The Research-Productive Department: Strategies from Departments That Excel

American society thrives on innovation, which is advanced by the quality and productivity of research from higher education faculty. It is therefore typical for the responsibility of nurturing and sustaining faculty research to fall upon department chairs and deans at postsecondary schools. In The Research-Productive Department, the authors recognize the importance of this task, and share tested strategies for facilitating quality faculty research and promoting an institution’s overall vitality.

Many such books written for department chairs and deans have chosen to address the full range of leadership and management tasks that typically occupy this readership. However, few have narrowed their scope—as this book does—to the important leadership tasks that influence the overall success of academic departments in one critical area: research. This book features the experiences of nearly 40 leaders from well-respected research institutions from across the country. It offers specific, useful recommendations for academic leaders seeking to promote high levels of research productivity, including insight on: recruitment practices, mentoring programs, reward systems, culture-building activities, and the distribution of fiscal as well as human resources.

An eminently practical book, The Research-Productive Department provides readers with two essential tool sets: a user-friendly summary of over 40 years of literature on the characteristics of research-productive organizations, plus a wealth of descriptive examples of how these characteristics are actually manifest in a large number of research-productive academic departments and schools. This book is an engaging exposition of best practices that readers can adapt as befits their own institutional settings.