Leadership challenges of strategic research centres in relation to degree of institutionalisation

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this study was to describe and analyse leadership challenges in the organisation of strategic research centres, focusing on the relationship between organisation and the level of institutionalisation. Four main themes of leadership challenges were identified: (1) the changing university context, including relationships with top management and faculties; (2) research strategy, considering decisions about diversity or a focused perspective; (3) management, dealing with prioritising administrative work; (4) affiliation, the sense of belonging to a strategic research centre, comprising issues of leadership, trust, attitude towards recruitment and succession. We concluded that leadership and effective administration are vital for research collaboration, not only within small research groups as been shown in other studies, but also within large groups in university-based research centres.

KEYWORDS:

• Challenges
• institutionalisation
• leadership
• research centres
• universities

Acknowledgements

We appreciate the participants sharing of their experience and reflections. We greatly appreciate comments from two anonymous reviewers on an earlier draft of this article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

We also acknowledge support from the Vice-Chancellor’s Office and Lund University in financing and initiating the study.