey and study which was conducted alongside several other CATALISI partners on research integrity.
UCC recently published (December 2024) an Economic and Societal Impact Report: UCCEconomicandSocietalImpact2024.pdf, which is an assessment of the impact of UCC’s activities in its region, nationally and internationally. This peer reviewed report and the methodologies its uses, intersects and aligns well with the impact focus at the core of the CATALISI initiative.
Team
The UCC team is ideally positioned to drive transformation due to their extensive expertise, strong institutional foundations, and proven track record in research, innovation, and community engagement. UCC is Ireland’s leading research institution, consistently ranking at the top for competitively won research income.
The UCC team is led by experts like Dr. Martin Galvin and David Hogan, who have a deep understanding of higher education reform, Dr. David O’Connell, who brings extensive experience in research support and policy development, Ciara O’Halloran for community engagement
UCC Head of Research Culture, Engagement and Impact, Co-Chair of the European University Alliances Living Lab Hub, Expert Advisor to the Council of Europe. Office of the Vice President Research and Innovation
Dr. David O’Connel
UCC Director of Research Support and Policy Office of the Vice President Research and Innovation
Programme Officer Office of Research Culture, Engagement and Impact Office of the Vice President Research and Innovation (UCC)
Matteo Pallocca
UCC CATALISI Research Support Officer
Data and Institutional Research Officer Strategic Planning and Institutional Research Office Office of the UCC Rector/ President