UGent stands for excellent and impactful research, both fundamental and applied. Ideally, research is interdisciplinary, embedded in an international context, economically and socially relevant, and forms the basis for education and services at the university. Academic freedom, genuine collaboration, and sufficient time and resources for research are the cornerstones of our research policy. Given our societal mission as a university, this goes hand in hand with a focus on research valorisation and science communication.
In the current societal context, it is important to be sufficiently aware of our values, particularly academic freedom. Freedom of thought is an essential condition for groundbreaking research. This includes the freedom to determine what is researched and how the research is conducted. We want to guarantee this freedom because it is essential for the development of knowledge and a wide range of evidence-based insights and opinions. This freedom also protects us from pressure from governments, companies, or other external parties. Of course, this freedom is not unlimited. We conduct research responsibly, adhering to the strictest principles of scientific integrity and ethics.
As a university, we are committed to a policy that supports and stimulates researchers at every stage of their trajectory. For the upcoming policy period, we have chosen the following four focal points:
- Strengthening collaboration and openness: the power of interdisciplinarity and interprofessionality
- Sufficient time and resources for research: the foundations for quality and innovation
- Science with impact: strong science communication and smart valorisation
- A stimulating, inspiring, and connecting research environment that invests in talent
- Strengthening collaboration and openness: the power of interdisciplinarity and interprofessionality
Intensive collaboration leads to scientific progress. We therefore advocate for collaboration across disciplines, institutions, and sectors: nothing should stand in the way of such research collaboration. Only together can we form the strongest research teams where not only the absolute top is valued, but everyone contributes to a team culture of scientific excellence. Naturally, collaboration can occur across research groups, departments, and faculties. UZGent, the strategic research centres (SOCs), and the colleges in our association are natural partners with whom we are happy to collaborate openly, without institutional self-interest taking precedence. We think in terms of a natural alliance, where helping each other and exchanging expertise and knowledge are the norms.
UGent has high-tech research infrastructure that can be better utilised than it is today. We evaluate and optimise our core facilities so that our research resources are used purposefully. We encourage collaboration between services to better align our infrastructure with research questions and are not afraid of collaboration with private actors in the form of public-private partnerships, also for reasons of sustainability. All this should contribute to UGent’s national and international positioning as a research institution with leading expertise, high-quality equipment, and data infrastructure.
We also increase the visibility of our interdisciplinary networks so that they can serve as models nationally and internationally. We bring together researchers and professionals to tackle societal and economic challenges together. There is still room to bring together researchers from different faculties working on the same themes.
We also focus on international collaboration. UGent is a loyal partner in the Enlight network, an alliance of ten European universities with the ambition to make our students globally engaged citizens. We explore the possibilities to increase the potential of this network, for example, through collaboration in research coordination and fundraising. We also strengthen our other international collaborations by offering effective support tailored to our researchers and the collaborations they aim for, in line with our internationalisation policy.
- Sufficient time and resources for research: the foundations for quality and innovation
Scientists must be able to focus on their research, not on administration and procedures. We fully support the system of sufficiently high BOF basic funding and BOF start-up credits. This funding gives researchers more time for research, reduces competition and administration, and alleviates the workload for selection committees. However, the distribution of BOF funds still requires critical evaluation to ensure efficient use of resources. We monitor the impact of basic funding on PhDs, publications, and external funding. Using the information already available in GISMO, research performance (publications, project applications, acquired projects, etc.) is visualised and benchmarked against other universities.
Within the available BOF envelope, sufficient money must remain available for infrastructure calls and postdoc mandates. Unused funds can be used flexibly to address acute and precarious research needs. There are currently BOF funds with specific destinations that are not included in the reform towards basic funding. We will start a reflection exercise on these funds and their destinations.
We invest in extensive administrative support for project applications and adequate procedural guidance for research projects. The services and communication of the various teams within the Research functional domain and the faculty research coordinators are therefore aligned. Administrative processes around GDPR, RDM, ethical advice, and European regulations are harmonised, simplified, and administratively better supported. In line with the recommendations of the Research Council, we examine how we can roll out the support model of the EU team, including proactive lobbying efforts, across the other teams of the Research functional domain. To increase the success rate of funding applications, a structured support offering is necessary. This must be centrally coordinated and accessible to all researchers, regardless of their career stage. A concrete proposal for this is the establishment of a ‘Core Facility: Grant Writing’, where researchers can receive individual support for their funding applications. This can be funded by small per-consultation fees or by allocating a percentage of successfully acquired funds to this support structure. This reduces barriers for researchers and increases their chances of success.
For our research funding, we continue to focus on traditional funding channels such as FWO, VLAIO, Horizon Europe, ERC, VLIR-UOS, etc. However, this should not blind us to the fact that some forms of research funding are under pressure. If we want to profile ourselves as an attractive knowledge partner, we also want to focus more on alternative funding sources than we do today. We think of strategic collaboration with international and private actors. Artificial intelligence offers the possibility to develop systems that help with better internal and external matchmaking of researchers and research opportunities. At the same time, we want to continue to make our voice heard with the Flemish government, VLIR, FWO, and other relevant bodies to emphasise the importance of research and its proper funding.
- Science with impact: strong science communication and smart valorisation
Conducting excellent research is one thing; we want our research to be visible to the outside world. Research must be visible and accessible, both to a specialised and broad audience. UGent Research Explorer (and the underlying GISMO) is further developed with a view to better usability for external communication and higher internal and external visibility of our academic work. This is also an incentive for everyone to provide data timely and correctly. The integration of Communication and Marketing in the same university service (UD1) as Research offers opportunities to showcase UGent’s research even more to the outside world. Colleagues are invited to actively engage in science communication and will receive support in doing so.
Research generates knowledge and insights. Ideally, our research also has economic and/or societal impact. This requires a good valorisation strategy, which we want to strengthen by making targeted choices. The funds from the Industrial Research Fund (IOF) are better prioritised for valorisation initiatives rather than for financing research itself. Although some research lends itself better to valorisation than others, we believe there are opportunities in all research domains. We therefore want to structurally and quickly support entrepreneurship and valorisation in all faculties through IOF and TechTransfer. Due to the importance of valorisation—also for the university itself—we investigate how we can better motivate researchers to translate their work and expertise into societal and economic terms. Since valorisation in collaboration with the private sector often requires quick and flexible action, we also want to examine whether and how personnel policy can better respond to acute personnel needs so that collaborations can be given every chance.
- A stimulating, inspiring, and connecting research environment that invests in talent
Academic freedom, scientific challenges, time and resources for research, valorisation opportunities, and science communication are all elements that contribute to the stimulating research environment that UGent wants to be for its staff and students. Retaining talent, anchoring expertise, and investing in knowledge continuity are more than just points of attention. We commit to clear career perspectives and genuine support for our researchers, making UGent an environment where researchers can grow, knowledge is structurally anchored, and brain drain is prevented.
Furthermore, UGent can actively engage in headhunting and offer a more attractive work climate to attract and retain international top talent. This can be achieved through better selection procedures, improved guidance for international researchers, and additional initiatives such as relocation allowances, educational facilities for children, and career support for researchers’ partners, in line with our internationalisation policy. Moreover, there is a need for better coaching of promising students who aspire to an academic career. We improve the feedback processes on project proposals they prepare to increase their chances of success.