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Austria has not yet established a single national organisation for research management and administration (RMA). Various research related institutions are organised in individual professional networks within their categories of organisational structure – public, private, and industry. Hence, the creation of a joint RMA association is a good aim to target in the near future. The obvious need of a strong networked community of RMAs across disciplines and organisational structures, especially in a setting of a growing global research arena, shall exemplify the development of such an Association of Research Managers and Administrators-Austria (ARMA-T). Furthermore, external factors play an increasingly important role in research development and RMAs. It depends on how their home organisations – universities, industry, and intermediaries – will understand the need for cooperation, platform building, and continuous development and professionalisation. Vision and foresight from several constituents and stakeholders will have to play a starring role as well as supporting the whole community. On top of it, international knowledge exchange helps to create those necessary conversations and networks for such a development.

Worldwide academia is going through a major transformation because of Open Science and Recognition and Rewards movements that are linked to big societal challenges such as climate change, digitalization, growing inequality, migration, political instability, democracies under threat and combinations of these challenges. The transformations affect the human resource management (HRM) and talent management of universities. The main focus of this chapter is on collaborative innovation and the way universities participate in coalitions and strategic alliances on national and international levels. These platforms not only discuss the transformations and support the academic changes but also act as talent pools and talent exchange. This chapter provides an overview of the current state of affairs with respect to Open Science and Recognition and Rewards in academia. Next, a theoretical foundation is presented on the concepts of collaborative innovation, coopetition and HRM innovation in general. The leaders or leading organizations in the HRM innovation models often can’t make it happen on their own, in particular in highly institutionalized contexts such as academia. The legitimacy of transformations requires coalitions of the willing and therefore strategic alliances on different levels. The coalitions in academia can also contribute to academic talent management through sectoral transformations (see Recognition and Rewards) and through the way these coalitions operate.

This chapter explores the empirical and empathetic approaches employed by a group of fieldworkers from Japan who collaborated with individuals from different parts of Southeast Asia. Their objective was to address shared societal challenges and mentor the next generation of future talents. Additionally, research administrators at Kyoto University conducted an online survey and organized study group meetings focused on Science, Technology and Innovation (STI) coordination, engaging approximately 700 partners in ASEAN. While formal job guidelines for hiring full-time research administrators are rare in the region, many researchers and government officials in ASEAN recognised the importance of these coordination skills and values in advancing STI projects. Coordinating ASEAN-Japan projects has demonstrated that practical experiences with skilled professionals and strong interpersonal skills aligned with Asian cultural values that prioritize conscience and altruism. As a next step, the region will require appropriate human resource training and assessment programs tailored to local STI needs.

Historically, academia, typically universities have had two major groups of professionals. One is those who are responsible for teaching and research, including university professors, associate professors, researchers, research assistants, etc. The other is the administrative staff who are responsible for administrative tasks. Both groups have existed since the inception of a university.

As societal expectations of universities have evolved, so has the need for professionals with advanced skills, who are often referred to as Research Managers and Administrators (RMAs) or University Research Administrators (URAs). In Japan, the profession is called URA because it was modelled after the American system in the beginning of its formation. In India, on the other hand, it is often referred to as RMA because of its reference to the United Kingdom. In this chapter, we will use the term RMA as a consistent term. In Asia, the trend of increasing need for this profession has been increasing over the past decade, starting around the 2010s.

This section provides an overview of the history and background that resulted in the current situation surrounding RMAs, as well as a future prospect in the six Asian countries featured in this book: China, India, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore, and Vietnam.

The research management and administrator (RMA) profession in the Western Balkans (WB) has not yet been investigated. In this chapter, we provide a first insight into the current state of the profession, its evolution and existing network of peers within the region and between the region and Europe at large. We focus on the RMAs’ opinions about the policy level, on the institutional background and on networking initiatives that allow for the understanding of further development of the profession. Based on the findings of a focus group and a survey with the region’s RMAs, we provide insight into the challenges and opportunities as perceived by the RMAs themselves.

In academia, assessment is often narrow in its focus on research productivity, its application of a limited number of standardised metrics and its summative approach aimed at selection. This approach, corresponding to an exclusive, subject-oriented concept of talent management, can be thought of as at odds with a broader view of the role of academic institutions as accelerating and improving science and scholarship and its societal impact. In recent years, open science practices as well as research integrity issues have increased awareness of the need for a more inclusive approach to assessment and talent management in academia, broadening assessment to reward the full spectrum of academic activities and, within that spectrum, deepening assessment by critically reflecting on the processes and indicators involved (both qualitative and quantitative). In terms of talent management, this would mean a move from research-focused assessment to assessment including all academic activities (including education, professional performance and leadership), a shift from focus on the individual to a focus on collaboration in teams (recognising contributions of both academic and support staff), increased attention for formative assessment and greater agency for those being evaluated, as well as around the data, tools and platforms used in assessment. Together, this represents a more inclusive, subject-oriented approach to talent management. Implementation of such changes requires involvement from university management, human resource management and academic and support staff at all career levels, and universities would benefit from participation in mutual learning initiatives currently taking shape in various regions of the world.

This paper focuses on governance in higher education in China. It sees that governance as distinctive on the world scale and the potential source of distinctiveness in other domains of higher education. By taking an historical approach, reviewing relevant literature and drawing on empirical research on governance at one leading research university, the paper discusses system organisation, government–university relations and the role of the Communist Party (CCP), centralisation and devolution, institutional leadership, interior governance, academic freedom and responsibility, and the relevance of collegial norms. It concludes that the party-state and Chinese higher education will need to find a Way in governance that leads into a fuller space for plural knowledges, ideas and approaches. This would advance both indigenous and global knowledge, so helping global society to also find its Way.

This chapter focuses on the ideas and proposals of the “conference,” i.e., suggestions for future research put forward by the conference participants as a group, working for two days on this subject. These research proposals include inter alia: the potential difference between the family constitution in its written form and the constitution in its practiced form; heterogeneity versus standardization of family constitution content (because of some dominating consulting approaches); the effect of national legal frameworks and traditions on the prevalence of the family constitution and its content in different countries; opportunities in large sample quantitative studies.

Finland aims to increase its research and development (R&D) expenditure to 4% of gross domestic product (GDP) by 2030. The parliamentary working group proposed to advance Finland’s research, development and innovation objectives which are now strongly committed by the Finnish government. This will allow universities to invest in the research and innovation not only more in the future but also in the long-term and sustainable way.

This would also provide opportunities and challenge the national research management and administration (RMA) community to develop the RMA profession, not only to increase the number of RMAs, but also to better meet the more diverse and complex tasks of the future RMA profession. Finn-ARMA creates a good platform for co-operation between RMAs in various positions and for the professionalisation of the current community and its future new members.