Posted by In our research that we conducted at research universities in Poland between 2020 and 2022, we also looked for new trends and phenomena in the work of research teams. We noticed that research teams are increasingly dispersed and diverse. Therefore, we examined the competence gaps in just such a team, coming from one of the research universities.
The analyzed research team consisted of 13 employees working in research or research and teaching positions at a certain university, which is an established research university. We deliberately chose this particular team for the description, as it was also the most numerous research team that took part in the study of research staff competencies. This gave a chance for high diversity of its other parameters.
The parameters describing the diversity of the team were as follows:
- job position at the university – in the team there were 4 people employed at the position of assistant professor, 5 at the position of university professor and 4 at the position of professor,
- there were 4 women and 9 men in the team,
- the average length of service was 22 years, however, the standard deviation of length of service was as high as 11 years, the minimum length of service was 6 years, and the maximum was 45 years; the above figures give a picture of a team very diverse in terms of the age of its members; at the same time, the following ranges of length of service were adopted for further analysis – up to 10 years (2 people), 11 to 20 years (4 people), 21 to 30 years (4 people), over 30 years (3 people),
- self-assessment in terms of preferred research process – 1 person preferred acquiring resources (process 1), 5 people preferred conducting research (process 2), 5 people preferred publishing (process 3), and 2 people preferred commercialization of research results (process 4),
- self-assessment in terms of comparing oneself to other academics in the discipline – 1 person perceived their competence to be below average in the scientific discipline, 6 people considered their competence to be average, 5 people perceived themselves to be better than average, and 1 person perceived themselves to be much better than average in the scientific discipline.
Analyzing the data, we obtained, many conclusions, which you can find in our book Competencies of Research University Employees in Poland, available at the bookstore of the University of Silesia in Katowice:
https://wydawnictwo.us.edu.pl/node/27063
The following are a selection of three findings.
First, employees hired as assistant professors and employees hired as professors had, on average, lower competencies than the assumed levels of these competencies in their competency profiles. In contrast, employees hired as university professors, conversely, their competencies were higher than the assumed competency pattern for that position.
Secondly, women in the research team analyzed had slightly higher competencies than those required in their competency profiles, and men conversely – their competencies were, on average, lower than the levels set by the experts in their competency profiles.
Third, on the one hand, it is not too surprising that employees with seniority of up to 10 years had, on average, competencies at a lower level than those set by their competency profiles. On the other hand, it is surprising that employees with seniority of more than 30 years significantly had, on average, lower competencies than those required of them.