Posted by The next survey results among academics employed at research universities concern the effectiveness of research staff and the competency gaps that affect this effectiveness. We obtained the results of our research in the Dialog Project 2022. The research focused on the competencies of research staff and support staff at Polish research universities. Our book is still available at the bookstore of the University of Silesia in Katowice:
https://wydawnictwo.us.edu.pl/node/27063
On the topic of competency gaps, we identified two groups of findings.
In the case of the assistant’s position, competencies such as analytical thinking, conscientiousness and cooperation were most important in achieving high performance. In the case of an assistant professor, they had above-average competencies in terms of striving for results and organizing their own work. An effective university professor was characterized by very highly rated competencies (far exceeding the competency benchmark) in identifying with the university, obtaining funding and dealing with stress. For the position of professor, it is puzzling that one or more key competencies cannot be identified that help achieve above-average effectiveness in academic work.
It also turned out that in the positions of assistant, associate and professor at the university, many of the performance indicators took on similar levels. This does not mean, however, that those employed in these positions had similar work efficiency. One must take into account the difference in the timing of academic careers, which translates directly into age differences among those employed in these three positions.
These results should be interpreted to mean that if a university professor had an average of 114 citations in scientific databases and an assistant had an average of 100, the latter was much more efficient than the university professor, since it can be assumed that he was about 10 years younger and therefore had a much shorter tenure. For many indicators, assistants were, on average, more effective than university professors. Some surprise came from the averages of the efficiency indicators of those in the position of professor, which in many cases were lower than those of those in lower positions, including those of assistant professors.
These are just a selection of the findings of our study. To learn more about the results, see our book, Competencies of Research University Employees in Poland: